How to Apply to Exeter University

Key Takeaways

The University of Exeter recruits through its official jobs portal at jobs.exeter.ac.uk, powered by MHR iTrent Web Recruitment, with a parallel transition currently underway to a replacement recruitment system; CV-only or LinkedIn-only applications are not considered for substantive vacancies.
Every role is shortlisted strictly against the Person Specification, so your CV and Supporting Statement must map evidence point-by-point against each Essential and Desirable criterion in the same order they appear on the document.
Closing dates are firm 23:59 UK time cut-offs enforced by the iTrent recruitment system; informal enquiries to the named contact before applying are encouraged and frequently change the strength of your application.
Pay sits on the UCEA-aligned single pay spine, with USS or UoE pension scheme membership, a Living Wage employer commitment, and generous combined leave for most staff.
Interviews are formal panels of three to seven people combining structured competency questions in STAR format with a role-specific exercise: research presentation, microteach, written task, technical exercise, stakeholder role-play, or clinical case discussion.
Skilled Worker sponsorship is available for the majority of academic, research, and senior professional roles; the University is a UK Home Office A-rated licensed sponsor and routinely issues Certificates of Sponsorship and supports Global Talent endorsements for eligible candidates.
DBS checks (where the role involves children, vulnerable adults, or NHS clinical contact), occupational health clearance, and right-to-work verification are standard pre-employment conditions handled by People Services after a verbal offer; NHS-linked roles add parallel NHS pre-employment processes.
Exeter genuinely rewards intellectual fit with its climate, environmental, and Met Office partnership identity, the Business School's Triple Crown accreditation, and the dual Devon-and-Cornwall regional mission; tailoring your application to the University's Strategy 2030 and the specific identity of the relevant Faculty is the single highest-leverage thing a candidate can do.

About Exeter University

The University of Exeter is a research-intensive UK university and a member of the Russell Group of twenty-four leading UK research universities. Headquartered on the Streatham Campus in the cathedral city of Exeter, Devon, in the South West of England, the institution traces its origins to the Exeter School of Art founded in 1855 and its successor colleges, but takes its modern identity from the granting of its full Royal Charter as the University of Exeter in 1955. Today the University serves approximately 29,700 students drawn from more than 150 countries and employs around 7,360 academic, research, professional services, technical, clinical, and operational staff representing more than 100 nationalities, making it one of the largest single employers in Devon and Cornwall. Exeter operates a federated estate across four campuses. The Streatham Campus is the historic Exeter heartland, an internationally celebrated parkland campus on the western edge of the city that houses the majority of the University's academic and professional services functions, the Sir Steve Smith Building, the Forum, the Business School complex, the Reed Hall conferencing estate, and the central library and student-experience hubs. The St Luke's Campus, on the eastern side of Exeter near the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, hosts the University of Exeter Medical School, the Graduate School of Education, Sport and Health Sciences, and a range of allied health, educational research, and clinical-academic activity. The Penryn Campus in Cornwall, jointly operated with Falmouth University on a single shared estate near Falmouth Harbour, is home to the Environment and Sustainability Institute, the Centre for Ecology and Conservation, parts of the Penryn-based earth and environmental sciences offer, and the renewable energy programmes that draw on Cornwall's distinctive marine and terrestrial environment. The Truro Campus at the Royal Cornwall Hospital extends Medical School clinical placements into central Cornwall. Exeter additionally maintains a London hub for executive education and selected postgraduate teaching. Academically the University is structured into faculties and schools that include the Exeter Business School (triple-accredited by AACSB, AMBA, and EQUIS, placing it in the top tier of business schools worldwide), the University of Exeter Medical School, the Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy, the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, and the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences. Climate, environmental, and earth-system science is the University's defining institutional strength: Exeter is home to one of the largest concentrations of climate scientists anywhere in the world, including a substantial cohort identified on the Reuters Hot List of the most-cited climate researchers, the Global Systems Institute, the Environment and Sustainability Institute on the Penryn Campus, and a deep working partnership with the UK Met Office, whose national headquarters is located in Exeter and is one of the world's pre-eminent operational meteorological agencies. Other major research strengths include psychology, the medical school's diabetes and dementia programmes, mining and mineral processing through the Camborne School of Mines at Penryn, and the humanities and law schools at Streatham. As an employer Exeter offers the UCEA-aligned single pay spine, USS or UoE pension scheme membership, generous family-friendly and flexible-working policies, public commitments to Athena SWAN, the Race Equality Charter, Disability Confident, and Stonewall Diversity Champions, a Living Wage employer commitment, a long-running hybrid working policy where the role permits, and an institutional Strategy 2030 framed around a more sustainable, healthy, and socially just future. The combination of Russell Group research depth, distinctive climate and environmental identity, the Met Office partnership, the dual-county Devon and Cornwall estate, and the South West coastal lifestyle is the core proposition for prospective staff.

