About
Dr Jane Parry is an Associate Professor of Work and Employment and UK Parliament Thematic Research Lead on Business, Economics and Trade. She is Chair of the Business and Law Research Ethics Sub-Committee, and Co-Chair of the Faculty of Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee. Her applied research looks at how employment, careers and work organisation are changing, and how HRM and policy spheres can respond. Jane recently sat on the BEIS working group on The Future of Work, and in 2021 was the highest-ranking academic in HR Magazine’s influential thinkers list. A former parliamentary academic fellow for the Parliamentary Office on Science and Technology, Jane undertook research there looking at skills development in policy careers. She led the cross-institutional UKRI/ESRC-funded project Work After Lockdown, and is currently researching flexible working after the pandemic for Acas, and how young people's use of different workspaces affects their productivity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=p7_fH2_3d0w
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Changing workplaces and occupations
- Workforce inequalities
- Flexible, remote and hybrid working
- The interaction of paid and unpaid work in individual lifecourse trajectories
- Policy-focused research
Current research
Work After Lockdown (remote and hybrid working)
Flexible working in the post-pandemic landscape
Young people, workspaces, and productivity
Female entreprenneurs in the Global South
Research projects
Active projects
Completed projects
Publications
Teaching
Qualitative research methods
The sociology of work and organaisations
Strategic human resource management in a pandemic economy
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Jane is an Associate Professor of Work and Employment at Southampton Business School. She is Chair of the Business and Law Research Ethics Sub-Committee and Co-Chair of the Faculty of Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee. She is seconded to the UK Parliament 2024-2026 for 3 days a week to work as Thematic Research Lead in Business, Economics and Trade.
Jane is a sociologist of work and applied qualitative researcher, who has managed projects for a range of funding bodies and government departments over the past two decades, raising £1.5m in research revenue. Her research looks at how employment and careers are changing within different occupations, as well as how disadvantage operates within labour markets, with a particular focus on life course factors. She was a co-editor of Blackwell's A New Sociology of Work? and of Routledge's forthcoming Sociology, Work and Organisations: A global perspective.
Jane came to an academic career from starting out as a researcher for Peter Hain PC. She is particularly concerned with producing impactful research, and involving policymakers and practitioners to ensure that that policy is continually informed by high-quality evidence. She regularly contributes to Government consultations and inquiries. Her research on independent living was taken up by the Minister for Pensions to inform the then Link Age strategy, and she has run a roundtable at Portcullis House on flexible work sponsored by the Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions. She has worked for clients including the Health and Safety Executive, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Economic and Social Research Council, and, on many occasions, the DWP. She has recently sat on BEIS working group on The Future of Work.
Jane is a former Parliamentary Academic Fellow for the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST), and is led Work After Lockdown, a cross-institutional project funded by the UKRI/ESRC, that followed organisations and individuals negotiating change following COVID-19 driven working from home. She has continued this interest in hybrid and flexible working, recently conducting research for Acas on how different sectors use flexible working in a combination of statutory and informal ways, and is currently looking at the links between young people's use of different workpaces, and their productivity, learning, and well-being. She has contributed to various Radio 4 and BBC programmes, The Financial Times, Times, and written for The Guardian on future of work debates.
She is Co-I on a current project funded by the British Academy looking at female entrepreneurs' working practices in the Global South.
Prizes
- HR Magazine’s most influential thinkers (2021)