I collected these data as a way to pressure my employer into improving their leave policies. This seems to have been successful, and I have written more about this.

Many universities offer some kind of leave when people become parents. This page aggregates paid partner leave¹ policies at a selection² of UK universities. These policies vary in their degree of generosity.

The table focuses on whole weeks of leave at full pay. Leave is normally split into two parts:

1. An initial period of leave which, providing you meet eligibility requirements, you’ll be entitled to regardless of how your partner is using their leave. This is normally short: one or two weeks.

2. A Shared Parental Pay period. This is tied up with Shared Parental Leave (SPL) and is constrained by your partner’s leave. It can be quite long and is a little more complicated.

Some institutions offer weeks at half-pay and other configurations, but these are not considered here given that financial challenges³ many folks encounter trying to take leave. Statutory Paternity Pay⁴ and Statutory Shared Parental Pay (ShPP) are both £151.97 per week, “or 90% of your average weekly earnings (whichever is lower)”⁵. Given universities are required by law to offer these to staff, they are counted as zero in the table.

Contributions

I will expand the table to include maternity/birth/adoption leave when times allows and I’m also more than happy to accept contributions for other institutions too, please just email me and I will expand my database accordingly.

I was able to update this table in May 2024 thanks to contributions from Paul Dingwall.

Thank you to all who have supplied information to help expand this table!

The Table

NB - You can sort by multiple columns by shift-clicking the column headers