Application Process

1
Search live vacancies on the official University of Exeter careers portal at job
Search live vacancies on the official University of Exeter careers portal at jobs.exeter.ac.uk, accessible from the main University site at exeter.ac.uk under About > Working at Exeter, then create a candidate account in the iTrent Web Recruitment system using a personal (not institutional) email address so you retain access after any current contract ends; the University is mid-transition to a new recruitment platform, so some adverts may redirect you to a parallel registration in the new system.
2
Read the Job Description and Person Specification PDF attached to every advert i
Read the Job Description and Person Specification PDF attached to every advert in full: it contains the grade, salary range, contract type (open-ended, fixed-term, or guaranteed-hours), full-time equivalence, faculty and school placement, campus (Streatham, St Luke's, Penryn, Truro, or London), essential and desirable criteria, and the named hiring contact for informal enquiries, which Exeter actively encourages before you apply.
3
Complete the online application form, upload a tailored CV plus a separate Suppo
Complete the online application form, upload a tailored CV plus a separate Supporting Statement (sometimes called a Cover Letter or Personal Statement) that maps your evidence point-by-point against each criterion in the Person Specification, and complete the equal opportunities and right-to-work questions in the iTrent profile.
4
Submit before the closing date and time stated on the advert, which Exeter expli
Submit before the closing date and time stated on the advert, which Exeter explicitly calls out as 23:59 UK time on the listed closing date unless stated otherwise; late applications cannot be accepted because the iTrent recruitment system closes the requisition automatically and there is no informal extension route.
5
Shortlisting is typically completed within two to four weeks of the closing date
Shortlisting is typically completed within two to four weeks of the closing date against the published Person Specification; shortlisted candidates are invited via the candidate portal and email to interview, which for academic and senior professional roles usually involves a panel interview, a research presentation or teaching demonstration, and sometimes a stakeholder meeting or written exercise.
6
Successful candidates receive a verbal offer from the recruiting manager followe
Successful candidates receive a verbal offer from the recruiting manager followed by a written conditional offer from People Services, subject to references, right-to-work checks, and where applicable a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, occupational health clearance, or Skilled Worker visa sponsorship via the University's HR Helpdesk and Sponsorship team; for queries during the process the routes are [email protected] and [email protected].
7
Onboarding is delivered through People Services and the University's Trent HR sy
Onboarding is delivered through People Services and the University's Trent HR system: you complete pre-employment forms, set up payroll and pension elections (USS or UoE pension scheme), book your campus induction at Streatham, St Luke's, Penryn, Truro, or London, and receive your University ID card and single sign-on credentials in the week before your start date.
8
If you are applying for a clinical-academic role linked to the Royal Devon Unive
If you are applying for a clinical-academic role linked to the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, or another NHS partner, expect parallel NHS pre-employment processes (NHS occupational health, additional DBS, honorary contract paperwork, NHS information governance training) running alongside the University process and coordinated by the Medical School People team.

