All Universities | Every day Mail On-line

Are Oxford and Cambridge actually higher than each different British college? How do the likes of Leeds, Manchester and Bristol evaluate? And what about up-and-coming establishments such because the College of Leicester?

At this time, we publish The Mail College Information rankings for 2025 – and there are some massive surprises within the outcomes. Our information is probably the most complete, broadly based mostly, in-depth evaluation of the UK’s main universities you’ll discover.

The Mail rating is predicated on current efficiency information in areas similar to instructing and analysis, in addition to the views of the 346,000 final-year college students. Plus, we’ve crunched the numbers to determine universities the place college students stand the most effective likelihood of getting a high-skilled job after they graduate, the salaries they’ll earn (helpful for paying off that scholar mortgage) and whether or not they really feel, 15 months after leaving, that their careers are on observe.

In addition to immediately’s article showcasing the complete rankings (see beneath), Mail+ subscribers can entry The Mail College Information the place there’s a wealth of additional data and studying in addition to our unique College Finder device.

Right here, you’ll be able to search all of the UK’s main universities and personalise the outcomes in keeping with the elements YOU worth most – even together with standards similar to lodging value and college dimension.

And for the primary time this yr, you should use the College Finder to point out which universities are ranked highest for the topic you need to research. We’ve assessed universities throughout 78 of the preferred topics, based mostly on the important thing elements that may form your time at college.

1. Imperial Faculty London

Overview

Imperial retains its place on the head of our college rating for a second yr, pulling additional away from Oxford and Cambridge. Prior to now 12 months, it has additionally change into the top-ranked British establishment (and second globally) within the 2025 version of the QS World College Rankings. Imperial recruits the most effective college students from world wide in science, expertise, engineering, arithmetic, medication and enterprise (or STEMMB because it likes to name it). We named it College of the 12 months final yr off the again of its rankings success, however the wider causes for the award stay as true immediately as they have been 12 months in the past. These embody the college’s sturdy social conscience. It takes widening entry severely, with one of the vital progressive bursary programmes within the UK. It additionally makes diminished presents to college students who qualify beneath its contextual admissions standards, which have been beefed up this yr. The college is predicated in South Kensington, on a campus adjoining to the capital’s museum district, and has 9 different websites across the capital. Imperial’s graduates are in demand, with extra going into extremely expert jobs than these from another college, and commanding the best salaries, too. 

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2. College of Oxford

Overview

The social demographic of Oxford is altering after a concerted effort to open up the college to a wider vary of scholars. In 2023, 68% of the UK undergraduate consumption have been educated in state colleges, 21.2% got here from probably the most deprived backgrounds, 7.6% had certified free of charge college meals and greater than 1 / 4 have been black, Asian or from different minority ethnicities. Oxford’s willpower to diversify its consumption has not led to any compromises in its need to recruit solely the brightest, nonetheless. Many of the 23,000 or so who apply annually will go on to realize not less than AAA at A-level, however the college prides itself on the health of its admissions course of (that includes examinations and interviews) to determine the scholars that may actually fly right here. Educational life revolves round weekly tutorials, which occur individually or in small teams in school. There are 32 undergraduate schools spanning the traditional and fashionable, massive and small, conventional and relaxed, and never all topics can be found in every. Expressing no school desire in your utility can also be an possibility. However be fast. A deadline of October 15 is simply one other method wherein Oxford units itself aside from the gang. 

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3. College of Cambridge

Overview

The scrapping of state college admissions targets at Cambridge, introduced earlier this yr, isn’t an indication that the college not cares about equity in its entry processes. As a substitute, it’s proof of the success of its insurance policies over the previous decade, which have gone an extended option to eradicating the dominance of personal colleges, with 72.9% state college admissions in 2022. Based mostly on the phrases of recent vice-chancellor, Professor Deborah Prentice, regional disparities in admissions could also be addressed subsequent. Final September, 52.5% of undergraduates got here from London and the South East, whereas 1.8% got here from the North East and 5% from Yorkshire. Software numbers are secure, with round six purposes for every place. The minimal A-level presents vary from A*A*A to A*AA, in distinction to Oxford, which places extra retailer by its admissions assessments and makes many presents at ‘simply’ AAA. There are 29 undergraduate schools to select from, and it pays to go to earlier than making use of to see the place you may finest slot in. Not all are chocolate-box fairly, and never all are bang in the midst of town centre. Purposes shut on October 15.

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4. London College of Economics and Political Science

Overview

There are actually virtually 15 purposes for each place on the London College of Economics and Political Science (LSE), after a yr which noticed the second-highest charge of purposes on file however 270 fewer college students admitted. Many of the influence of that drop was felt by UK college students – a sign not simply of the current funding disaster in greater schooling (universities earn far extra money from abroad college students) but in addition of the worldwide market wherein LSE recruits. A spot at LSE is coveted the world over, such is its pre-eminence in politics, economics, enterprise and the social sciences. College students come from a wider vary of backgrounds than in most elite Russell Group universities – the product of a constant mission to widen entry to its programs. One third of presents made to UK college students final yr have been discounted contextual presents taking account of social or instructional drawback. With simply over 40 undergraduate diploma programmes, LSE presents a decent portfolio of topics. Located in central London, and near the theatres, museums and retail distractions, college students have lots to do when they aren’t finding out onerous. Graduates are properly paid and vastly in demand. 

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5. College Faculty London

Overview

Now absolutely open, UCL East offers College Faculty London a second residence to go alongside its long-standing base in Bloomsbury, central London. Positioned inside the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, UCL East is a part of the fashionable East Financial institution cultural and academic legacy of London 2012. With 54% of admissions final yr drawn from overseas, no different college recruits undergraduates from abroad on a bigger scale. UCL was based in 1826 and, because it approaches its bicentenary, it stays true to its founding precept of equality in all issues, offering £11.7m in monetary assist to round 30% of the consumption final yr, whereas round one in six gained a spot through a contextual supply. There’s tutorial energy throughout all disciplines and its free-thinking graduates are in demand – the most recent Excessive Fliers report discovered UCL was focused by extra high employers than another London college. That legendary free-thinking will likely be in proof in court docket in 2026 when round 5,000 present and former college students take landmark authorized motion in opposition to the college over Covid and strike-related disruption to their levels. Many different universities will likely be watching from behind the couch.

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6. College of Warwick

Overview

Shortlisted for our College of the 12 months title, Warwick seems graduates who’re among the many most sought-after; the college sits sixth on this yr’s Excessive Fliers rating of universities focused by the most important variety of main graduate employers, forward of each Oxford and Cambridge. The college celebrates its 60th anniversary subsequent yr with purposes operating at file ranges – 58% greater than a decade in the past – and admissions are at a stage overwhelmed solely throughout the pandemic years of inflated grades. The college recruits nationally and globally, and it is without doubt one of the establishments that mops up college students who miss out on Oxbridge. The spacious campus college sits not in Warwick, however on the outskirts of Coventry. Educational, sporting, social and residential services are all shut handy. The Warwick Arts Centre, which has 5 areas for theatre and music, three cinemas and a gallery, is without doubt one of the largest outdoors London. Sporting services are wonderful, too, and Warwick is a critical participant in inter-university competitions. Educational energy spans the humanities, humanities and languages, in addition to the social sciences, science and engineering. The current triple gold award from the Instructing Excellence Framework for total ranking, scholar expertise and scholar outcomes speaks to that broad-based brilliance.

