The first wave of job redundancies has been confirmed at a university where bosses are driving £20 million in savings.

After announcing the measures to axe about 400 roles last year, negotiations about severance packages have been taking place with staff at Canterbury Christ Church University.

KentOnline understands 148 people have agreed to terminate their contracts and will be leaving the university between now and the end of July.

An email seen by this website from the university’s chief people officer Margaret Ayers says 168 offers were sent to staff under its Enhanced Early Exit Scheme (EEES), which was launched in December.

Applications closed in late January with those offered redundancy given until February 14 to decide whether to accept the university’s offer.

Ms Ayers says the scheme was designed to “minimise as much as is possible the need for compulsory redundancies through the Transformational Change Programme (TCP)”.

However, the university has not ruled out further job losses.

The first round of redundancies is estimated to save the institution about £7m in the next financial year towards its £20m goal.

The email sent to staff added: “The impact of these savings is now being assessed by the TCP Board and strand leads to determine what impact this will have on the remaining cost reductions that need to be made.

“Whilst there was significant uptake for the EEES scheme, there are still substantial further savings that need to be made through the TCP.

“Any draft proposals for change papers that are submitted to SMT ahead of the formal consultation period will take the EEES outcomes into consideration.”

The university posted profits of £3.6m in the 2023/24 financial year - although this was down from £7.2m the previous year - from an income of £319m, up 21% compared to 2023.

But bosses say it will only make a surplus this year and next year if it takes “necessary action”.

A spokesman said: “If we take no action now our expenditure in 2025/26 will exceed our income and we could end up running at a deficit, as many universities are already doing. We do not believe this is a responsible approach.”

They added: “The university is changing in order to ensure it continues to be financially stable whilst also delivering an excellent student and staff experience. The recent voluntary early exit scheme has enabled the university to reduce costs significantly, but further savings are still required.

“We are now considering how those will be made.

“We would like to reassure our community that we are proposing to make the changes required in one co-ordinated programme in order to minimise the impact on our students and staff, whilst also radically reshaping and improving the services and academic experience on offer.”

It is estimated the cost-cutting move will put some 400 roles at risk - 26% of the institution’s 1,500-strong workforce.

The university says about 80% of its cuts will be from its staffing budgets with the remaining 20% from non-staff and capital savings.

CCCU is a major employer in the south east and a centre for undergraduate and postgraduate education.

Its main campus is in Canterbury but it also has one in Medway at Chatham Maritime and another in Tunbridge Wells.