Resume Tips for Exeter University

recommended

Use a UK-style two-to-four-page CV for professional services, technical, and ope

Use a UK-style two-to-four-page CV for professional services, technical, and operational posts, and a longer full academic CV for research and teaching posts, with publications, grants, esteem indicators, PhD supervisions, and teaching contributions in clearly labelled sections; Exeter shortlisters expect academic depth and will not penalise length when justified by evidence.

recommended

Mirror the exact language of the Person Specification's Essential and Desirable

Mirror the exact language of the Person Specification's Essential and Desirable criteria in your CV and Supporting Statement, because Exeter shortlists strictly against those criteria and structured matrices are completed by the panel before interview; recycling a generic CV with no Supporting Statement is the single most common reason strong-looking applications fail at sift.

recommended

State your right-to-work status and visa requirements unambiguously: if you requ

State your right-to-work status and visa requirements unambiguously: if you require Skilled Worker sponsorship, say so, and reference whether the role is on the UK Home Office Skilled Worker eligible occupation list (most academic, research, and many professional services roles at grade E and above are).

recommended

Quantify research impact (grant income won from UKRI, NIHR, ERC, Wellcome, Horiz

Quantify research impact (grant income won from UKRI, NIHR, ERC, Wellcome, Horizon Europe, Royal Society; publications with venue and citation counts; PhD students supervised to completion; REF-returnable outputs) and operational impact (budget managed, team size, service KPIs, project value) in concrete numbers; vague claims fail Exeter's evidence-based shortlisting.

recommended

List your degrees with classification, awarding institution, and dates, and incl

List your degrees with classification, awarding institution, and dates, and include any UK equivalency (UK ENIC) note for non-UK qualifications; for clinical, library (CILIP), engineering (CEng with IET, IMechE, IMMM via the Camborne School of Mines tradition), accounting (CCAB), or HR (CIPD) roles, list the relevant professional registration and membership grade.

recommended

Save the file as a PDF named 'Surname_Firstname_CV_JobReference

Save the file as a PDF named 'Surname_Firstname_CV_JobReference.pdf' and the Supporting Statement as 'Surname_Firstname_SupportingStatement_JobReference.pdf' so panel members can identify your documents quickly; the Exeter iTrent portal accepts standard PDF, DOC, and DOCX formats.

recommended

Demonstrate alignment with the University's Strategy 2030 and its values of chal

Demonstrate alignment with the University's Strategy 2030 and its values of challenge, courage, and rigour explicitly in your Supporting Statement, especially for leadership roles; reference the campus most relevant to your role (Streatham, St Luke's, Penryn, Truro, or London) so the panel sees you understand the federated, dual-county estate and have thought about location.

recommended

Include a short Equality, Diversity and Inclusion paragraph evidencing concrete

Include a short Equality, Diversity and Inclusion paragraph evidencing concrete contributions (Athena SWAN self-assessment work, EDI committee membership, accessibility improvements, mentoring under-represented groups in STEM, decolonising the curriculum); Exeter holds institutional Athena SWAN Bronze and weights EDI evidence heavily across all role families.

recommended

For climate-, environmental-, and earth-systems-relevant roles, explicitly posit

For climate-, environmental-, and earth-systems-relevant roles, explicitly position any publications, grants, or projects against the Met Office partnership, the Global Systems Institute, or the Environment and Sustainability Institute at Penryn; Exeter actively recruits into these communities and signals of fit with that ecosystem materially help your application.

ATS System: University of Exeter Recruitment Portal (MHR iTrent Web Recruitment at jobs.exeter.ac.uk)

The University of Exeter runs its recruitment through the official portal at jobs.exeter.ac.uk, which redirects into MHR iTrent Web Recruitment, the dominant applicant tracking and HR platform across UK universities and the public sector, supplied by MHR Global (formerly MidlandHR). The portal carries a 'Powered by MHR' attribution in its footer and uses the iTrent ETREC web recruitment templates familiar from many other Russell Group and post-92 institutions. The candidate experience is structured: account creation with a personal email, requisition search with faceted filters (faculty, category, campus location across Streatham, St Luke's, Penryn, Truro, and London, contract type, posting date), structured online application form, document upload (CV plus Supporting Statement), equal opportunities questionnaire, and post-submission status tracking through the My Applications and My Profile areas. Shortlisting and interview scheduling are managed by recruiting managers and People Services inside iTrent, and offers, pre-employment checks (including DBS where applicable), onboarding, payroll, and pension administration are all handled through linked University HR modules so the candidate journey stays inside the institutional ecosystem from advert through to first payslip. The University has publicly noted on the portal that it is in the process of transitioning to a new recruitment system, so for some vacancies you may be redirected mid-application to a parallel registration on the replacement platform; if that happens, the registration is described as quick and simple and the substantive application logic remains the same.

