LECTURERS across Hampshire are on strike over a pay dispute.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) are continuing a two-day strike today.

Lecturers from both Southampton’s universities and Winchester University took industrial action after talks collapsed last week over a pay rise.

The Universities and Colleges Employers Union (UEAC) had offered members of the UCU a 1.1 per cent pay rise but the UCU has rejected the offer.

The UCU cite a real term pay cut of 14.5 per cent since 2009 and say that universities could afford to pay more.

Senior lecturers formed picket lines outside the University of Southampton as part of a wider-national strike by UCU members.

Despite warnings from the UEAC that this would cause disruptions during exam season, lecturers from Southampton Solent and Winchester University held placards and gave out leaflets in the Guildhall Square, Southampton, in protest at the small pay increase.

Dr Mick Jardine, chair of the Winchester UCU, said: "We’ve been offered 1.1 per cent at a time when we know there is a lot of money sloshing around in the university sector.

"What you’ve got to bear in mind is that students now pay £9000 fees and that’s a large sum of money.

"The questions got to be put: where is that money going? Because it’s not going on academic or staff salaries."

The union has also called on universities to close the gender pay gap and to minimise zero hours contracts offered to lecturers, which Dr Jardine says “rips students off”.

He added: “You get these students who are coming out with £50-60,000 debt at the end of their degree, and we have students who can’t find their lecturers because they don’t have offices.

"We know senior management are paying themselves large sums of money and they’re spending large sums of money beautifying the campus."

The strike, and further ones planned for the start of June, could affect graduation ceremonies and there are plans for lecturers to boycott setting and marking students' work.