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7. College of St Andrews

Overview

St Andrews, our College of the 12 months for Pupil Expertise, has established itself as an alternative choice to Oxford and Cambridge over the previous twenty years, going toe-to-toe with the UK’s two most well-known universities. It has topped extra home college rankings than both Oxford or Cambridge previously three years, its success constructed on an unrivalled file for scholar satisfaction with instructing high quality, assist and their total college expertise. St Andrews tops our evaluation of the coed expertise scores on this yr’s Nationwide Pupil Survey. The college proves that it’s potential to satisfy the excessive expectations of demanding, well-qualified college students, measured within the Nationwide Pupil Survey, when many rivals within the Russell Group come up woefully brief. It additionally has a rising status in key areas of analysis with international influence. Educational excellence spans all 4 schools – arts, divinity, medication and science –  resulting in fierce competitors for locations. The attractiveness of St Andrews extends to its location. Perched on a rocky outcrop on the east coast of Fife, St Andrews is a small, fairly city the place it’s inconceivable to discern the place the city ends and the college begins. College students make up greater than half the inhabitants. When not finding out, you’ll be able to decrease your golf handicap or run alongside the gorgeous seaside that featured within the iconic film, Chariots Of Hearth.

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8. College of Strathclyde

Overview

Strathclyde, winner of our Scottish College of the 12 months award final yr and runner-up to Imperial Faculty London for the UK title, is an excellent college with a stellar file for graduate employment, significantly in areas the place there’s a nationwide scarcity of in a position graduates. It’s an engineering powerhouse and one of many UK’s main technological universities. It is usually socially progressive, admitting by each headcount and proportion extra college students from the 20% of Scottish postcodes thought of to be probably the most disadvantaged than at another extremely selective college in Scotland. Greater than 225 years after its institution, it stays the ‘place of helpful studying’ envisaged by its posthumous founder, John Anderson. Throughout all 4 schools – engineering, humanities and social sciences, science and the Strathclyde Enterprise College – {industry} and enterprise routinely have enter on the right track construction and programme supply, with lots of these firms providing placements to college students. The college’s dedication to getting ready college students for the world of labor extends to embracing apprenticeships. A complete of 650 learners are engaged in six graduate apprenticeship programmes in Scotland, working with 200 employers, and an additional 100 learners are enrolled on 5 diploma apprenticeships, working with 46 employers based mostly in England.

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9. College of Tub

Overview

Based within the Sixties, Tub’s fashionable hillside campus sits above the Georgian metropolis, and is famend for science, engineering, enterprise and its excellent sports activities services. Crew Tub is without doubt one of the massive hitters within the college sports activities leagues and residential to many nationwide and international-standard athletes, who can mix their research with top-class coaching. The college noticed a file variety of purposes and admissions in 2023, with 4,750 college students enrolling by way of Ucas – an virtually 7% rise on the yr earlier than. Tub is vastly well-liked with graduate employers, too, and our College of the 12 months for Graduate Jobs award final yr acknowledged this. Graduates command a number of the highest beginning salaries of any college. Tub works onerous to combine college students from all walks of life. The 50 annual recipients of the Gold scholarship, who come from under-represented and low-income backgrounds, have the choice of receiving mentoring, coaching in private growth, networking and expertise, and assist with securing placements and internships. Additionally they participate in 50 hours of volunteering, fundraising or outreach work. 

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10. College of Dundee

Overview

Dundee is without doubt one of the powerhouses of Scottish greater schooling and our Scottish College of the 12 months. It’s now one among three Scottish universities to be ranked in our UK high 10. The college has a formidable status in medication, biomedicine and the life sciences and performs a key function within the economic system of its residence metropolis and seems high-calibre graduates able to make an influence. It’s estimated that the college helps one in 12 jobs within the wider metropolis. Occupying a central campus in Dundee, the college has additional outposts at Ninewells Hospital (the medical college) and Kirkcaldy, 30 miles away in Fife, which is residence to a few of its nursing and midwifery provision. Scores on this yr’s Nationwide Pupil Survey have recovered after just a few lean years, with college students scoring instructing high quality significantly extremely. Nonetheless, purposes fell by greater than 10% for admission in September 2023. In opposition to this background, the college created an schooling academy final yr to place delivering an excellent schooling and scholar expertise entrance and centre. Amongst its goals are finishing up a evaluation of scholar providers, additional embedding employability and enterprise in diploma programmes, and creating Dundee’s digital campus.

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College of Sheffield

Overview

Shortlisted for our College of the 12 months award this yr and as soon as once more the top-ranked college in northern England, Sheffield has seen file numbers of purposes for 4 successive years. Additional proof of its calibre and recognition was offered by this yr’s Whatuni Pupil Selection Awards, which noticed it topped College of the 12 months and voted finest for scholar life by its personal college students. It was named as our College of the 12 months for Pupil Expertise this time final yr, based mostly on its wonderful leads to the Nationwide Pupil Survey. A rising contextual presents scheme cuts two or three grades from the usual supply for many programs for college kids from under-represented teams, bringing the college inside attain for a extra numerous scholar inhabitants than you discover at most different Russell Group universities. The college is a melting pot, recruiting from throughout the UK, and one in 5 undergraduates are recruited from abroad. College students are attracted not simply by the college’s tremendous status and services; in addition they love town and the encompassing space, and lots of select to settle right here after graduating. Sheffield has all-round tutorial energy, however its engineering, supplies science and medication programs are particularly extremely regarded. College students can draw on the college’s careers and employability assist providers for so long as they want after graduating. 

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St George’s, College of London

Overview

From August 1, the UK’s solely specialist medication and healthcare college turned one half of the brand new Metropolis St George’s, College of London ‘well being powerhouse’ following a merger with Metropolis, College of London. The brand new establishment wins our College of the 12 months for Graduate Jobs award, based mostly on its earlier success in scholar outcomes throughout medication, healthcare and the professions. It is usually runner-up for UK College of the 12 months, partly for the potential that the union presents. The merger brings collectively two establishments with a major and complementary presence in medication and healthcare, whereas on the similar time including Metropolis’s common schooling of execs into the combo. It creates a college that spans each a number of disciplines and the capital itself, which is predicted to show a major draw to candidates going ahead. It hopes to carry its essential mass to bear on tackling the coverage, remedy and analysis points dealing with the NHS. Based mostly in Tooting, south London, St George’s is finest recognized for medical coaching, however for a few years it has additionally provided an intensive vary of health-related programs, encompassing biomedical science, scientific pharmacology, diagnostic radiography, healthcare science, occupational remedy, paramedic science, physiotherapy, and radiotherapy and oncology. St George’s attracts a various consumption, with greater than two-thirds of these admitted drawn from ethnic minorities and round one-third are mature returners to schooling.

