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Two ongoing and recurrent debates in the employment of academic staff are (1) how much industry experience should faculty staff have? and (2) what priority is given to research, teaching or both? Such debates take place worldwide and are particularly relevant to vocational subject areas. Through a statistical analysis of circa 200 job adverts for lecturer/assistant professor, senior lecturer/associate professor, and professor/full professor positions in Construction and Engineering posts in the UK, this paper investigates the essential and desirable attributes required for 'research', 'teaching' and 'overall requirements'. The analysis shows institutions unmistakably focus on, and coherently recruit for research, but demonstrate very little reasoned approach to recruiting for teaching. Indeed, findings identify 'administration' as the key teaching priority. Further empirical analysis demonstrates no significant difference in recruitment strategy before and after the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework, despite its aim to put teaching excellence to the fore.

"Career Academics" are principally research-led, entering academia with limited or no industrial or practical experience. UK Higher Education Institutions welcome them for their potential to attain research grant funding and publish world-leading journal papers, ultimately enhancing institutional reputation. This polemical paper problematises the Career Academic around three areas: their institutional appeal; their impact on the student experience, team dynamics and broader academic functions; and current strategic policy to employ them. We also argue that recent UK Government teaching-focused initiatives will not address needs to employ practical academics, or "Pracademics" in predominantly vocational Construction and Engineering Education. We generate questions for policy-makers, institutions and those implementing strategy. We argue that research is key, but partial rebalancing will achieve a diverse academic skill base to achieve contextualised construction and engineering education. In wider European contexts, the paper resonates with issues of academic "drift" and provides reflection for others on the UK context.