The answer to life, the universe and everything is also the average age of all academic staff - 42 - according to data published this week by the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
The total number of academic staff grew by 3.1 per cent to 139,940 last year. Some 37 per cent were female and 25 per cent of full-time staff worked in medicine, dentistry and health departments. Excluding clinical staff, more full-time wholly-institutionally-financed staff left higher education than entered it.