Create your candidate account on jobs.exeter.ac.uk with a personal email address you will keep beyond any current contract, because the iTrent portal ties application history to that login and you will lose access if you only use an institutional address.
Upload both a tailored CV and a separate Supporting Statement as PDFs, named clearly with your surname and the job reference number for panel-friendly identification; iTrent will accept these as part of the structured application but mislabelled documents are a common avoidable irritation for sifters.
Mirror the exact wording of each Essential and Desirable criterion from the Person Specification in your CV and Supporting Statement, since the portal's keyword surfacing and Exeter's structured shortlisting matrix both reward literal alignment.
Submit well before the 23:59 UK closing time stated on every advert; the system hard-closes the requisition automatically and there is no informal extension route through the recruiting manager or HR Helpdesk.
Use the My Applications and My Profile tabs in iTrent to track status changes (Under Review, Shortlisted, Interview Scheduled, Offer, Withdrawn, Unsuccessful) rather than relying solely on email, as portal status updates faster.
Set up a Job Alert by saving a search with your filters (faculty, category, campus, workplace type) so new requisitions matching your profile arrive by email the day they open on the portal.
If the role is at Penryn, Truro, or London rather than Streatham or St Luke's in Exeter itself, double-check the location field in the portal so you understand commuting, on-site expectations, and whether the campus is in Devon or Cornwall before applying; relocation across the South West is non-trivial.
If you are mid-application and the portal redirects you to the University's new replacement recruitment system, follow the prompt to register again rather than abandoning the application; the University has confirmed the parallel registration is quick and is an expected part of the current transition.
For technical issues use [email protected] and for substantive recruitment queries use [email protected]; both routes are signposted directly on the portal and are the correct first contacts before chasing the recruiting manager.

Complete University of Exeter Recruitment Portal (MHR iTrent Web Recruitment at jobs.exeter.ac.uk) Resume Guide →

Interview Culture

Interview culture at the University of Exeter is formal, panel-based, and competency-driven, in line with UK higher-education public-sector norms and the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) framework. Almost every substantive role is decided by a panel of three to seven people: the recruiting line manager chairs, accompanied by a Head of School or Director of Professional Services, an academic or operational peer, an HR adviser or trained panel member from People Services, and for senior or external-facing posts a lay member, student representative, or external assessor from another Russell Group institution. Panels are gender-balanced wherever possible and panel members are expected to have completed the University's Recruitment and Selection and Unconscious Bias training before sitting on a panel. The interview itself almost always combines structured competency questions with a role-specific exercise. For academic and research posts, expect a 15-to-30-minute research presentation followed by Q&A on your research vision, fit with the School's strategic priorities, plans for grant capture (UKRI, NIHR, ERC, Wellcome, Horizon Europe, Royal Society), PhD supervision philosophy, and contribution to teaching, citizenship, and external income. For climate and environmental science roles linked to the Global Systems Institute, the Environment and Sustainability Institute at Penryn, or the Met Office partnership, expect direct questions about how your work would intersect with operational meteorological science, earth-system modelling, or the broader climate research community concentrated in Exeter; for medical school and clinical-academic roles expect questions about working in partnership with the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust and about NHS information governance. For business school roles expect alignment with the Triple Crown accreditation regimes (AACSB, AMBA, EQUIS) and the school's responsible-business and sustainability framing. Teaching-track and education-focused roles will ask for a microteach, a sample lecture, or a discussion of your teaching philosophy mapped against the UK Professional Standards Framework descriptors and Advance HE Fellowship categories (AFHEA, FHEA, SFHEA, PFHEA). Professional services interviews commonly include a written task, an in-tray exercise, a stakeholder role-play, or a data-handling exercise, plus structured behavioural questions answered in the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) format. Technical and IT posts often add a coding test, system design discussion, or live whiteboard exercise. Exeter's tone is intellectually rigorous but unfailingly courteous, and candidates frequently comment on the warmth of South West English collegiality once they meet the panel in person. Candidates report panels that are well-prepared, ask probing follow-ups, and expect concrete evidence rather than rhetorical answers. Reasonable adjustments (extra time, alternative formats, hybrid Teams interviews, BSL interpreters, accessible rooms across the federated estate) are offered proactively when requested. Candidates are routinely encouraged to ask substantive questions about the School's strategic direction, EDI work, hybrid working, mentoring, probation expectations, progression routes, and the practicalities of working between Devon and Cornwall. Outcomes are normally communicated within five to ten working days of the interview, and unsuccessful candidates can request structured feedback from the panel chair, which Exeter treats as a genuine development conversation rather than a formality.

