Like many young university teachers, Hannah Roberson is struggling to come to terms with the insecurity of life as an academic. In between finishing her PhD in anthropology at Soas in London she teaches a first-year undergraduate course, but she also has to take on administrative work outside university to make ends meet. “Most of my fellow PhD students have to have multiple sources of income to get by, not just teaching,” she explains. But Roberson and her young colleagues are determined that things must change. They are going head to head with their university management and demanding a new contract that properly rewards them for the hours they say they put in.

“I am employed to teach a particular course for a particular number of hours,” Roberson says. “I get paid for the teaching time and some extra time on top – but the extras aren’t enough to cover all the time I spend reading, preparing, attending lectures, replying to students’ emails, marking essays and so on.”

She adds: “We want to teach and we want to teach well, and we want to be fairly compensated for it.”

The campaigners at Soas – mostly PhD students like Roberson or recent postdocs – conducted a survey of teaching staff on so-called fractional or pro-rata teaching contracts. They say large numbers are paid only for half the hours they work, with many earning less than £8 an hour in real terms.

Campaign member Feyzi Ismail, who was employed on this sort of contract for four years but is now a full-time senior teaching fellow with a one-year contract at Soas, says: “These are basically the frontline academic staff. Hundreds of students are closer to their tutors than anyone as they see them once a week, whereas they might only see a lecturer a couple of times a term. People who are performing an absolutely vital role in the university should be paid a decent wage.”

The management team at Soas rejects the findings of the survey on working hours. Prof Paul Webley, the director, also says that not everyone wants to campaign against fractional contracts. “Some staff actively want part-time contracts, perhaps while they are bringing up a family, and we also have a lot of permanent staff on pro-rata contracts.”

He argues that although the early days of an academic career might be testing for students like Roberson, they are gaining vital training.

“PhD students are learning their trade. As well as giving them research experience, we are also trying to make sure that they get some experience of teaching. This is important preparation for an academic career.”

Webley maintains his institution has tried to meet the campaigners half way. “We’ve tried to come up with solutions to enable us to pay people like graduate teaching assistants more without making alterations to the basic pay structure. For instance, we now pay them to attend a course on teaching at university level – which a lot of institutions don’t do.”

But neither side feels they are close to a resolution.

The University and College Union says that the dispute at Soas shines a revealing light on how young teachers are treated more broadly in higher education. The union is angry about the number of university teachers on casual contracts – not least because institutions claim that the introduction of higher fees has made high-quality teaching a top priority.On Wednesday there will be a national day of action over the issue.

Jonathan White, UCU’s bargaining and negotiations officer who is leading the campaign, says: “Much more undergraduate teaching is now done by hourly-paid teachers in almost every university. I suspect students don’t know how precarious their working conditions are.”

He explains that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with young academics who want to get on the career ladder starting out in teaching being paid by the hour. “What is wrong is the way these people are treated. The differentials in pay between hourly-paid postdocs and PhDs, for example, and their full-time colleagues can be really extreme and the insecurity can be crippling.”

A young teacher at Queen Mary University of London, who has asked not to be named, explains: “It is not uncommon for someone to hold a PhD, have been awarded research grants, published books and articles and have a postgraduate teaching qualification – about as highly qualified as you can be for most jobs – yet be paid about £3,000 a year.” She says that she relies on government tax credits to subsidise her living costs.

“I’m in this job for the love of the subject,” she says. “I work in a nice department and I really like my students.”

In particular the UCU is targeting the half of all universities which, it says, employ teachers on zero-hours contracts, meaning that they don’t know from term to term whether they will actually get any work. Edinburgh University – which has 1,200 such contracts, making it one of the worst offenders – has agreed to end their use.

Union representatives at Sheffield Hallam University have just conducted a survey of the conditions for its zero-hours staff in an attempt to increase pressure on management to stop the practice. Although the results are not in yet, UCU says Sheffield Hallam is one of the institutions with the highest use of zero-hours contracts. A spokeswoman for the university says: “Our associate lecturer contracts are not like those reported in the current debate, where work is offered at short notice on a week-by-week basis. Contracted hours for associate lecturers are normally agreed for at least a full semester if not the full year, and staff have the same rights to annual leave, sick pay, pension, maternity and benefits as permanent employees. Most associate lecturers also have employment contracts at other universities or in industry, and we value the experience that this brings to our students’ learning.”

John Donaldson, who has just completed his PhD at Glasgow University, has been teaching on zero-hours contracts for years. He feels his university takes advantage of the eagerness of young academics who will do lots of unpaid work and accept insecure conditions just to get their foot in the door.

“I think universities would be very embarrassed if they had to explain to prospective students and their parents that they are treating teaching staff this poorly,” he says. “No one expects a professorship and a corner office at the start of their career – but we do expect to be paid fairly.”

A Glasgow University spokesman says: “All those who provide tutoring to our students are paid in line with our standard pay scales and recognised for preparation time as well as the actual tutoring they provide.” The university is working with the unions to cut its use of variable-hours contracts, but, he says “the irregular nature of elements of our work does require a level of flexibility in our staffing levels”.

Donaldson points out that this sort of contract makes even short-term financial planning extremely difficult, as your wages can vary considerably from month to month. “That is hard to live a life around. Often people doing this kind of teaching are in their late 20s or 30s and would like to start a family, but they can’t afford nursery fees, or a mortgage, or even a car loan,” he says.

“You live out this period of your life existing in genteel poverty until you get tenure – if you’re lucky enough to achieve that.”

• This article was amended on 4 November 2014 to correct the spelling of Feyzi Ismail’s name.

