An academic post at Robert Gordon University is, for most staff, a fundamentally teaching-focused role at a professionally oriented modern university in Aberdeen. That shapes the workload reality in ways that matter enormously for wellbeing. The rhythms, pressures and satisfactions of the job differ markedly from those at a research-intensive institution, and academics who arrive expecting one and encounter the other often struggle, not because the work is unreasonable, but because their mental model does not fit it.
This article is a candid, practical look at managing workload and staying well as an RGU academic. It assumes you are already in post or about to start, and it focuses on the levers you can actually pull: understanding how work is allocated, protecting the scholarship time that is easily squeezed, using the support that exists, and navigating the specific realities of living and working in the north-east of Scotland. Wellbeing in academia is rarely about working less; it is about working with the grain of your role rather than against it.
Understanding the RGU workload model
Like most UK universities, RGU allocates staff time through a workload framework that assigns notional hours to teaching, scholarship or research, and administration or service. Understanding your own allocation is the first act of workload management, because you cannot advocate for balance you have not quantified. Ask your line manager for your workload allocation early, and make sure you understand how contact teaching, marking, module leadership, student support and administrative roles are each counted.
Workload models are imperfect everywhere: they systematically under-count the hidden labour of pastoral support, curriculum development and the endless small tasks that fill an academic week. The value of engaging with your model is not that it captures reality perfectly but that it gives you a shared, legitimate language for conversations about overload. If your actual work consistently exceeds your allocation, the model is the evidence you bring to your manager. Our Workload, Wellbeing and Productivity hub covers the general principles that apply across every institution, which this article grounds in the RGU context.
The teaching-focused reality
The central fact of academic life at a professional university is that teaching loads are heavier than at research-intensive institutions, and this is by design, not neglect. RGU's mission is career-focused education with strong professional and industry links, and delivering that requires substantial contact hours, close student support, and continual curriculum currency. Accepting this reality rather than resenting it is the foundation of sustainable wellbeing in the role. Staff who spend their energy wishing they had a research-intensive workload exhaust themselves twice over.
The pressure points in a teaching-focused post are predictable and therefore plannable. Marking loads spike sharply at assessment points and can overwhelm a poorly managed calendar. Module leadership carries a steady administrative tail. Student support demand is high and emotionally taxing, particularly on professional programmes where students face placements and registration requirements. The skill is not to eliminate these, which is impossible, but to anticipate their timing and protect yourself around the peaks, a discipline we explore further in our guide to protecting research time. The UK sector body Advance HE publishes useful resources on sustainable academic practice and staff wellbeing that complement your institution's own provision.
Protecting research and scholarship time
At a teaching-focused university, research and scholarship time is real but fragile, the first thing to collapse when teaching and marking surge. Yet scholarship is not optional at RGU: it feeds your teaching currency, your professional standing, your promotion case, and the university's own research and knowledge-exchange ambitions. The challenge is that a small allocation of scholarship hours, spread thinly across a teaching-dominated week, tends to evaporate into the gaps between more urgent tasks. Protecting it requires deliberate structure.
Treat your scholarship time as a fixed appointment, blocked in your calendar and defended like a teaching commitment, rather than a residual you get to if time allows. Concentrate it into meaningful blocks, a half-day is worth more than five scattered hours, and align it with the teaching calendar so your ambitions expand in quieter periods and contract during assessment peaks. Choose focused, achievable scholarship goals suited to the time you genuinely have; one well-executed applied project or practice-focused output a year is a stronger record at a professional university than an over-ambitious plan that never materialises. Keep a simple record of your scholarship activity as you go, because your probation and promotion reviews will draw on it and contemporaneous evidence is far easier than reconstruction.
Wellbeing support and staff networks
RGU, in common with UK universities generally, provides a range of staff wellbeing support: occupational health services, employee assistance programmes offering confidential counselling, staff networks, and the representation of the recognised trade union. Too many academics discover these only in crisis. Familiarise yourself with what is available at the start, when you are well, so that you know where to turn and are not searching for help at your lowest point. Human resources and the staff intranet are the practical starting points.
