This research identifies the prevalent external forces that have been a catalyst to change in governance and management structures in UK universities. It reviews the effects of growing commercialisation against a backdrop of changing funding dynamics. The study included the political forces that have transformed higher education, alongside the proliferation of managerialism. It examines these effects against traditional welfarist and altruistic views of education, further investigating the differing management structures and archetypes that exist. In addition to this, the research reviews the effects of these forces against the more complex university typology of ancient, red brick. plate glass and new institutions. Utilising the pragmatic philosophical underpin the research employs mixedmethodological approaches of qualitative exploratory desk research, quantitative questionnaires and ultimately qualitative interviews. These entailed the analysis of data both inductively and deductively. Questionnaire and interview surveys were undertaken on UK universities on a range of staff groups within institutional hierarchies. These 'include senior management groups, teaching and research staff, and administrative staff to provide a diverse and reflective range of responses from all staff members. The research has identified changing notions of collegiality and traditional academic autonomy towards more managed and corporate focused management structures. It has further uncovered disparate approaches that exist against the various institutions as a factor of age of establishment rather than solely on type. It contributes to the current body of knowledge by amalgamating the different external forces and reviewing its effects on university management, further uncovering these management structures to exist as dominant-institutional and subsegmented or sub-structural forms alongside cultural permutations. The research further posits that the established dichotomy of traditional and new universities inaccurately reflects the complexity ofthe higher education sector within the UK.