Student working lives: the case for student-focused regional employment charters

This blog was kindly authored by Professor Adrian Wright, Martin Lowe, Dr Mark Wilding and Mary Lawler from the University of Lancashire, authors of Student Working Lives (HEPI report 195).

Our Student Working Lives Report paints a stark picture of how paid work has become woven into the student experience. It reveals that work is a necessity, not a choice for students, and that the student workforce has become indispensable to local economies, especially in the retail, hospitality, health, and social care sectors.

Our data highlights widespread lack of job quality within student work, with 38% of student workers reporting to be on zero‑hours or casual contracts; 43% reporting stress, anxiety or depression linked to work; only 32% of students felt supported by managers; and only 38% felt supported by colleagues.

Crucially, we found that it’s not just hours, conditions of employment and job quality that matter: students in flexible, supportive, and more meaningful roles are significantly more likely to achieve good honours degrees, placing student job quality as a determinant of student success.

Against this backdrop, it is notable that the UK still lacks a clear framework for what constitutes fair, meaningful and developmentally positive student employment.

The Employment Rights Act 2025 introduces one of the most significant updates to UK employment law in decades. These changes will be particularly pertinent for the sectors where student work is most heavily concentrated.

Employers will be required to offer guaranteed hours that reflect actual working patterns, addressing the problem of one‑sided flexibility in zero‑ and low‑hours contracts. In addition, new legislation will improve rights such as reasonable notice for cancellations of shifts, statutory sick pay (removing the Lower Earnings Limit and removing the waiting period), and day‑one entitlement to Paternity Leave and Unpaid Parental Leave, enhancing the basic protections available to student workers balancing employment, health, and caregiving responsibilities.

While these changes raise the legal baseline for employment, we join others in recognising the necessity of going beyond sector-based charters, calling for regional student-focused employment charters to provide frameworks for better employment quality and inclusive, place-based regional growth.

Co-designed by universities in partnership with students’ unions, trade unions, employers and regional policymakers, a student-focused charter could create shared expectations for student work, setting out clear commitments to fair pay, job security, and reasonable working hours, while focusing on maximising the skills students can bring to local economies.

Creating shared standards locally would advance regional priorities around inclusive growth and social mobility, strengthen student wellbeing and employability, and provide a coordinated regional response to mounting student labour-market pressures.

As civic institutions, universities have a responsibility and an opportunity to work in partnership with stakeholders to shape fairer local labour markets. Employment charters are not a complete solution to tackling long-term labour market challenges, but they are an effective way to engage employers in improving job quality. Similarly, universities cannot resolve structural labour market problems affecting their students on their own. By adopting an employment charter, universities can be a catalyst in establishing a clear framework that brings employers together to enhance job quality across their region.

Models like the Greater Manchester, Liverpool and London Employment Charters show how clear standards can build employer coalitions behind fair, secure, and well-managed work using accreditation and recognition to promote better employment practices.

Although student jobs are becoming harder to come by in an increasingly competitive and volatile labour market, the need for clear, fair and student-focused employment frameworks is greater than ever, ensuring that the opportunities that remain are stable, lawful and supportive of students’ wellbeing and academic success.