In a statement, the university said the whole sector in the UK was under severe financial strain, “largely because tuition fees were not increased to keep up with inflation for almost a decade”.

It added international student recruitment had become increasingly unreliable partly because of the government policy on visas.

It added shifts in what people wanted to study, and where, meant in some of its subject areas there were not enough students to sustain the level of academic staff employed.

As such, it was consulting with colleagues who would be potentially affected by proposals “to reduce staffing levels in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences”.

The university said: “We are not proposing to close any subject areas at Keele and any reductions would still maintain favourable ratios of staff to students, thus safeguarding the student experience.”