This thesis gives an account of the changing labour process of lecturers in the English Further Education (FE) sector, based on a detailed case study analysis of three colleges in the West Midlands. The evidence generated from this study shows that they are working harder, for longer, delivering to more students within what appears to be an increasingly oppressive mangerialist regime. They are also inspected, observed and appraised both inside and outside of the classroom, as college managers have sought to gain control over the total sphere of their work activity. These changes are argued here to have been triggered by reforms introduced to the sector under the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act. This was framed by a broader public policy imperative to reconstruct welfare provision in accordance with neoliberalist ideals. For the lecturers in these case study colleges, this neoliberalist logic has translated down into a range of complex issues that have directly affected the ways in which the job is performed, the circumstances under which it is performed and how it is rewarded. Labour process theory offers a powerful analytical lens through which to examine these changes