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King’s Faculty London

Overview

King’s is investing £45.5m in hiring new employees, creating new interdisciplinary analysis centres and constructing new infrastructure to increase its science schooling providing and leverage the college’s breadth of experience throughout the humanities, legislation, expertise and engineering. The goal is to boost instructing and drive analysis breakthroughs. King’s is without doubt one of the UK tutorial powerhouses, with excellence throughout all disciplines and one of many largest concentrations of medical and healthcare provision at any college, encompassing three of London’s largest instructing hospitals in Man’s, St Thomas’s and King’s Faculty Hospital. The variety of purposes previously two years is greater than at any time within the lengthy historical past of the college. Slightly below 7,000 undergraduates have been admitted final yr as competitors for locations moved above 10:1, with greater than 40% of them recruited from abroad. Nonetheless, the college works onerous to stay accessible to all. It has the most effective information for social inclusion of any Russell Group establishment, with a shade beneath 40% of all college students being the primary of their quick household to go to college.

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Loughborough College

Overview

There are brains to go along with the brawn at Loughborough, our Sports activities College of the 12 months. Famed for its sporting prowess, the college can also be one of many nation’s tutorial powerhouses, exemplified by the current success of alumnus Charlie Dobson, the Crew GB athlete who took silver within the 400m on the European Athletics Championships in Rome in June. He graduated with a firstclass diploma in aeronautical engineering in 2023. Loughborough-connected Olympians went on to realize 16 medals in Paris this summer time (4 gold, 4 silver and eight bronze) which might have ranked the college sixteenth within the international medal desk, forward of nations like Sweden, Kenya and Eire. Loughborough has the most effective college sports activities services this facet of the Atlantic. They’re so good that a number of sports activities – athletics, swimming, triathlon, cricket, weightlifting and netball – have their nationwide headquarters onsite. Its college students have received the inter-university British Universities and Schools Sport (Bucs) title for 43 consecutive years. However the college additionally sits in or simply outdoors the highest 10 in all the main home rankings for academia, too. It tops the QS world rating for sports-related topics, and its design college is without doubt one of the finest within the UK. For a few years, Loughborough has aced the Nationwide Pupil Survey, the outcomes confirming that its college students love life on its 523-acre campus. After they depart, they’re vastly in demand, incomes a number of the highest graduate salaries anyplace.

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College of Birmingham

Overview

Birmingham is without doubt one of the largest and hottest universities within the nation. That does not make it impersonal, nonetheless. In contrast to another universities on this scale, Birmingham seeks to make supply holders really feel a part of the college from the outset. This yr, to spice up the variety of agency acceptances of locations, it diminished its asking charge throughout all topics by one A-level grade to offer-holders. The technique appears to be working, with final yr’s 7,040 admissions by way of Ucas overwhelmed solely within the grade-inflated pandemic years. Competitors to get a suggestion is stiff, although, with eight purposes for each place. One of many unique redbrick universities – so known as due to the supplies used within the principal buildings which date from the early twentieth century- the college is positioned within the prosperous suburb of Edgbaston, a seven-minute practice journey from town centre. The campus has been closely invested in just lately, too. It’s a member of the Russell Group of main, research-intensive universities, and sits behind solely Manchester and Nottingham within the newest Excessive Fliers analysis into the colleges most focused by high employers.

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Durham College

Overview

Durham is the darling of the unbiased college sector, taking comfortably the best proportion of privately educated college students of any British college. However it’s working onerous to dispel its elitist picture, providing a number of the most beneficiant bursaries and scholarships, and steadily widening participation. ‘The Durham distinction’ isn’t just an outdated advertising and marketing deal with for the college, however a mirrored image of its distinctive structure. It’s collegiate like Oxford and Cambridge, however the 16 undergraduate schools are primarily social groupings somewhat than tutorial ones. Schools are break up between the Bailey (the older ones within the streets across the cathedral and chateau) and the Hill (simply to the south of town centre, the place the newer schools have sprouted up). Durham Fortress itself is residence to College Faculty, the oldest school, which is the preferred with candidates. That is carefully adopted by Collingwood, a Hill school that has benefited from vital philanthropic funding in its social and sports activities services. Durham’s all-round tutorial strengths span the humanities, sciences and social sciences. 

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Queen Mary, College of London

Overview

Queen Mary is probably the most socially inclusive of the research-intensive Russell Group universities by a ways. It recruits closely from inside London (greater than 70% of final yr’s UK undergraduate consumption) the place participation in greater schooling is the best, and but manages to draw virtually half of its college students from houses the place neither mum or dad attended college. Two thirds of the consumption have been from Asian, black or mixed-race households and simply 7.5% have been educated privately. The monetary support provided is critical in each sum and attain, the college has a robust psychological well being and wellbeing assist construction, and it presents mentoring from present college students and alumni – all in acknowledgement of the extra challenges many college students may face coming from teams historically under-represented on campus. Purposes have been the second highest on file in 2023. The principle Mile Finish campus lies in a classy a part of the capital with a wonderful social scene, and there are top-notch sporting services onsite and within the close by Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The well-regarded medical and dentistry college is a brief distance away close to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, with a second outpost in West Smithfield at Barts hospital.

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College of Bristol

Overview

Bristol is doing its bit to tear down limitations which have prevented deprived kids from attending elite universities. It was one of many first universities to embrace contextual presents – one quarter of Bristol’s entrants held one final yr – and it’s extending its bursary scheme to incorporate all college students from houses with lower than £50,000 earnings. It’s a member of the Russell Group of research-led universities, that are among the many hardest to get into. Not that this places anybody off. Purposes hit a file excessive final yr at greater than 61,000, whereas just below 7,000 college students have been admitted. The college recruits virtually half of its UK college students from London and the south-east, who’re drawn by its wonderful status and good hyperlinks to the remainder of the UK. The college has centres of excellence throughout the humanities and sciences, with chemistry of explicit word and synthetic intelligence an more and more influential space of exercise. The newest Excessive Fliers survey discovered that Bristol was the fifth most focused college amongst main graduate employers, too.

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College of Surrey

Overview

Surrey has upped its sport previously decade to change into one of many main Sixties universities. It now has the uncommon distinction of getting each a veterinary college – opened in 2015, and one among solely 11 within the nation – and a brand new medical college. These jewels observe within the footsteps of different, older gems such because the Surrey House Centre, which was based in 1979. It has since change into a number one international centre of excellence for house engineering and one of many pioneers of small satellite tv for pc expertise. The college is positioned on two campuses – Stag Hill and Manor Park – a brief distance from the centre of Guildford. Regardless of its leafy, stockbroker-belt location, the college presents the most cost effective scholar lodging within the nation, with greater than 200 rooms at simply £3,002 for a 38-week let. That is of big profit to a surprisingly numerous scholar inhabitants; 4 in 10 of final yr’s consumption are the primary of their quick household to go to college. An impressive graduate jobs file, which sees round 82% of scholars land high-skilled jobs on well-above-average salaries, is fostered by a flourishing placement programme with greater than 2,300 nationwide and worldwide companions.

