Edinburgh University has warned staff it expects to make job cuts in response to “unsustainable” funding. In a message to staff, principal and vice-chancellor Sir Peter Mathieson said the institution was struggling to meet its £120m-per-month running costs after a fall in student numbers and the UK government’s National Insurance rise.

The University of Edinburgh has blamed Labour’s National Insurance increase for a move to cut hundreds of jobs. Sir Peter Mathieson, the university’s principal and vice-chancellor, said Rachel Reeves’s decision to raise rates for employers meant the institution would now open a voluntary redundancy scheme,

In an official message to all staff, Sir Peter Mathieson, principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Edinburgh, says the change by the new Labour administration has created "a multi-million pound increase to our salary bill".

Edinburgh University has warned privileged students not to be ‘snobs’ towards their working-class peers. The university has admitted there is a problem with class-related prejudice on campus, with poorer students “inadvertently or deliberately shamed by more privileged students”.

Northumbria University said it had proposed cutting two joint degrees from next September - business with Spanish, and business with French. University and College Union (UCU) official Jon Bryan said the move flew in the face of "commitments" made by the university's head a few weeks ago about "no planned programme closures".