Teaching is one aspect of job satisfaction for academics

Research for the Department for Education and Skills found no "severe" problems, but said vacancies sometimes went unfilled.

The report by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research identified problems with the perceived fairness of pay and promotion decisions.

The Commons science and technology select committee is to hold an inquiry.

'False premise'

The committee chairman, Liberal Democrat Phil Willis, said he had "major concerns".

"The whole career structure is just woeful. It has been woeful for a long time," he said.

"My personal view is that vice-chancellors have a cavalier attitude towards their academics and live quite frankly in a fool's paradise, believing that there will be an endless stream of young people wanting academic careers.

"This is based on a false premise that academic careers are so attractive that there will always be somebody foolish enough to want to do it."

Pay comparisons

The institute's report, Recruitment and Retention of Academic Staff in Higher Education, said academic pay was low relative to other highly qualified jobs within the UK.

When compared with academic pay in eight other countries the picture was mixed.

The UK compared favourably with Sweden, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, was similar to that of Denmark, France and Canada, and pay was lower than in the US.

So it was likely to encourage an outflow of academics to America, but eased recruitment from some other countries - and 40% of recruits came from overseas.

That said, foreign recruits were also more likely to expect to leave UK academia - so a reliance on overseas recruitment may lead to future problems, the report said.

The opportunity to do research was a major source of job satisfaction, and teaching was also important - while administrative tasks were a negative element.

Promotion prospects

Discrimination against ethnic minorities - whether direct or indirect - "cannot be ruled out" but more research was needed on this.

Many staff believed that disability, age, religion and ethnicity and gender affected people's promotion prospects.

In the older, research-intensive universities competing for funding, "there was an increased emphasis on recruiting 'stars' and poaching" staff.

The report also found formal processes for promotion and pay rises being bypassed in "covert deals" in an effort to keep valued staff - which were not normally effective but affected the morale of other staff.

"Ensuring pay and promotion decisions are fair and seen to be fair is likely to reduce the loss of staff from the sector," it said.