Jason Arday will become the University of Cambridge’s youngest ever black professor next month. Arday, a scholar on race, inequality and education, will start as professor of the sociology of education at the end of Lent term.

At Cambridge, he will build on his earlier work, which addresses the under-representation of black and minority ethnic people in higher education and academic careers, and looks at how more equitable educational outcomes can be achieved. Arday will be the sixth black professor the university has appointed.

Arday stated that the lack of representation in academia is a “stain on the sector”, and something “we collectively need to think about”.

Arday said: “My work focuses primarily on how we can open doors to more people from disadvantaged backgrounds and truly democratise higher education. Hopefully being in a place like Cambridge will provide me with the leverage to lead that agenda nationally and globally.”

While he said Cambridge had made “notable gains in attempting to diversify the landscape”, there is still “ so much more to be done”.

Bhaskar Vira, the pro-vice-chancellor for education at the University of Cambridge, said: “Jason Arday is an exceptional scholar of race, inequality and education. He will contribute significantly to Cambridge’s research in this area and to addressing the under-representation of people from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, especially those from black, Asian, and other minority ethnic communities.

Vira continued: “His experiences highlight the barriers faced by many under-represented groups across higher education and especially at leading universities. Cambridge has a responsibility to do everything it can to address this by creating academic spaces where everyone feels they belong.”

When he was three years old, Arday was diagnosed with global development delay and autism spectrum disorder, and he did not learn to speak until he was 11. He went on to gain two GCSEs in PE and textiles and studied for a BTEC in college, before completing a degree in PE and Education studies. He funded his PhD studies by working part-time at Sainsbury’s and Boots. Working as a PE lecturer during the day, he started drafting academic papers in the evening and studied sociology.

To date, the university has only appointed five black professors, none of whom are women. Figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency in 2021 indicate that only 155 out 23,000 professors (less than 1%) in the UK were black.