I've submitted my thesis and am awaiting for a viva; in the meantime I'm making ends meet by sessional lecturing. What I'm trying to find out is whether anyone has managed to pick up sessional lecturing work in the summer term (e.g. May, June), or does it pretty much dry up after Easter? Has anyone had any luck finding work as exam invigilators, exam marking etc over the summer period? I don't need full time work, just a few hours a week (to ensure that I qualify for maternity allowance in the latter half of next year). Am in the UK.

In my experience, work seems to dry up after Easter. In my uni, teaching goes on until May and then exams are in June, so there's a bit of work until then. There's pretty much nothing in July and August, until the very end of Aug/Sept when I've done some exam invigilating.

You could give it a go, there might be a summer course running that you can teach, which would free up a tenured lecturer's time to get more publications out, or even just put your hand up for marking work.

Or you could send out an email to your department/faculty looking for casual RA work. Maybe there are unit courses that need updating with relevant literature for the topic(s) etc.