Globalisation of researcher mobility within the UK Higher Education: explaining the presence of overseas academics in the UK academia

In this paper, we argue that the power structure that lies within the UK elite universities dictates a division of labour through which the inflows of overseas academics into the UK academic labour markets are skewed towards these elite academic institutions where they are employed primarily in research-only posts. These posts, are less valued and are difficult to fill by UK academics. This explains the over-concentration non-UK academics within these posts and suggests that it is not a coincidence, but a result of a division of labour in which they are ‘used’ as a replacement labour.