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College of Southampton

Overview

Purposes for this research-intensive Russell Group college crested 45,000 for the primary time final yr. It really works onerous to make programs with principally excessive entry necessities obtainable to a wider viewers, with a contextual supply scheme lowering the usual ask by as much as two grades throughout all programs. Assessors for final yr’s Instructing Excellence Framework (TEF) praised the college’s Ignite Your Success programme as ‘excellent’. The scheme offers tutorial and profession alternatives and monetary assist for college kids from under-represented teams. The broader TEF results of three silver awards for total ranking, scholar expertise and scholar outcomes was considerably lower than the college would have hoped for. It’s based mostly on a number of websites throughout Southampton, with the principle Highfield campus being probably the most enticing. The college is a real tutorial all-rounder, however the Nationwide Oceanography Centre on its Waterfront campus is a notable gem. It’s residence to the varsity of ocean and earth science, which has a coral reef laboratory for testing environmental results on reefs in a managed setting, in addition to a analysis vessel. Southampton’s attain extends into close by Winchester, which is residence to the college’s artwork college.

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College of Glasgow

Overview

Glasgow is probably the most Scottish of the massive three universities in Scotland, with 4 in each 5 UK college students recruited from north of the border, way more than at Edinburgh and St Andrews. However just below one quarter of final yr’s consumption have been worldwide college students, drawn by Glasgow’s international excellence as a research-intensive Russell Group college with a historical past going again almost 600 years. Whereas a number of the college’s civic structure betrays its lengthy historical past, it’s getting extra fashionable by the yr because of a £1bn decade-long funding programme. This month’s consumption of scholars must be the primary to make use of the brand new Clarice Pears Constructing, which brings the College of Well being & Wellbeing collectively on one web site. The principle Gilmorehill campus is in Glasgow’s modern West Finish, however there’s a additional campus at Garscube, about 4 miles away, which is residence to outside sports activities services, veterinary medication college students and the catered Wolfson Corridor scholar lodging. In Dumfries, the college teaches social and environmental sustainability, in addition to its main schooling with instructing qualification.

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College of Aberdeen

Overview

Britain’s most northerly college is among the many most prestigious. Based as King’s Faculty in 1495, it mixes historic, creeper-clad buildings on the coronary heart of the outdated metropolis with placing, fashionable services elsewhere. College students are based mostly on one among two central campuses – the trendy Foresterhill for all times sciences and medication, and Previous Aberdeen for arts, social sciences and bodily sciences. Aberdeen’s wonderful air and rail connections guarantee a robust nationwide and worldwide scholar presence, with greater than 130 nationalities represented, regardless of the college’s relative remoteness. Purposes have been falling in current occasions, nonetheless, with 16,525 searching for locations by way of Ucas for admission final September – the bottom quantity previously decade and 10% down on the yr earlier than. There are greater than 400 diploma choices, together with programs that serve the Scottish economic system, similar to mechanical engineering with oil and gasoline research, and extra uncommon mixtures, similar to legislation with choices in music. One in 10 college students are eligible for contextual diminished grades presents beneath widening entry standards.

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Queen’s College, Belfast

Overview

Queen’s College Belfast is having fun with file reputation. A whisker beneath 30,000 purposes have been made for programs starting in September 2023 – a brand new excessive – and the near-5,000 enrolments was additionally a file outdoors of the pandemic years when admissions have been distorted by teacher-assessed grades. The coed inhabitants is much extra numerous now than throughout The Troubles. Final yr, 13% of the consumption got here from abroad, and of the house recruits, 10% now come from past Belfast Lough. Hillary Clinton has been chancellor since 2020, a logo of the worldwide mindset that now pervades the college. Queen’s is a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities and instructions high grades from an consumption educated predominantly in Northern Eire’s selective grammar colleges. Nonetheless, there’s good social range on campus, with 30% of scholars qualifying for means-tested monetary assist. Educational excellence spans medication and healthcare, science, computing and engineering, the social sciences, humanities and the humanities. The enticing college district lies within the south of Belfast, near town’s Botanic Gardens and a bunch of university-run venues open to the general public, together with a theatre, gallery and an art-house cinema. The thriving metropolis centre is a brief bus journey away. 

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Aston College

Overview

Aston, which has been a college since 1966, achieves the uncommon feat of being socially inclusive in its consumption, whereas having a excessive completion charge and attaining properly within the graduate jobs market. It’s our College of the 12 months for Pupil Success in recognition of this. Making its debut this yr after opting out of our inaugural information final yr, it performs strongly in our rating, which is the one one to measure social inclusion alongside instructing, analysis and graduate outcomes. Final yr it secured triple gold within the Instructing Excellence Framework protecting scholar expertise, graduate outcomes and an total ranking, and a close to 14% improve in enrolments took recruitment to a brand new excessive. Greater than half the scholars are the primary of their quick household to go to college and 82% are from ethnic minorities. After Aston secured second place in a current social mobility rating of English universities, Professor Aleks Subic, Aston’s vice-chancellor, stated: ‘We’ve proved that it’s potential to be an inclusive college that delivers spectacular graduate outcomes, no matter a scholar’s start line or social capital.’ It is onerous to disagree.

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College of Leeds

Overview

Regardless of current poor leads to the Nationwide Pupil Survey, Leeds stays one of the vital well-liked universities within the nation, fielding almost 70,000 purposes final yr. It occupies a 100-acre campus a brief stroll from town centre. The college’s inexperienced areas and fashionable buildings are interwoven with Victorian grandeur and Sixties brutalism, giving the campus a particular attraction. Leeds has shifted again to a deal with face-to-face studying post-pandemic, and its careers service has an excellent file of supporting college students from under-represented backgrounds. Efficiency is powerful on the subject of college students attaining good diploma classifications and alumni occurring to safe high-skilled jobs, all whereas the college consciously focuses on its famend Entry to Leeds initiative to widen participation. Of final yr’s consumption, round 25% of scholars obtained a contextual supply – many courtesy of this scheme. Leeds has a spread of each catered and non-catered rooms obtainable and ensures a suggestion of lodging to all first-year college students.

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College of Liverpool

Overview

Liverpool goals to be a world high 100 college in time for its 150th anniversary in 2031. It can obtain this, partly not less than, by bettering ranges of scholar satisfaction, securing even higher graduate outcomes, rising analysis earnings and hitting sustainability targets. It’s a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities and has higher ranges of social range on campus than many others within the group. It occupies a metropolis centre web site and, with Liverpool John Moores College subsequent door, a big district of central Liverpool is successfully a glorified college precinct. The favored medical college inside the Royal Liverpool College Hospital borders one facet of this district. Dentistry, veterinary medication, nursing, structure and engineering are among the many topic areas for which the college is finest recognized. Purposes hit a file for the second successive yr in 2023 and the entire of 6,500 admissions has been topped solely as soon as. The college recruits throughout the UK, with London, the South East, West Midlands and Yorkshire every contributing between 500 and 600 undergraduates. Simply over one third of the consumption comes from the North West. 

