Section 4: Advice for Leaving a Job
Before we begin...
Leaving a role – for whatever reason – can be a stressful and emotional period that is difficult to navigate. In this section, we share advice on leaving your fixed-term role from those who have been through it. The guidance provided focuses on: assessing your options (what’s next?), navigating practicalities (from offices and IT to pensions), sharing experiences and insight, and staying connected (if desirable).
Contents
4.1 How to navigate the next steps in your career
4.2 How do I manage the end of access to key university resources?
Office space
Information Technology (IT)
Pensions
4.3 How to maintain professional connections
4.4 How to share experiences and insights
4.5 Respondent voices
4.1 How to navigate the next steps in your career
In our survey, respondents repeatedly expressed experiencing a “tension between knowing one role is coming to an end and […] needing to find a new job” (Fixed Term Contract respondent, 2025). We have compiled a set of tools in Section 1 (Approaches to applying for jobs) that may be helpful for planning your next steps and identifying opportunities within and beyond the academy.
4.2 How do I manage the end of access to key university resources?
Ahead of your fixed-term contract coming to an end, it can be useful to consider how to navigate some upcoming practicalities around leaving your current institution. This includes how to manage the imminent relinquishing of key resources, such as offices and IT equipment, and ensuring that pension arrangements are up to date.
Office Space
If you have access to office or working space, make plans to remove any personal items from these locations while you have access to relevant buildings and find out how to return your keys/keycards. Ensure that safe arrangements are in place for storing any confidential documents that need to be retained by the institution. If you have physical materials pertaining to a project, make sure that these are passed on to team members before you leave. Share a forwarding address with a trusted university administrator so that any post can be sent to you.
Information Technology (IT)
Many respondents found that access to key academic resources, including email accounts, digital library access, cloud storage accounts, and physical resources such as laptops and hard drives terminated immediately or very soon after their contract end dates. This can have a range of impacts for maintaining research correspondence, applying for jobs, writing papers and grant applications, and maintaining access to research data. As such, it is important to take measures to mitigate these issues ahead of your contract end date.
Note:
In advance of leaving, you might also consider requesting extended access to your institutional email address. You can find a template letter which can be used on the States of Precarity project resources page.
Pensions
If you are employed on a fixed-term contract and have been making contributions to a UK pension-scheme (e.g. USS, TPS), consider consulting their relevant online advice about managing your pension and/or leaving the scheme. Make sure that you keep careful records of your pension schemes and contributions.
4.3 How to maintain professional connections
Many survey respondents reflected on the challenges of ‘leaving personal networks behind’. Ahead of leaving, consider taking the following steps to facilitate staying connected with colleagues:
Share a personal email address with colleagues
If you wish to stay in correspondence with your colleagues, consider circulating an alternative email address in advance of your departure.
Explore opportunities for ongoing collaborations
This might include suggesting the co-organisation of a conference session or co-presentation of a talk, co-developing or supporting a funding application, or co-authoring an output. Reach out to colleagues to propose and share any ideas and/or to highlight your interest in keeping in touch.
Leave an automatic reply on your institutional email account
This should include instructions for follow-on contact (e.g. alternative email address), relevant webpages/profiles, and/or social media. Ideally, introduce this ahead of the end of your contract.
4.4 How to share experiences and insights
Survey respondents repeatedly shared that leaving a fixed-term role can be emotionally challenging. The suggestions below are designed both to facilitate supporting your own health and wellbeing, and to highlight where you might consider sharing your experiences that might help current and future precarious colleagues in a similar position.
Wellbeing and support
Consider engaging with your institution’s wellbeing services and support resources (e.g. employee assistance programme), as well as relevant external providers (such as Education Support). Colleagues may also find online networks helpful. For example, the Women in Academia Support Network (WIASN) community is a supportive and kind space for women to share experiences and concerns (see the website and free Facebook Group).
Sharing your experience to support institutional insight
While we recognise that preparing to leave a role is often a stressful period, if you feel you have capacity, consider asking for an exit interview in which you can constructively share your experiences of fixed-term employment with your head of department/head of school and/or human resources (HR). Hearing from fixed-term colleagues can be powerful in informing ongoing attention and change in relation to precarity in HE geography. Similarly, if you have capacity, consider reaching out to your department/school’s equality, diversity and inclusivity (EDI) Committee and/or Athena Swan working group to share your experiences as a fixed-term colleague. This can provide you with an opportunity to share your experiences (e.g. where there’s room for improvement, any examples of good practice) as well as provide a valuable opportunity for the relevant committee to learn from your experience in ways which inform ongoing and further work and actions around academic precarity.
Sharing your experience to support others in similar situations
"I can't say enough about the outstanding service I received from your company. Their team went above and beyond to meet our needs and exceeded our expectations."
Respondent A
"I think it's really important to support people in their careers and help them get permanent positions. I once overheard a conversation between a senior academic and their research assistant who had just gotten a job offer for a much better position. The RA was apologising for leaving the project, but the senior academic said something along the lines of 'Don't apologies, people leaving for better places shows me that I'm hiring the best' - that resonated so much with me!"
Employment status: Permanent
Age: 30-39
Gender: Female
Respondent B
"When I meet colleagues on fixed-term contracts now I try to ensure I make them feel as they belong here, even if they know they will be leaving again in the future. I try to treat them as the valued colleagues they are, and to include them in any and all discussions - also those that may be about future teaching/research after their current contract ends here. I try to get to know them, and make an effort to introduce myself - and them to others - when possible"
Employment status: Permanent
Age: 30-39
Gender: Female
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