Quirk Postdoctoral Fellowship - English Language and Literature
Founded in 1828, the English Department at UCL is one of the oldest in the country. It is recognised as among the leading departments of literature in English and of English Language and Linguistics in the world.
The Department offers a single honours degree which covers the full range of the subject, and two MA programmes (in English Linguistics and Issues in Modern Culture). These MAs and our PhD programme are successful in attracting students from overseas as well as the UK and EU.
The Department consists of about 37 full-time permanent staff, approximately 350 single-honours undergraduates, 80 graduate students, 30 research students and, each year, about 30 affiliate students. The Department is housed in one site on two floors of Foster Court, which is within the main part of UCL, and is close to such major research institutions as the British Library, the University of London Library, and the Warburg Institute.
Interviews are likely to be in the week commencing 11 May 2026.
About the role
The English Department at UCL is seeking to appoint a 12-month Quirk Postdoctoral Fellow commencing on the 1st October 2026.
The Quirk Postdoctoral Fellowship is funded from the generous bequest of Professor the Lord Charles Randolph Quirk, 1920-2017, linguist and life peer, who began his academic career as a lecturer at UCL and was Professor here from 1960 to 1981. Professor Quirk was renowned for his pioneering Survey of English Usage, Europe’s first Corpus Linguistics research centre, which resulted in a series of publications that became standard works of reference, both on the English language itself and on how to approach the study of linguistic form and usage. Professor Quirk’s endowment is to support ‘humanistic scholarship’, broadly conceived.
The successful candidate will design, research, and write up an independent project. We welcome applications from early-career academics pursuing a scholarly project in any area of English literature or language.
About you
Candidates must have a PhD in a field of English language or literature submitted for examination or awarded no earlier than 1 October 2023 (unless a career break was taken), and have experience and knowledge of research in their proposed field sufficient to produce excellent research.
A record of publications, achieved or in progress, commensurate with career stage is also expected.
A job description and person specification, including all essential and desirable criteria, can be accessed at the bottom of this page.
What we offer
As well as the exciting opportunities this role presents we also offer some great benefits some of which are below:
- 41 Days holiday (including 27 days annual leave 8 bank holiday and 6 closure days)
- Defined benefit career average revalued earnings pension scheme (CARE)
- Cycle to work scheme and season ticket loan
- On-Site nursery
- On-site gym
- Enhanced maternity, paternity and adoption pay
- Employee assistance programme: Staff Support Service
- Discounted medical insurance
Our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
As London’s Global University, we know diversity fosters creativity and innovation, and we want our community to represent the diversity of the world’s talent. We are committed to equality of opportunity, to being fair and inclusive, and to being a place where we all belong.
We therefore particularly encourage applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in UCL’s workforce.
These include people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds; disabled people; LGBTQI+ people; and for our Grade 9 and 10 roles, women.
You can read more about our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion here : https://www.ucl.ac.uk/equality-diversity-inclusion/
Available documents
Attached documents are available under links. Clicking a document link will initialize its download.