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Metropolis, College of London

Overview

Metropolis St George’s, College of London formally got here into being on August 1, bringing collectively two beforehand separate members of the College of London federation – Metropolis and St George’s. The now-united college is our College of the 12 months for Graduate Jobs and is runner-up for the general College of the 12 months award. It has requested to be listed individually on this version of our information, nonetheless, as Metropolis and St George’s will proceed to deal with admissions individually for the upcoming September 2025 recruitment cycle. It’s within the subject of healthcare that the 2 establishments have appreciable shared and complementary expertise, however the provision that made the now former Metropolis College distinctive will stay within the merged organisation. Metropolis has lengthy positioned itself because the college of enterprise, follow and the professions – a advertising and marketing deal with based mostly round its 200 career-focused diploma choices, from enterprise administration and legislation to media and communications. 4 in 5 college students progress into extremely expert jobs, placing Metropolis among the many high performers. The merger with St George’s comes as Metropolis surfs a wave of recognition, with purposes final yr topping 30,000 for the primary time. 

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College of Manchester

Overview

The recognition of the College of Manchester continues to develop with every passing yr. Purposes hit a brand new file (93,450) for admission in September 2023 and are actually operating 44% greater than they have been simply six years in the past. With almost 10,000 undergraduates gaining locations annually, and greater than 45,000 college students total, that is greater schooling on an enormous scale. The current introduction of 12 scholar assist hubs is an try and put a human face on the tutorial machine. ‘Our college students requested us to… present clearer, consolidated and extra constant scholar assist providers delivered by skilled specialists,’ the college informed us. This may go a way in the direction of addressing the persistently poor scholar satisfaction scores registered within the Nationwide Pupil Survey. These scores have had no influence on the college’s reputation with candidates, nonetheless. They focus extra on the formidable tutorial status of this Russell Group college and the lure of town of Manchester itself, famed for its nightlife, cultural sights and the sheer quantity of scholars. The campuses of the College of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan College and the College of Salford adjoin one different, making a central scholar district of greater than 100,000 college students. 

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College of East Anglia

Overview

The College of East Anglia (UEA) is without doubt one of the main lights among the many Sixties technology of universities, with a nationwide and worldwide status for all the things from artistic writing to local weather change levels. It has simply celebrated its 60th birthday beneath one thing of a cloud, labouring beneath a £74m deficit to July 2022. Nonetheless, a brand new yr of accounts reveals a small surplus after a giant reduce in employees prices, and the college is constructing for the long run with this yr’s launch of 42 programs with a placement yr, yr overseas or basis yr added to broaden their attraction, with one other 33 programmes rostered for September 2025. The college recruits virtually 90% of its socially combined scholar inhabitants from East Anglia, London and the South East to its parkland campus on the outskirts of Norwich. It is spacious and dotted with listed buildings, together with the enduring Lasdun Wall, and can also be residence to the Norman Foster- designed Sainsbury Centre, which homes the most effective artwork collections within the nation. UEA’s Sportspark offers excellent services for athletes of all skills.

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College of Edinburgh

Overview

Edinburgh is one among the locations in British greater schooling, with solely the College of Manchester attracting extra purposes. You have to sharp elbows to win a spot, with each seat within the lecture theatre coveted by greater than 10 potential college students. Its attraction is international, with worldwide college students making up one third of undergraduate admissions final yr. The mix of a cosmopolitan scholar physique, a trendy metropolis playground and a status for instructing and analysis excellence is a successful method. Solely the persistently poor leads to the annual Nationwide Pupil Survey cease the college from rating in our UK high 10. Worldwide rankings, such because the 2025 version from QS, place Edinburgh twenty seventh on the earth (two locations greater than we do) on just about tutorial measures alone. And it’s not onerous to see why. Teachers at Edinburgh are always rolling again the boundaries of information. Keep in mind Dolly the Sheep? Assume additionally the supercomputer Archer2, which lives right here. The college was recognized as the popular location for the UK’s first next-generation exascale supercomputer, which might have been one among only a handful on the earth and 50 occasions sooner than any of our present machines, however the mission was cancelled by the brand new authorities in Westminster as a result of lack of money.

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College of Leicester

Overview

Leicester, our College of the 12 months, makes a robust case to be the mannequin college for the 21st century. Sturdy in instructing. Sturdy in analysis. Sturdy in social inclusion. Three of the important thing parts of our revolutionary rating. However do not simply take our phrase for it. The official evaluation of instructing high quality offered by the Instructing Excellence Framework noticed Leicester obtain an total gold ranking final December. And the latest official evaluation of analysis high quality, the Analysis Excellence Framework, printed in 2021, ranked Leicester twenty ninth within the UK in our evaluation of the outcomes. The college displays Leicester itself, which is without doubt one of the most socially and ethnically numerous cities within the UK. Asian, black and white college students are in virtually equal steadiness on campus, making up 32.4%, 26.2% and 31.3% of admissions respectively in September 2023. Applicable assist buildings have been put in place to make sure that all college students – and significantly these from under-represented backgrounds – succeed. Purposes and admissions are at a file excessive. The key is out: Leicester is without doubt one of the finest catches of the British greater schooling system – a top-flight college, revered by employers, which makes affordable presents inside the attain of most college students. 

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Heriot-Watt College

Overview

Heriot-Watt College (HWU) specialises in levels in science, engineering, expertise, enterprise and design – and has a first-rate file for its graduates securing well-paid, high-skilled jobs as soon as they depart. It is without doubt one of the UK’s high performers in our graduate jobs metrics and different surveys are equally complimentary. An evaluation of UK universities performed final yr by Novuna confirmed Heriot-Watt had the best proportion of graduates of any Scottish college in chief govt or managing director roles. The college started life greater than 200 years in the past as a mechanics’ institute, so the accent right here has at all times been on real-world, careers-focused schooling. The choice to make its Riccarton campus the house of the brand new Nationwide Robotarium, a partnership with the College of Edinburgh which is able to discover the sensible purposes of robotics on on a regular basis life, is not any coincidence. Round one in six UK college students is recruited from outdoors Scotland – a extra combined UK recruitment sample than at many Scottish establishments. Most are based mostly on the principal Riccarton campus on the western fringe of Edinburgh. There are smaller outposts in Galashiels, the place vogue, textiles and design programs are based mostly, and Orkney, residence to 3 postgraduate MScs in marine science and renewable vitality, in addition to the Worldwide Centre for Island Expertise. 

