Nature’s 2026 job satisfaction survey

This article is the second in a series discussing the results of Nature ’s 2026 science-job satisfaction survey. It’s the latest edition of such surveys, which started in 2010; the last two took place in 2018 and 2021. The 2026 survey, created in partnership with Thinks Insight & Strategy, a research consultancy in London, launched in May and was advertised on nature.com, in Springer Nature digital products and through e-mail campaigns. It had 3,882 self-selecting respondents across 133 countries with 31% describing themselves as female and 19% as belonging to a minority ethnic group in their country of work. The full survey data sets are available at go.nature.com/4b2drrc .

Umar, a mathematics lecturer in northern Nigeria, has worked at his university for more than ten years. In that time, he’s had only one pay rise: in 2024, when the government raised the national minimum wage.…