What Exeter University Looks For

Demonstrable evidence against every Essential criterion in the Person Specification, with the evaluators looking for specific examples, dated achievements, and named outputs rather than general assertions of capability.
Research excellence appropriate to career stage: for early-career roles a strong publication trajectory and PhD pipeline; for senior academic roles independent grant capture, international standing, REF 4* outputs, and a credible plan for a research group at Exeter that complements existing strengths in climate and earth-system science, the Met Office partnership, the Business School's responsible-business agenda, medicine, psychology, or environmental science at Penryn.
Teaching excellence and student-centred mindset, with evidence of inclusive pedagogy, curriculum design, postgraduate supervision, and engagement with Advance HE Fellowship recognition where relevant; Exeter's Triple Gold Teaching Excellence Framework outcome means teaching quality is a board-level priority, not a soft signal.
Operational craft and customer focus for professional services posts: process improvement, stakeholder management, financial stewardship of public money, and the ability to navigate a complex multi-campus Russell Group environment that spans two counties.
Active commitment to equality, diversity, inclusion, decolonisation of the curriculum, and the University's Race Equality and Athena SWAN action plans, evidenced by what you have actually done rather than values you espouse.
Collaboration across a federated University: ability to work across Streatham, St Luke's, Penryn, Truro, and London sites, and a substantial professional services backbone that supports research income, education delivery, and civic engagement in both Devon and Cornwall.
Integrity, public-service ethos, and willingness to operate within UK higher-education accountability frameworks (Office for Students, UK Research and Innovation, Audit, Freedom of Information Act, UK GDPR, Prevent Duty, NHS information governance for clinical roles).
Long-term commitment to Exeter and to the South West region: evidence that you understand why you want this role at this institution, in this region, and how you will contribute to the University's civic mission in Devon and Cornwall, the Met Office and NHS partnerships, and the wider South West research and innovation ecosystem.
Intellectual fit with the institution's distinctive climate and environmental identity, even in non-environmental roles: Vice-Chancellor Lisa Roberts's Strategy 2030 explicitly threads sustainability, environment, and social justice through every part of the University, and candidates who can speak credibly to that framing stand out.

Frequently Asked Questions

What ATS does the University of Exeter use to manage job applications?

Where do I find current University of Exeter vacancies?

The official live vacancy list is at jobs.exeter.ac.uk, signposted from the main University site at exeter.ac.uk under About and Working at Exeter. You can filter by category, faculty, location across the Streatham, St Luke's, Penryn (Cornwall), Truro, and London sites, contract type, and posting date. The HR Helpdesk ([email protected]) and Recruitment Admin ([email protected]) inboxes are signposted on every page for technical and substantive queries respectively.

Does the University of Exeter sponsor Skilled Worker visas?

Yes. Exeter is a UK Home Office A-rated licensed sponsor and routinely issues Certificates of Sponsorship for eligible academic, research, technical, and senior professional services roles, plus supports Global Talent endorsements via the Royal Society, British Academy, Royal Academy of Engineering, and UKRI for exceptional researchers. Eligibility depends on the SOC code, salary threshold, and whether the role is on the UK Skilled Worker eligible occupation list. Recent UK student-visa policy changes (the 2024 dependants restrictions) primarily affect international postgraduate-taught students and do not change the substantive Skilled Worker sponsorship route for staff.

What is the salary structure and pay scale at Exeter?