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College of Nottingham

Overview

Nottingham is a member of the celebrated Russell Group, has a extremely revered medical college and energy proper throughout the tutorial disciplines, and has constructed a formidable title for itself on college sports activities pitches. It recruits from throughout the UK and competitors for locations is fierce. In gentle of the college’s stiff entry necessities, the coed inhabitants is notably combined, with good illustration from ethnic minorities (round one third of final yr’s consumption) and non-selective state colleges (round two thirds). Centred on College Park, a 300-acre inexperienced lung on the coronary heart of Nottingham, it has spectacular services in a mix of interval and fashionable buildings. A brief distance away, the Jubilee campus is residence to the enterprise college, the faculties of schooling and laptop science, and the Nottingham Innovation Park. Following the homicide final yr of Barney Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, two first-year college students who have been stabbed whereas on their method residence from an end-of-term occasion, work was accomplished earlier this yr on a memorial woodland stroll on the College Park campus to commemorate all college students who’ve misplaced their lives.

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Cardiff College

Overview

Cardiff is having fun with a ‘second’. Purposes hit a brand new excessive in September 2023, and admissions soared to a stage surpassed solely throughout the pandemic when numbers have been skewed by the rise in high A-level outcomes. Slightly below 8,000 college students gained a spot, up from round 6,000 a decade in the past. Cardiff is the largest college in Wales and the one one to be a member of the elite Russell Group. It prides itself on being among the many extra socially inclusive in that group; one third of entrants are the primary of their quick household to go to college, and 4 in 5 college students have been educated at non-selective state colleges. The college occupies two campuses: Cathays Park within the metropolis centre, and the extra fashionable Heath Park a mile away, which is residence to healthcare-related programs and the College Hospital of Wales, the place the medical college is positioned. With three universities within the Welsh capital, there is no such thing as a scarcity of scholar nightlife and reductions. Cardiff ranked second in final yr’s NatWest Pupil Residing Index, a information to probably the most inexpensive UK cities for college kids. 

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College of Exeter

Overview

Being named Greater Training Establishment of the 12 months in 2023 by the Nationwide Training Alternatives Community for its work in widening entry to college confounds the standard inexperienced wellies and VW Golf GTi picture of Exeter college students in well-liked tradition. In reality, virtually one in 4 college students entered the college final September holding a contextual supply, which undercuts normal presents by two or three A-level grades in recognition of drawback. Locations on a number of the college’s hottest programmes are ring-fenced for college kids who meet its widening participation standards. There are additionally 3,000 diploma apprentices, who break up their time between paid work and research, greater than at another Russell Group college. Privately educated college students make up just below 30% of the consumption, and Exeter has undoubtedly attracted a piece of these college students who’ve been displaced by the current change in admissions insurance policies at Oxbridge. The principle Streatham campus in Exeter – one of many UK’s most stunning – is residence to the vast majority of college students. There are smaller outposts at close by St Luke’s, which is residence to its medical college, and at Penryn in Cornwall, on a campus shared with Falmouth College. 

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College of York

Overview

York wears its dedication to social justice on its sleeve. It was the primary Russell Group college to signal the Social Mobility Pledge and, whereas competitors for locations is hard, a contextual admissions programme open solely to state-educated candidates helps generate a extra numerous scholar inhabitants than in lots of universities of an analogous standing. York might have simply celebrated its 60th birthday, however it has a spring in its step courtesy of three successive years of file purposes. College students are drawn fairly evenly from throughout the UK, and one in eight undergraduates was recruited from abroad final yr. In contrast to lots of its Sixties friends, all the things at York is low-rise throughout two campuses on the outskirts of town. The college is organised into 11 schools, that are social and residential groupings somewhat than tutorial ones. These assist break the establishment into bite-sized scholar communities, whereas creating tribal loyalties. Latest gold award assessments beneath the Instructing Excellence Framework for scholar expertise, scholar outcomes and the general ranking made somewhat higher studying than this yr’s Nationwide Pupil Survey outcomes, which as soon as once more maintain York again in our rating.

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Lancaster College

Overview

Lancaster sits on a contemporary campus on the sting of this beautiful metropolis. It is without doubt one of the main lights among the many Sixties technology of universities and has constructed a supportive, cohesive scholar atmosphere round a collegiate construction. Barely 3% of first-years fail to progress on to yr two of their levels. Excessive ranges of scholar satisfaction are fostered inside the eight undergraduate schools (and one different for postgraduates), that are social somewhat than tutorial groupings. Lancaster recruits on a nationwide and worldwide stage, its college students drawn by its all-round excellence. Topic strengths vary from medication, engineering and the sciences by way of to social work, English, drama and inventive writing. The Lancaster College Administration College can also be extremely rated. The college is investing closely to spice up its already excellent status in cybersecurity, recruiting 33 lecturers and 15 professors in follow roles as a part of the £19m Safety and Safety Science initiative. The Bailrigg campus offers a vigorous arts and social scene, and there are excessive ranges of participation in sport. When all of it will get an excessive amount of, the Lake District is on the doorstep for wandering lonely as a cloud.

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Swansea College

Overview

Swansea’s seafront location, along with its wonderful tutorial pedigree, are key promoting factors for candidates – with the previous so good that the college makes use of it in ads on the edges of London buses. The college’s Singleton Park campus has been joined lately by the Bay campus, and each entrance onto the seaside at Swansea Bay. It attracts a UK-wide clientele, with fewer than half of final yr’s residence consumption recruited from Wales. There’s a sturdy worldwide contingent right here, too. The college is organised into three schools – humanities and social sciences; medication, well being and life science; and science and engineering – and has a broad portfolio of programs that features a graduate-entry medication diploma. Energy in engineering and medication is balanced by success within the arts and tradition. All UK candidates whose predicted grades fall inside the supply vary for a given course (except medication, healthcare and social work) are assured a conditional supply. Excellent sports activities services, that are an additional draw for these with brawn to go alongside brains, maintain a persistently excessive rating within the British Universities and Schools Sport (Bucs) inter-university rankings.

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Ulster College

Overview

Ulster celebrates 40 years as a college this yr, forging in that point a robust status for widening entry to greater schooling. It defines its dedication to social mobility as working ‘to make sure that private backgrounds don’t decide future prospects’. A shortlisting for our College of the 12 months award final yr recognised this work and the establishment’s function in regenerating the a number of cities and cities wherein it’s based mostly. There are three campuses in Belfast, Coleraine and Londonderry, with the college’s sports activities village in Jordanstown, seven miles outdoors Belfast. All have been the topic of heavy funding just lately, and extra enhancements are within the pipeline. The college serves a predominantly Northern Irish scholar inhabitants, who make up 99% of the British consumption. Slightly below half of them are the primary of their quick household to go to college. Latest developments similar to Ulster’s vastly expanded presence in Belfast – the place it has a campus within the Cathedral Quarter – have helped push purposes to a stage topped simply as soon as earlier than, with virtually 34,000 purposes for a spot final yr. Many undergraduate programs have transferred to Belfast from Jordanstown, the place planning permission has been granted for a £10m sports activities facility.

