Staff at the University of Kent are set to go on strike next week in a a dispute over pay and conditions.

Campuses in Canterbury and Medway will be hit by the 14-day strike action which will see up to 850 lecturers walk-out.

It has been called by the University and College Union (UCU) in a dispute centred on the universities’ alleged failure to make improvements in pay, equality and workloads.

Staff at Kent are walking out over pay and working conditions only.

The walk-outs start from today but action at Kent will begin on Monday because of a reading week.

It will escalate each week, with a week-long walkout from Monday, March 9 to Friday, March 13, culminating on Tuesday March 17

Staff will be on picket lines outside the Jarman Building on the Canterbury campus each day from 8am.

In total, members of the UCU are walking out at 74 universities across the UK.

Lecturer absences are set to reach record levels with the number of walkouts expected to reach 22 days by March surpassing the previous record of 14 days in 2018. It follows an eight-day walkout before Christmas.

A year ago, the University of Kent announced it was making redundancies in the wake of "significant challenges" which were likely to lead to a financial deficit.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Karen Cox, told staff that a voluntary severance scheme was being launched with a view to making savings on staffing costs.

But earlier this month, the UCU warned it would ballot members after this wave of strikes, if the disputes could not be resolved, to ensure branches could take action until the end of the academic year.

As well as the strike days, union members are undertaking 'action short of a strike' which involves things like working strictly to contract, not covering for absent colleagues and refusing to reschedule lectures lost to strike action.

"This unprecedented level of action shows just how angry staff are at their universities’ refusal to negotiate properly with us..."

UCU regional official Michael Moran said: "It is incredibly frustrating that UCU members are being forced to walk out again to secure fair pay and working conditions.

"This unprecedented level of action shows just how angry staff are at their universities’ refusal to negotiate properly with us.

"If universities want to avoid continued disruption then they need to get their representatives back to the negotiating table with serious options to resolve this dispute."

Read more: All the latest news from Canterbury

Read more: All the latest news from Medway