‘Jugglers’, ‘copers’ and ‘strugglers’: academics' perceptions of being a head of department in a post-1992 UK university and how it influences their future careers

This study investigates the experiences of academics who became heads of department (HoD) in a post-1992 UK University and explores the influence that being a HoD has on the planned future academic career. Drawing on life history interviews undertaken with 17 male and female HoDs, the paper constitutes an in-depth study of HoDs’ careers in the same University. The findings suggest that academics who become HoDs not only need the capacity to assume a range of personal and professional identities, but need flexibility to regularly adopt and switch between them. Whether individuals can successfully balance and manage such multiple identities, or whether they experience major conflicts within or between them, greatly affects their experiences of being a HoD and seems to influence their subsequent career decisions. The paper concludes by proposing a conceptual framework and typology to interpret the career trajectories of academics who become HoDs in the case University