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The letter from Durham University's Brian Tanner (8 April) in its reference to early-career postdoctoral researchers provides a partial explanation for the low average academic salary you report for the University of Oxford. The other reason why your figure does not reflect the true position here is because Higher Education Statistics Agency data do not include payments to university academics by the colleges.

Oxford has a single lecturer scale, the bottom point of which (?42,563) is much higher than the average non-professorial salary you quote; all lecturers benefit from automatic incremental progression to national spine point 52 (currently ?57,201), higher than elsewhere in the sector; and most of our lecturers are on that top point. These figures comprise varying combinations of university and college contributions.

In addition, lecturers holding tutorial fellowships at a college will typically receive a further ?7,500 or so in college allowances.

Jeremy Whiteley, Director of personnel and administrative services, University of Oxford.