Exeter uses the UCEA-aligned single pay spine across grades A (entry-level support and operational) through G and the professorial bands above, with annual cost-of-living awards negotiated nationally between UCEA and the trade unions (UCU, UNISON, Unite). All advertised salary ranges are firm and non-negotiable above the published top of grade, although progression up the spine within grade happens by annual increment. Exeter is also a public Living Wage employer.

What benefits and leave entitlements does Exeter offer?

Most staff receive generous combined annual leave plus public and University closure days, USS or UoE Pension Scheme membership with substantial employer contributions, enhanced family leave (maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental, fertility), occupational sick pay, hybrid working where the role permits, an interest-free season-ticket loan or equivalent travel support, Cycle to Work scheme, an extensive learning and development catalogue, and discounted use of campus sport and exercise facilities including the Streatham Sports Park.

How long does the Exeter recruitment process typically take?

From advert closing date to offer, expect four to eight weeks for professional services roles and six to twelve weeks for academic and senior roles. Shortlisting takes two to four weeks; interviews are scheduled within a fortnight of shortlisting; the gap between interview and verbal offer is usually five to ten working days; and conditional written offers from People Services follow within a further one to two weeks. Clinical-academic posts linked to NHS partners typically take longer because NHS pre-employment processes run in parallel.

Do I need a separate Cover Letter or Supporting Statement at Exeter?

Yes. A Supporting Statement (sometimes called a Statement in Support, Cover Letter, or Personal Statement) mapped point-by-point against the Person Specification is effectively mandatory and is the single most heavily weighted document in shortlisting. Strong candidates structure it with a heading per Essential criterion and concrete dated evidence under each. Generic Cover Letters that do not mirror the Person Specification are the most common cause of strong-looking CVs being sifted out at first review.

Can I contact the hiring manager before applying?

Yes, and Exeter strongly encourages it. Every advert names a contact (usually the hiring line manager or Head of School/Section) with an institutional email address for informal enquiries. A short, well-prepared conversation about the role's strategic context, team structure, and expectations materially strengthens your application. For procedural and technical queries the HR Helpdesk ([email protected]) and Recruitment Admin ([email protected]) are the appropriate first contacts.

Are there opportunities for hybrid or fully remote work at Exeter?

Exeter operates a hybrid working framework for most professional services and many research roles, with the workplace type (100 percent on-campus, hybrid, or fully remote) stated on each advert. Teaching, clinical, technical, estates, hospitality, and laboratory-based roles are typically on-campus by necessity. Fully remote roles exist but are uncommon and usually limited to specific digital, library, and administrative functions; given the dual-county estate, hybrid arrangements often involve scheduled days at Streatham, St Luke's, or Penryn rather than fully off-site working.

What does it mean that Exeter is a Russell Group university?

Exeter is a member of the Russell Group, a self-selecting association of twenty-four leading UK research-intensive universities formed in 1994. Russell Group institutions account for the majority of UK research funding, doctoral training, and high-tariff undergraduate admissions. For staff this means a research-intensive culture, dual-support funding, REF (Research Excellence Framework) submission expectations, and pay aligned to the UCEA national pay spine. Exeter is also distinguished by holding Triple Gold in the 2023 Teaching Excellence Framework, signalling unusually strong outcomes on student experience and progression alongside its research mission.

What is Exeter's relationship with the UK Met Office?

The UK Met Office, the United Kingdom's national meteorological service and one of the world's pre-eminent operational meteorological agencies, has its national headquarters in Exeter, on the FitzRoy Road site close to the University's Streatham Campus. The University of Exeter and the Met Office maintain a deep, long-standing strategic partnership covering joint research, joint chairs and fellowships, doctoral training, and shared use of Exeter as a national centre of climate, weather, and earth-system science. For prospective staff in climate, atmospheric, ocean, and earth-system roles this is one of the strongest institutional clusters anywhere in the world and is a core reason Exeter is named on the Reuters Hot List as home to several of the most-cited climate scientists globally.

How distinctive is Exeter's climate science research?