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Glasgow Caledonian College

Overview

Glasgow Caledonian College (GCU) is the top-ranked fashionable college in our league desk and our Fashionable College of the 12 months. It markets itself because the ‘College for the Widespread Good’ based mostly on its founding mission to be for ‘the frequent weal’ – and it achieves its goals in some model. GCU has persistently pursued insurance policies geared to tutorial excellence, social justice and producing graduates who’ve a greater file in gaining high-skilled jobs than these from many Russell Group universities. It caters for a predominantly Scottish consumption (98.6% of all UK college students recruited in 2023), with multiple in 5 recruited from postcodes among the many 20% most disadvantaged in Scotland. GCU is without doubt one of the largest suppliers of well being, social care and life sciences graduates for the NHS, produces extra constructing and surveying graduates than another college within the UK, and is the one college to supply a full suite of optometry levels. It is usually Scotland’s largest supplier of graduate apprenticeships, with greater than 700 learners on campus.

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Newcastle College

Overview

Newcastle is without doubt one of the extra well-liked locations on the upper schooling map. The college is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities in a position to entice probably the most academically gifted college students. The college may be very well-liked with the privately educated, who make up multiple in 5 entrants, and it recruits strongly from throughout the UK. College students from the North East made up simply 22.6% of final yr’s consumption – not thus far forward of the 17.1% who got here from London and the South East. The Royal Victoria Infirmary is residence to one of many UK’s main medical colleges with excellent fashionable services. The college’s Centre for Ageing and Inequalities presents world-class experience in an space of intense nationwide and international focus as society wrestles with the results of accelerating longevity. Its place in our rating – and others prefer it – is depressed by persistently low scores within the Nationwide Pupil Survey. Although the college’s graduates are among the many finest paid, with three in 4 ending up in high-skilled jobs, they rating their expertise modestly. And final yr’s Instructing Excellence Framework outcomes confirmed that view, awarding scholar expertise a bronze, when scholar outcomes and the college’s total ranking earned silver. 

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College of Studying

Overview

Studying is the place to go for all issues inexperienced. Already one of many main centres for meteorology and analysis into local weather change, the college practises what it preaches and is high of the Folks & Planet rankings for environmental and moral efficiency. It has diminished carbon emissions by greater than 60% in opposition to the baseline and goals to realize web zero within the subsequent six years. Even the meals college students eat on campus is made up of sustainable decisions and wholesome elements beneath the college’s Intelligent Delicacies scheme. A few of that meals is domestically sourced from the two,000 acres of farmland owned by the college, which has an excellent status in agriculture and animal sciences. There have been a file variety of admissions final September. Slightly below 5,000 enrolled and purposes are near file ranges, too. The college is predicated largely on the 320-acre Whiteknights campus, which has a lake, woodlands and formal gardens. The London Highway and Greenlands campuses are smaller, the latter housing the superb Henley Enterprise College on the banks of the Thames. A brand new campus in Malaysia will more and more supply the choice for UK college students to check overseas. 

Paying the payments

College students who stay in a postcode among the many 40% with the best ranges of deprivation or the bottom charges of development to college, and who come from houses with an earnings of as much as £27,000, qualify for the £1,100 annual Studying bursary. There are a small variety of scholarships, too. College students gaining AAB at A-level or equal who submit an ‘spectacular’ utility will likely be thought of for a Constructed Atmosphere undergraduate scholarship value £1,000 in annually of research throughout seven development, constructing and structure levels, whereas the Lorna Webber Vipond arts scholarship is value £1,000 per yr for one scholar finding out artwork from an RG (Studying) postcode. Studying is one among 5 universities to be a part of the PwC Flying Begin diploma programme. College students of the BA in accounting and enterprise can apply for £10,000 in bursary assist over 4 years from PwC if they’re state-educated (or privately educated on a bursary or scholarship) and are available from houses with lower than £35,000 earnings. Lodging is competitively priced. The most cost effective self-catered rooms value £6,020 for a 40-week tenancy, rising to £16,829 for a 51-week let. Catered rooms for 40 weeks value between £6,538 and £10,069.

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College of Hull

Overview

Hull is on the way in which again after slipping down home rankings and falling in reputation. Purposes are climbing as soon as extra, with Hull interesting to potential college students because of a renewed deal with the coed expertise, which obtained a gold ranking in final yr’s Instructing Excellence Framework assessments. College students have responded with a string of sturdy scores in current Nationwide Pupil Surveys. When occasions are onerous, the worth for cash provided by Hull – which frequently options at or close to the highest of lists of the most cost effective locations to stay – can also be tougher to withstand. The coed inhabitants isn’t a typical one. Almost three-quarters of them are recruited from inside Yorkshire and the Humber; round one third are mature college students aged over 21 after they start their programs; and greater than 55% come from houses the place dad and mom or carers didn’t attend college. Social range on campus is fostered by a contextual supply coverage that has broad eligibility standards. Funding in services continues apace, with healthcare, sports activities science and scholar lodging the most recent to profit. 

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College of Essex

Overview

Sixty years in the past subsequent month, a bit of greater than 100 college students arrived at a brand new college close to Colchester based mostly in three tutorial colleges: comparative research, bodily sciences and social research. Many of the Brutalist buildings for which the college is known have been nonetheless to be constructed, however from the outset Essex provided one thing totally different to the norm, the ‘radical innovation’ promised by founding vice-chancellor, Sir Albert Sloman. This college within the coronary heart of Essex countryside turned an unlikely hotbed of scholar radicalism within the late Sixties and Seventies, and constructed a global status in politics and the social sciences extra broadly. At this time, it’s residence to a big worldwide inhabitants of scholars, who make up about one third of the consumption. House college students come predominantly from East Anglia and London. College students are break up between three campuses: the mothership close to Colchester; a second coastal campus at Southend-on-Sea, specialising in well being and social care and enterprise; and a 3rd base in Loughton on the fringes of London and Epping Forest, the place the East 15 performing college is predicated. All of them supply an excellent expertise and better schooling for eminently achievable grades. 

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Royal Holloway, College of London

Overview

Located within the Surrey countryside simply past the M25, Royal Holloway is the College of London’s nation campus. It’s a well-liked mixture, with purposes and admissions each at file ranges final yr. Founder’s Constructing, modelled on a French chateau, is without doubt one of the most immediately recognisable college buildings on the earth, sitting on the coronary heart of Royal Holloway’s 135-acre campus close to Egham. The college serves a largely London and the House Counties clientele who make up round three-quarters of the UK consumption. The college started life as a school for ladies, and it really works onerous to take care of that ethos of offering fairness in alternative immediately. Regardless of its location within the Surrey stockbroker belt, final yr greater than 1 / 4 of scholars benefited from its bursaries, scholarships and hardship assist schemes. All college students are inspired to take a placement yr throughout their diploma which may be spent finding out overseas, working, finishing up voluntary work or boosting employment prospects in different methods. There’s a good social scene on campus, and wonderful sporting services translate into sustained success in inter-university competitions. 