Beyond formal services, the informal networks matter enormously. Aberdeen and RGU have close-knit academic communities, and a small circle of trusted colleagues, ideally including at least one mentor outside your immediate line-management chain, does more for day-to-day wellbeing than any policy. These relationships provide perspective when a difficult student or a bruising committee leaves you doubting yourself, and they are the people who normalise the pressures rather than letting you privatise them as personal failure. AcademicStaff's workload calculator lets you quantify your actual commitments against your allocation, turning a vague sense of overload into the concrete figures you need for a constructive conversation with your manager or union representative. Building these support structures is itself a workload skill, closely linked to the risk-management thinking in our wellbeing hub.
The Aberdeen context: transition and cost of living
Working at RGU means working in Aberdeen, and the local context shapes wellbeing in ways worth naming. The city's economy, long anchored by North Sea oil and gas, is undergoing a significant energy transition toward renewables and low-carbon industries, and RGU sits at the centre of that shift. For academics in relevant fields this is an exciting time of purpose and opportunity; it also brings uncertainty and change that can add a background pressure to working life. Understanding your school's exposure to these shifts helps you read the institutional weather.
Practical realities matter too. Aberdeen's climate is bracing and its winters short on daylight, which affects mood and energy for many, so deliberate attention to light, exercise and routine through the darker months is a genuine wellbeing strategy rather than a soft extra. The cost and character of living in the north-east, housing, commuting from surrounding towns, distance from family elsewhere in the UK or abroad, all feed into how sustainable a post feels. International staff in particular should attend early to the practicalities of settling, because a smooth home life is the foundation on which a manageable working life rests.
Practical workload tactics for RGU staff
Sustainable workload at a teaching-focused university comes down to a handful of habits applied consistently. Front-load your preparation before teaching-heavy periods so that term-time is delivery rather than scramble. Batch similar tasks, marking, email, admin, into defined blocks rather than letting them interrupt deep work continuously. Reuse and refine teaching materials across cycles rather than rebuilding from scratch, freeing time for the currency updates that actually add value. Set boundaries around out-of-hours student contact, which otherwise expands without limit on demanding professional programmes.
Above all, make your workload visible. Keep a simple record of what you actually do against what your allocation assumes, and use it in your annual review and in any conversation about a new duty being added. When you are asked to take on more, respond in terms of what would come off, not a flat refusal, so the conversation is about capacity rather than willingness. Use your union and your manager as partners in balance rather than adversaries. The academics who thrive at RGU over the long term are not those who work the most hours but those who work with the role's teaching-focused grain, protect the scholarship and rest that sustain them, and treat their own wellbeing as a professional responsibility rather than an indulgence.
The Academic Workload Audit and Balance Planner
A template that lets RGU and other teaching-focused staff record actual hours against their workload allocation, map marking and support peaks across the year, and block protected scholarship time, ready for a constructive conversation with your manager.
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Frequently asked questions
Is the teaching load at RGU heavier than at a research-intensive university?
Yes, and by design. As a professionally focused modern university, RGU centres on career-oriented teaching with strong industry links, which requires substantial contact hours and close student support. This is a feature of the mission, not a shortfall. Sustainable wellbeing comes from planning around predictable marking and support peaks rather than wishing for a research-intensive workload.
How do I stop my scholarship time from disappearing?
Treat scholarship time as a fixed calendar appointment defended like a teaching commitment, not a residual you reach if time allows. Concentrate it into meaningful blocks, align it with the teaching calendar so it expands in quiet periods and contracts at assessment peaks, and set focused, achievable goals suited to the hours you genuinely have.
What wellbeing support does RGU offer, and when should I look into it?
Like most UK universities, RGU provides occupational health, a confidential employee assistance programme, staff networks and union representation. Familiarise yourself with these at the start, while you are well, rather than searching in a crisis. Informal support matters too: a small circle of trusted colleagues and a mentor outside your line-management chain is invaluable.
The AcademicStaff editorial team writes practical, evidence-based guidance for university staff — drawing on sector reporting, funder guidelines and the lived administrative reality of academic work. Every guide is reviewed for accuracy against current Australian higher-education practice.