Climate, environmental, and earth-system science is the University's defining institutional strength. Exeter is home to the Global Systems Institute and the Environment and Sustainability Institute on the Penryn Campus, and is publicly noted as home to one of the largest concentrations of climate scientists anywhere in the world, including a substantial cohort identified on the Reuters Hot List of the most-cited climate researchers. Combined with the Met Office partnership in the same city, this makes Exeter a magnet for early-career and established climate researchers and for cross-disciplinary roles that touch sustainability, biodiversity, oceans, and the green economy.

How does the Penryn Cornwall campus differ from the main Exeter campuses?

The Penryn Campus is on the Cornish south coast near Falmouth Harbour and is operated jointly with Falmouth University on a single shared estate. Compared with the parkland Streatham Campus and the clinical St Luke's Campus in Exeter itself, Penryn has a distinctive coastal, environmental, and creative-economy character, hosts the Environment and Sustainability Institute, the Centre for Ecology and Conservation, parts of the renewable energy and earth-and-environmental sciences offer, and the Camborne School of Mines tradition. Staff based at Penryn live in the Falmouth–Penryn–Truro corridor in west Cornwall rather than in Devon, and the University runs a regular shuttle and travel-support framework to enable cross-campus collaboration.

What should I know about UCU industrial action and the broader UK higher-education context?

Like most Russell Group universities, Exeter has been affected by sector-wide UCU industrial action over pay, pensions (USS), workloads, casualisation, and equality pay gaps in recent years. The University engages with the recognised trade unions (UCU, UNISON, Unite) at the local Joint Negotiating and Consultative Committee, follows national UCEA collective bargaining for cost-of-living awards, and publishes statements during periods of industrial action. UK higher education is also operating in a tighter fiscal environment in 2024 and 2025 because of frozen home undergraduate fees, inflation, and changes to international student recruitment patterns; candidates considering academic roles should familiarise themselves with USS pension reforms and the local UCU branch's activity to understand the staff-relations context.

What is Vice-Chancellor Lisa Roberts's strategic agenda?

Professor Lisa Roberts has served as Vice-Chancellor and President since 2020 and has framed the institution around Strategy 2030, which threads environmental sustainability, climate leadership, social justice, and improvements to teaching and student experience through every part of the University. The strategy explicitly leans into Exeter's distinctive climate and environmental identity, the Met Office partnership, the Penryn presence in Cornwall, and the Triple Gold Teaching Excellence Framework outcome. Candidates who can speak credibly to that framing in their Supporting Statements stand out across both academic and professional services panels.

What is it like to live in Exeter and the wider South West?

Exeter is the historic county town and cathedral city of Devon, with a population of around 130,000, two universities, a strong independent-business culture, and a direct rail link to London Paddington in around two hours and fifteen minutes via Great Western Railway. The cost of living is substantially lower than London while still being in the south of England; Dartmoor and Exmoor National Parks, the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, the South West Coast Path, and the beaches of South Devon are within easy reach; and the city has a distinctive South West English character that aligns naturally with the University's environmental and outdoor identity. Staff based at Penryn live in the Falmouth–Penryn–Truro corridor in Cornwall, which is even more rural and coastal in feel and is a major draw for staff who want to combine a serious research career with genuine access to the sea and the wider Cornish landscape.

Open Positions

Exeter University currently has 5 open positions.

Check Your Resume Before Applying → View 5 open positions at Exeter University

How to Apply to Exeter University

Key Takeaways

About Exeter University

Application Process

Resume Tips for Exeter University

Use a UK-style two-to-four-page CV for professional services, technical, and ope

Mirror the exact language of the Person Specification's Essential and Desirable

State your right-to-work status and visa requirements unambiguously: if you requ

Quantify research impact (grant income won from UKRI, NIHR, ERC, Wellcome, Horiz

List your degrees with classification, awarding institution, and dates, and incl

Save the file as a PDF named 'Surname_Firstname_CV_JobReference

Demonstrate alignment with the University's Strategy 2030 and its values of chal

Include a short Equality, Diversity and Inclusion paragraph evidencing concrete

For climate-, environmental-, and earth-systems-relevant roles, explicitly posit

ATS System: University of Exeter Recruitment Portal (MHR iTrent Web Recruitment at jobs.exeter.ac.uk)

Interview Culture

What Exeter University Looks For

Frequently Asked Questions

Open Positions

Related Resources

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