Institution of Chemical Engineers study

* In a recent House of Commons debate, chemical engineer and Labour MP Ashok Kumar referred to a study by the Institution of Chemical Engineers that showed that over the past 13 years, out of 1,500 chemical engineering graduates with firsts or upper seconds from five leading universities, only seven had gone into tenured positions in the UK.

"In chemical engineering, comparable jobs in the private sector are better paid and often more attractive in research terms," he said. "The holy cow of all staff being paid on a single national scale irrespective of discipline, must be queried. It does not stand up to the presence of a competitive market outside the walls of colleges and universities."