Females dominate employment in education, especially in primary and secondary education. Currently they account for around 70% of employment in the sector. Trends in the sector related to gender issues in further and higher education include:

• the share of women working in the education sector is expected to rise
• the number of men employed in this sector is projected to decline slightly
• 48% of the HE workforce is male compared to 52% female
• proportionally fewer women than men are found in the higher salary grade in HE
• 60% of the FE workforce is female and 40% is male
• 69% of women are in part-time employment positions in FE

Source: Working Futures 2004, HE and FE Sector Report 2002, FEnto 2002 and HESDA 2002

Trends relating ethnicity issues include:

• 6% of the HE workforce are non-white
• 7% of the FE workforce are of non-white origin including  3% African/African Caribbean, 2% Other, 1% Indian and 1% Bangladeshi/Pakistani
• less than 1% of the workforce of mainstream colleges are Black
• fewer than 3% of staff at senior managerial level in FE are from ethnic minority groups

Source: Black Staff in FE 2002 and Challenging Racism 2002

There are concerns about an aging workforce in both FE and HE:

• 28% of the HE workforce is between 16-34 years, compared to 40% of all employees
• 55% of the HE workforce is between 34-54 years, compared to 48% of all employees
• 16% of the HE workforce is over the age of 55, compared to 12% of all employees

Source: Working Futures 2004, HE and FE Sector Report 2002, FEnto 2002 and HESDA 2002

HESA data suggest that 0.9% of academic staff in HE are disabled but the disability status of 11% of staff is unknown.  However, Labour Force Survey data  (see note) suggest that 12% of ‘university teachers’ are disabled.

Just under 2% of the FE workforce are classed as disabled

Source: AUT 2001b

Note: Labour Force Survey data definition of ‘disabled’ includes those who meet the definition of disability contained in the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and those who do not meet the DDA but who still have a work-limiting disability.

This is only sector in which data for the sexual orientation of the workforce has been detailed. The data was collected from a survey by the Association of Univerity Teachers and is only based upon the responses of 508 academic staff and 242 academic-related staff so some caution is required when interpreting these statistics.

The AUT report (2001a) reports that within higher education:

• gay men may be less likely to hold senior academic posts than heterosexual men
• lesbian women are more likely to hold a senior post than heterosexual women
• gay men may be more likely to hold administrative, library adn computing posts, but not senior posts than heterosexual men