The Importance of Working to Students

Lucian Tipi, Associate Dean of Education and Experience, University of East London

When I began my career in UK higher education two decades ago, student work typically meant a weekend job, just enough to earn a little extra for small luxuries. Today, the landscape looks entirely different. Increasingly, students are working not for pocket money, but to support themselves and in some cases, their families while pursuing their university studies. .

A sample of September 2025 enrolment data shows that the proportion of students expecting to work during their studies is approx. 63 percent The same data shows that approx. 28 percent of students expect to work in excess of 16 hours per week. This data comes in the context where students are expected to attend, on average, 12 hours of in class teaching per week and spend at least double that on individual, out of class study. Let’s do the math here, for those students expecting to work more than 16 hours per week.

Work hours = 16+

In class study hours = 12+

Out of class study hours = 24+

Adding these hours up we get a weekly workload of 52+ hours, well above the recommended UK average of 48 hours per week that is expected, at the higher limit by anyone working and not studying. What we’re not counting here is that when it comes to revision and assessment time, these hours will be substantially increased, even if only for a couple of periods of 4 weeks per year.

Let’s cover the issue of how important carrying out paid work actually is for our students. Here is what some data tells us: 39 percent of students are worried of very worried about having sufficient funding while studying, 44 percent of students about getting into debt, 55 percent of students about cost of living in general and 31 percent of students worry about the cost of travel to university. This makes for a compelling narrative about the necessity of paid work while studying. It’s not for the odd luxury items, it’s to cover the basics.

"Using student’s paid work as a vehicle for some of their assessment tasks may help them apply the theories they learn throughout their courses. However, not all subjects will lend themselves to this and this approach may actually encourage students to take on more/different paid work, creating a risk of a negative impact on their studies."

All of this translates into some practical questions for those of us working in the UK HE sector. How can we support students to achieve well, while they have to hold down paid employment at the same time? Here are some ideas, many of which have come about through the student voice:

1. Condense teaching in 3 or even better 2 working days per week.

2. Provide good quality online materials on the module Virtual Learning Environment sites.

3. Provide support with assessment throughout the delivery of teaching schedule. At times, there seems to be sole focus on teaching the curriculum and teaching the assessment falls by the way side. This is not about giving the answers to students, it’s about making sure that they fully understand what is required of them and how they can fulfil the assessment criteria to achieve well.

4. Increase the role that assistive technologies play in supporting students, 24 hours per day as they are increasingly expect their requirements to be met on demand rather than during the standard working week and teaching hours.

There is one other thing that we could do to bring the paid work into the students’ learning schedule, but this is a double-edged sword. Using student’s paid work as a vehicle for some of their assessment tasks may help them apply the theories they learn throughout their courses. However, not all subjects will lend themselves to this and this approach may actually encourage students to take on more/different paid work, creating a risk of a negative impact on their studies.

While it can be argued that having a paid job during university helps students build up their CV, I think that the pendulum has now swung too much towards removing that choice from current generations of students. The need to work for many our students will remain or increase in the future. This issue is not going away any time soon, we need to get better at helping our students manage their working lives. This can be best achieved through listening to our students’ needs as they change every year!