"A job in academia used to be perhaps the definitive prestigious middle-class occupation, rewarded with status, security and top salaries. Yet academics have become a case study in the decline of the middle class in favour of a casualised, precarious, overworked labour force. According to the University and College Union, university staff’s real-terms pay has declined by 20% over the last decade."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/14/market-universities-crisis-staff-strike