The University of Western Australia will lay off 300 staff as part of sweeping cuts aimed at reducing costs.

The university, Perth's only member of the prestigious "Group of Eight" or "sandstone" group, will slash 100 academic positions and 200 professional positions early next year.

But 50 new academic positions will be created to enhance the university's "capability and impact in areas of comparative advantage".

UWA Vice Chancellor Professor Paul Johnson declined to be interviewed, but in a statement said 2015 had been a challenging year for the Australian higher education sector.

"UWA, like many universities, has a budget challenge," the statement said.

"As highlighted during the recent fee deregulation debate, there remains a long-standing under-funding of Australian universities amid a climate of greater competition at home and abroad.

"We need to confront these financial challenges head on, which means changing how the university operates."

University staff were told of the planned redundancies this afternoon.

University 'in good financial shape': union

National Tertiary Education Union WA secretary Gabe Gooding said the union was outraged.

"This is a university that is in very sound financial shape," she said.

"It had a $90 million operating surplus last year, it's by no means under financial pressure, this is an ideological agenda being driven by a vice chancellor.

"They have legal obligations to consult with their staff prior to making these sort of decisions, and they've just tramped all over that and announced 300 people."

"The worst thing of course is a couple of weeks to Christmas, and of the thousands of UWA staff none of them are going to know whether they are in that 300 or not."

Ms Gooding said the first the union had heard of the plan was this afternoon, when staff were informed.

She said the vice chancellor had championed university fee deregulation.

UWA Student Guild President Maddie Mulholland said students and staff had been told there could be cuts to courses.

She raised concerns the quality of education on offer would decrease in a bid to save money in teaching and bolster the university's performance in other areas.

"[I am concerned about] students being treated more as consumers and less as the core-reason the university exists, and that they'll focus on the financials rather than the experience," she said.

"UWA becoming a top university really should not be at the expense of the student experience and of the courses that they're able to study … remembering the core values of the university."

The university has not finalised which roles would be made redundant, the statement said.

It expects the redundancy process to be completed by the end of next year.

The university recorded a $90 million net result in 2014, down from $125 million in 2013.