Students across the UK face disruption to lectures and tutorials as university staff stage a fresh series of walkouts in a continuing row over pay.

The University and College Union has announced it is planning a series of two-hour strikes aimed at disrupting teaching.

It also warned that if there is no breakthrough, its members would consider a boycott of exam marking, which could potentially mean students are left without the final marks they need to gain their degree.

University employers said that they were "disappointed at UCU's latest tactic" to disrupt institutions.

The latest move is an escalation of UCU's industrial action over a 1% pay rise offered to university staff. It comes after the union, along with a number of others, took part in two one-day walkouts in the autumn term.

UCU insists that the pay offer means their members have faced a 13% pay cut in real terms since October 2008.

Tens of thousands of lectures, seminars, tutorials and practicals will be at risk of cancellation when the stoppages start next week, the union claimed.

The first will take place on Thursday 23 January between 11am and 1pm, followed by further strikes on Tuesday 28 January from 2-4pm and Monday 10 February from 9am-11am.

It comes after UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: "Despite another embarrassing round of embarrassing revelations about the very handsome pay rises those at the very top have enjoyed recently, universities are still refusing to improve a miserly 1% pay offer and are still oblivious to the hypocrisy of their actions.

"Any kind of disruption is always a last resort but, after five years of pay suppression and members 13% worse off in real terms, we have little option but to escalate our action."

A spokesman for the University and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA) said: "Employers have expressed disappointment at UCU's latest tactic to disrupt higher education (HE) institutions, this time targeting students.

"This appears a cynical move to cause, in the union's own terms 'maximum disruption' while 'minimising cost to members'.

"Institutions will do their very best to protect students but this industrial action is designed to damage the student experience. However, the overwhelming majority of staff realise that the UCU's demands for higher pay increases are neither affordable nor sustainable.

"The pay increases implemented last month and backdated to August 2013 actually totalled around 3% in most institutions; with the 1% for all on top of 3% incremental increases for many, plus merit awards."

Toni Pearce, president of the National Union of Students said: "It's clear that the continuing pay dispute, over the measly pay offer to staff made by vice chancellors who are receiving pay raises of 8%, now risks causing significant disruption. Students want a speedy resolution. We need to see the employers and unions getting round the table and negotiating a fair and sustainable pay settlement."