University of Sheffield staff went on strike again this week at the request of the University and College Union amidst an ongoing dispute over restructuring and redundancies. 

The University of Sheffield apologised to its students for the ‘uncertainty and stress’ that these strikes may have caused, as an important academic period of assignment due dates and exams approaches. 

Nick Burke, 43, a member of the School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations at the University, said: “It’s a really crucial time to strike at the moment because the level of relentless restructuring and redundancies is now at threat of becoming a permanent thing.

“This seems to have become the way, this ideology of continually doing things that make people frightened for their jobs. If we don’t stand up now, when are we going to stand up?

“The management’s true colours have really shown. They are blaming us for the disruption, but they aren’t prepared to prioritise resolving the dispute.”. 

According to the University of Sheffield, approximately 10% of teaching was impacted by UCU industrial action that took place towards the tail end of 2025. 

The latest round of strikes took place across the week 7-14th May, members of staff set up picket lines in front of University buildings, handing out leaflets to students explaining their cause. 

Nora Trotter, a 20-year-old English and Philosophy student in her first year saw ‘basically half’ of her lectures for a module not take place due to strikes. 

Ms Trotter said: “They didn’t make up for it before or afterwards, so it was literally like we didn’t do half of the module, which was learning how to write the foundations of philosophy, so that was pretty disappointing.”

Ms Trotter was ‘disappointed’ at the level of efforts made to make up for lost teaching time, and dropped philosophy as a result as it made her ‘not see the department in a good way’.

Ms Trotter said: “I have a lot of sympathy for them. It’s nothing to do with us students, I know that. It’s really tricky, because every party is being negatively affected. I completely understand why they do the strikes.” 

The University claims that it ‘continues to engage constructively with UCU representatives’ to avoid further disruption.