University of Durham Reviews

Former Employee – worked at University of Durham

Pros – Beautiful city located in the North of England.

Cons – Bit isolated, and although Newcastle is near, it's still a bit too far.

Current Employee – been working at University of Durham full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Good area of the country for work/life balance
Modern campus

Cons – Old boys club is prevalent in committees and promotion/recruitment schemes
Slightly delusional management team who are far too proud of their modest achievements
Too many senior staff not willing to lecture leaving junior staff overwhelmed with teaching committments.

Advice to Senior Management – Foster young talent rather than recruiting "senior staff" looking for a final pay-day.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at University of Durham

Pros – Good working environment, student centred environment. Building work currently taking place to modernise large sections of the campus, which improves the environment.

Cons – Lots of building work currently taking place, which leads to disruption of various parts of the campus and makes moving around difficult at times.

Advice to Senior Management – It is good that the environment is being improved, which will enhance the student experience. More parking spaces would be good.

Current Employee – been working at University of Durham

Pros – Great very pretty small town - good facilities for kids. Reasonable emphasis on research and bureaucrats can be mostly avoided!

Cons – The organisation is a bit centralised with edicts coming from the centre. Remedial classes required for incoming students but this is true for the whole UK now. A bit too much focus on the "student experience".

Advice to Senior Management – My main advice would be to let the experts you hire be expert. Also often the University only tries (and fails) to retain the best people once they have job offers from elsewhere - try harder to retain people before they feel they even need to look elsewhere.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at University of Durham

Pros – Intellectually challenging. Both staff and students are highly capable. Teaching is fun; it is good working with so many talented students
Great student support system
Beautiful City

Cons – Its pretty elitist in outlook and structure. If you don't publish in well-respected journals and/or get the right grants, then promotion is difficult. But then, if you are not publishing, then you shouldn't really be at Durham.
This is a university for very bright and generally well-off pupils.

Advice to Senior Management – Management are doing a good job. People complain about cuts but the cuts are across the industry. Durham sets its performance targets so you know what you need to achieve.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at University of Durham

Pros – Strong R&D, strong technical ability

Cons – Estates and buildings department is terrible and do not respond to faults efficiently

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at University of Durham

Pros – Many interesting and enthusiastic students who were very pleasant to teach. A very picturesque setting.

Cons – Management is very heavey handed and pays little attention to the needs of their employees. This led to a very unhappy working environment in the department in which I worked. Very poor communication from management also led to great difficulties in performing my job.

Advice to Senior Management – Remember that staff are not mind readers and need to be told what you want. When staff tell you what they need to do their job, please listen. Provide staff with the basic materials and facilities to do their jobs.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend