Sally Hunt has been re-elected as general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU) in a landslide victory.

Hunt defeated her only opponent, Mark Campbell, by a margin of 6,835 votes, taking 73 per cent of the votes cast.

The margin of Hunt’s victory is more than five times greater than when she was elected UCU’s first general secretary in 2007, when she won by 1,346 votes.

She said: “College and university staff play a vital role in our society and they deserve better than to have their pensions attacked, pay frozen and the services they provide threatened with privatisation.

“UCU’s role today is not just to protect members’ professional interests but also to stand up for the value of education itself.

“Improving support for members and branches in the current climate is not an optional extra, it is essential to protect our people wherever they work.

“I stood on a platform of improving services for members and supporting branches, campaigning on what matters and giving members more say in the union’s decisions.

“Achieving this will mean making difficult choices such as reducing the size of our national executive committee to that of other unions in order to put more resources on the front line.

“This election result and the strong mandate I have received shows that UCU members recognise the need for positive change within the union if we are to rise to the many challenges we face.”

The results for UCU vice-president and other elected officials should be available early next week.