Research from non-academic sectors has shown that working part-time can help manage stress, reduce burnout, and increase well-being (van Rijswijk et al., 2004; Persson et al., 2022). The flexibility of part-time work, along with longer periods away from the office, can also boost motivation and perspective, resulting in a more positive, efficient, and engaging attitude towards the workplace (Campbell, 2024). Beyond these general benefits, part-time working makes it possible for an individual researcher to make progress in their career while also addressing personal needs outside of research. For example, it enables individuals to spend more time with children or other dependents (Wolfe, 2003), and to develop flexible caring arrangements without the need to work evenings or weekends. Importantly, part-time working can accommodate the academic contributions of those with health conditions that preclude a full-time work schedule.

Additionally, at a time when academic careers are precarious, a shift to part-time working often makes it possible to extend research fellowships or contracts, thus giving breathing space, a modicum of job security, and more time to find the next job. Part-time working can also allow someone to pursue a postgraduate degree without paying tuition fees, or to take on a bridging position in between longer-term, more secure contracts. Alongside caregiving responsibilities and health factors, working part-time also allows academics to diversify their skills and experience, whether through clinical, charitable, private sector, educational or voluntary work, or simply by pursuing a hobby.

Job sharing is a particular approach to part-time working where a full-time post is shared by two people working part-time. In addition to offering the flexibility associated with part-time working, job sharing allows the job holders to offer peer support to each other. Duties are often apportioned within the job share, allowing partners to work to their strengths and do the elements of the job they prefer. Moreover, job-share partners can either split their time across the week so that ‘someone is always on duty’, or they can work similar hours to take advantage of synergies – whatever works best in the setting.

Overall, part-time working patterns can promote a healthy life-work balance and represent a radical departure from the assumption that one must work beyond paid hours to succeed in academia. This shift contributes to the participation of a wider diversity of perspectives and lived experiences, ultimately making academia a more inclusive, diverse, and attractive career option.

A major downside of part-time working is that it involves a reduction in salary, and any associated pension. This can mean that it is sometimes only an option for those who can afford it. In some regions, however, high childcare costs can force parents/caregivers to work part-time as this may provide more financial security than working full-time and paying for full-time childcare.

A particular challenge for part-time workers is ensuring that their workload – teaching, research and service – is also reduced accordingly. If this does not happen, an academic working part-time will feel under pressure to deliver the same output as a full-time employee, but in less time and on a lower salary. This is particularly problematic for tasks with fixed deadlines, such as marking exam papers or writing grant applications, since part-time academics have fewer days in which to meet these deadlines. However, many other sectors with hard deadlines manage to enable and support part-time workers and have done so for a long time (Kalleberg, 2000). A possible barrier is that academia as a sector is prone to consider itself differently to others, being somehow less adept at moving with the times and embracing positive changes to working culture.

Another, potentially underappreciated, effect is that the research of a part-time academic suffers disproportionately because it is more ‘squeezable’ than teaching or service. For part-time researchers on fixed-term contracts, the need to do research, to publish papers, and to secure funding to pay their salary – while trying to gain the teaching and administrative experience that is also needed to secure a faculty position – intensifies the sense of pressure and lack of time. It can also be difficult for part-time workers, particularly parents, to participate in the research culture of a department if events like research seminars are scheduled towards the end of the working day, or consistently occur on their non-working day.

Whilst some universities and funders are paving the way when it comes to workload expectations and promotion criteria for part-time workers (see the section on Culture change below), there is still some way to go. Particular problems include slower career progression, increased anxiety due to imposterism, and full-time colleagues giving the impression that they think that part-time workers are less committed or less productive (Wolfe, 2003). Indeed, most of the present authors have been, at some point, discouraged from going part-time by some colleagues.

Meeting the many demands of an academic career is a widely discussed topic (see, for example, Forrester, 2023), with many researchers reporting their normal working week to be 50 hours or more, rather than the 35 or so hours they are contracted to work. So, should a part-time academic working, say, three days a week (i.e., a ‘full-time equivalent’ (FTE) of 60%) be expected to work 30 hours per week (that is, 60% of 50 hours), rather than the 21 hours they are being paid to work? Working such hours would not be possible for many part-time workers, especially those with caring duties and/or those hoping to improve their work-life balance. However, in our collective experience we have found that it is very challenging, verging on impossible, to keep on top of our workloads by following a strict part-time schedule, and there are periods (e.g. funder deadlines, grant review or exam marking) when we have worked late nights or over weekends and family holidays to accommodate these.

A related problem is that some people are worried about going part-time on a temporary basis in case it will not be possible for them to return to full-time working at a later date (when, for example, their children are older) for budgetary reasons.

Given the clear benefits of working part-time, both to the individual and to the institution, we now outline what individual academics, universities and funders can do to encourage and support part-time working patterns.

Existing part-time workers are important both as role models, demonstrating that successful part-time work is possible and that part-time workers can be promoted, and as mentors, advising individuals considering part-time working and helping them to adjust. Moreover, in our experience (Box 1), role models create open discourse about work-life balance and the barriers and benefits to part-time working.

Such a dialogue can benefit full-time workers too: transparency and open communication about when they take time off for family events or for their own enjoyment helps to break down the assumption in academia that to succeed requires ‘all the hours all the time’. When this is embraced and modeled by senior colleagues, it creates a better research culture for everyone, where the implicit message is that working in a pattern that suits your life circumstances is not a barrier to success. Even small signaling actions, adoptable by everyone, can help drive cultural change, such as email signatures that make explicit no response is required outside the recipient’s work pattern.

While some institutions have made progress in encouraging and supporting part-time working, many have not. Here are five changes we would like to see embraced universally. First, the use of workload modeling to proactively and fairly divide, assign and acknowledge work proportional to FTE, including traditional tasks such as lecturing and marking, but also hidden service tasks that benefit research culture, such as mentoring, career support and actions towards better equality, diversity and inclusion.

Second, ensuring that policies about promotion include a transparent mechanism for taking account of periods of part-time work and career breaks, and also take account of contributions to leadership, civic actions and research culture alongside traditional factors (such as research outputs, funding and impact).

Third, conducting regular surveys of research culture to highlight approaches that are working well, and those that need improvement. Fourth, providing career progression support for part-time workers: for example, line managers could discuss promotion pathways on an annual basis, and senior colleagues could explore opportunities for ‘reverse mentorship’ to better understand how part-time academics can be successful. Fifth, more can be done to celebrate the value that part-time academics bring to research culture at institutional, national and international levels, including insights gained from caregiving, charity, community, and clinical roles.

Finally, there are two actions that we encourage funders to take. First, include explicit wording in funding calls to make it clear that grant-holders can work part-time. Second, continue and expand the use of narrative CVs, and ensure that panels assessing candidates for fellowships, jobs and promotions properly take account of part-time working and career breaks so that institutions can benefit from the rich tapestry of experiences that part-time academics can bring.

Widespread adoption of these relatively simple and largely cost-neutral policies has the potential to benefit a large number of individual academics and the academic sector as a whole.

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication. For the purpose of Open Access, the authors have applied a CC BY public copyright license to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.

1. Received: February 10, 2025
2. Accepted: February 10, 2025
3. Version of Record published: February 20, 2025

© 2025, English et al.

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