The University and College Union (UCU) are allegedly announcing for strikes next year against Cardiff University management to prevent staff redundancies in 2026. Gair Rhydd can confirm that the UCU are running a consultative ballot over issues on redundancies, workload, and the wellbeing of staff, with voting ending on Friday 3rd October, which has now surpassed. If voting is successful, the UCU will potentially move to a full official ballot to prevent job cuts next year, possibly causing strikes that could result in impacts across all cohorts.

Earlier this year, UCU planned to strike action and a ‘Marking and Assessment Boycott’ (MAB), but after an agreement was reached between the university management and UCU, the strikes were called off in May, and management agreed that there would be no compulsory redundancies for the remainder of 2025. However, it was announced on Friday 3rd October that a ballot of 68 colleges would strike over unfair pay and high-pressure workloads, as a result from the Association of Colleges’ recommendation of a 4 percent pay rise, which the UCU call “disappointing”. The ballot will run from 13th October to the 17th of November.

Cardiff’s consultative ballot on industrial action could call for Cardiff University’s academic staff to go forward with strikes. With 340 staff still in scope for redundancy, the University said it needs to lose another 50 staff by 2030. Cardiff UCU’s branch has called it “cruel and unnecessary”.

The schools that are still under scope for redundancies are SOCSI, GEOPL, Music, MLANG and Share. “151 full time employees have been lost so far to Voluntary Redundancy as a result of the cuts, and many more previous to that in rounds of Voluntary Severance” says UCU spokesperson. Gair Rhydd spoke to Cardiff UCU Media spokesperson, Andy Williams, who commented: “We’re currently consulting with our members on a new industrial action ballot around redundancies for 2026. As well as protecting jobs, our future industrial action mandate will also seek reassurances about: taking those remaining members out of scope; skyrocketing workloads in the wake of the cuts; and the mental health and wellbeing of the overworked staff who remain.

The restructuring exercises to university staff jobs means that trust has completely been destroyed.” While there could be an announcement on strikes and a boycott next year, there are concerns over whether this could cause exam disruption or missing results that many students feared in the 2022-2023 academic year. UCU have said “If members see no other option, and management don’t back down, the kinds of disruption we saw in 2023, and the kinds we almost saw in the summer of 2025, are regrettably a real possibility”. “As a union we’re committed to working with the University where we can, but compulsory redundancies are an absolute red line for our members,” said Andy Williams. An update from the UCU will be expected following the voting from members last week.

The industrial action ballot will be decided by members in response to the University Executive Board’s decisions. The UCU may go forward with strikes if university management fails to stop redundancies, take out current staff in scope for redundancies for the 2026 academic year, and to keep the commitment made with the UCU in the summer to stop compulsory redundancies. Cardiff University has said it cannot rule out compulsory redundancies at the moment, and some members of staff could be vulnerable as almost.

Students and staff should be prepared for big changes and possible issues and action happening next semester. Responding to this article a Cardiff University spokesperson said: “Compulsory redundancies are always the last resort. Whilst they can never be completely ruled out, we will do everything possible to avoid them.

Compulsory redundancies are always the last resort.

We want to continue to work in partnership with our three recognised campus trade unions to prevent them. If UCU go ahead with industrial action, it will inevitably cause disruption for some of our students. As with previous periods of industrial action, we will do everything we can to minimise its impact.

The University will remain open and in some areas teaching, research and services will be unaffected.”