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Northumbria College

Overview

Northumbria has loved a breakthrough few years, taking up the old-guard universities at their very own sport. It has established critical analysis credentials (it was our Analysis College of the 12 months in our final version); a robust employment observe file, with round three quarters of graduates touchdown high-skilled jobs; and a very good pedigree for social inclusion, with 36% of its consumption final yr recruited from postcodes among the many 40% that ship the fewest into greater schooling. It obtained a gold for scholar outcomes in the latest Instructing Excellence Framework (TEF), alongside barely disappointing silver rankings for scholar expertise and the general TEF evaluation. It stays a preferred selection in its residence area, with 57% of the brand new consumption of undergraduates coming from the North East in 2023, and 19% coming from Yorkshire. The college is a key participant within the regional economic system, offering extra graduates into expert jobs within the area than another college, together with its two native Russell Group rivals, Newcastle and Durham. There are sturdy ties with native employers in each the general public sector (notably the NHS) and personal sector (Proctor & Gamble, Nissan), in addition to with enterprise and {industry} extra typically. 

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London South Financial institution College

Overview

London South Financial institution College (LSBU) – our College of the 12 months for Social Inclusion and one among 5 shortlisted for our total College of the 12 months title – achieves the uncommon feat of each having ranges of social range on campus which might be uncommon in British greater schooling and having one of many strongest observe information of any college in graduate employment. Being within the cultural melting pot of the capital, which can also be residence to the nation’s best-paid jobs, undoubtedly helps, however LSBU’s success is greater than only a fluke of geography. Its admissions insurance policies goal traditionally under-represented and deprived scholar teams with appreciable success. LSBU is a part of the broader London South Financial institution Group, which additionally consists of Lambeth Faculty, London South Financial institution Technical Faculty, South Financial institution College Academy and South Financial institution College Sixth Type. This fusion of upper schooling, additional schooling and faculty inside one organisation offers pathways to college that may not in any other case exist. As a number one supplier of technical schooling, the college works carefully with enterprise and {industry} to form programs and {qualifications}. LSBU has three campuses throughout the capital. Headquartered in Southwark on the south financial institution of the River Thames, there are two newer campuses in Croydon (for enterprise and healthcare college students) and Havering (for grownup and psychological well being nursing college students).

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Edinburgh Napier College

Overview

Edinburgh Napier College (ENU) is without doubt one of the most high-achieving and progressive of the trendy Scottish universities, attaining each persistently sturdy rankings in tables similar to ours and enduring success within the graduate jobs marketplace for its college students. ENU ranks sixth within the UK amongst fashionable universities for the proportion of graduates in high-skilled jobs this yr, solely marginally behind its Russell Group neighbour the College of Edinburgh. Pupil satisfaction ranges captured within the annual Nationwide Pupil Survey stay excessive, too. When the success of scholar outcomes is being evaluated, it helps to have a whole bunch of graduates beginning work in our hospitals and colleges annually – and Edinburgh Napier has simply that. Nonetheless, the vary of programs additionally spans enterprise, the humanities and inventive industries, utilized sciences, and computing, engineering and the constructed atmosphere. Break up throughout three campuses, ENU’s 15,000 undergraduate and postgraduate college students are based mostly on the west facet of the Scottish capital. It recruits primarily from Scotland, with all bar 180 of the two,860 UK-domiciled recruits in September 2023 coming from north of the border.

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College of Bradford

Overview

Bradford is the UK’s Metropolis of Tradition in 2025, acknowledging the cultural range of town and its college, which has lengthy been one of the vital socially inclusive within the nation. A couple of third of admissions acquire their place with a contextual supply, and the college recruits 4 in 5 of its college students from the quick space and extra extensively throughout Yorkshire, making certain the ethnic, social and cultural combine on campus is aligned with town past. Admissions in September 2023 rose to a brand new file of just below 3,000 – 10% greater than the earlier yr. Virtually 75% of scholars land high-skilled jobs after they depart – testimony to the enter employers have in designing many programs, and the skilled accreditation that always comes with the levels, too.  Bradford presents an intensive vary of science, expertise, engineering and health-related levels, and a major proportion of graduates go into the NHS. Town campus is surprisingly inexperienced and has wonderful sports activities services on web site, with extra to be discovered a five-minute stroll away on the Sports activities Park. 

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Bangor College

Overview

Bangor was our Welsh College of the 12 months within the earlier version of this information. This month it joins the unique membership of universities with a medical college, because the North Wales Medical College opens its doorways. Though Bangor has taught medical college students for some years in partnership with Cardiff College, this provides them the prospect to spend their total 5 years of finding out and coaching in Bangor. It can improve the college’s nationwide attraction with a deliberate consumption of 140 college students annually. At present, round 40% of undergraduates come from Wales, however round 20% come from North West England. Purposes dropped by 8.5% in 2023 to a bit of beneath 9,000, however admission numbers remained largely unchanged. Bangor’s tutorial profile is tied to its coastal and mountain atmosphere, with programs in forestry, journey sport science, ocean science and marine conservation, alongside the complete vary of extra conventional tutorial choices. The college even has its personal marine analysis vessel known as the Prince Madog.

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Harper Adams College

Overview

This small college providing land-based (agriculture) programs actually packs a punch, with alumni from Harper Adams filling 25% of the graduate positions inside the UK meals and farming {industry}. It goals to unfold its excellence wider over the following two years, breaking out from its countryside residence to show at two new centres in Telford and Newport. The primary-year completion charge is among the many highest within the UK and the college is one among a small minority to realize triple gold – protecting an total ranking, scholar expertise and scholar outcomes – within the newest Instructing Excellence Framework assessments. Nonetheless, it has endured a tricky yr within the Nationwide Pupil Survey wherein it has beforehand performed very properly, with scores for scholar expertise placing it within the backside 10 nationally. Scores for scholar assist stay buoyant. The college farm accommodates dairy, beef and pig models, two flocks of sheep, poultry services and hectares of arable and grassland given over to analysis tasks, which at the moment embody work on breeding low-methane sheep and a hands-free farm given over to autonomous applied sciences and equipment. All programs include a placement yr, which retains college students targeted on the last word prize of a profession on this extremely specialised and critically necessary space of the economic system.

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College of Plymouth

Overview

Plymouth is the one fashionable college (these created since 1992) to have each medical and dental colleges. A broad portfolio of healthcare programs is about to get greater nonetheless with the addition of basis years to a number of programs this month, which is able to additional widen entry to those professions. New BSc levels in osteopathy, chiropractic and social work with a basis yr are recruiting for a September 2025 begin, including to the greater than 200 pathways into well being and social care careers. The college can also be among the many pilot websites for the brand new medical physician diploma apprenticeship. There’s additional tutorial energy in marine science, the humanities and sustainability. Plymouth is one among a small minority of universities to be awarded triple gold within the newest Instructing Excellence Framework, for its total ranking, scholar expertise and scholar outcomes. The college is positioned on a central campus that has seen £100m of recent services accomplished previously yr. Except for the college’s sturdy tutorial status, many candidates are drawn to Plymouth for the vigorous maritime metropolis vibe and the spectacular coastal and moorland surroundings close by. 

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College of Portsmouth

Overview

Portsmouth hopes the introduction of Related Levels this month will show to be a major draw for candidates. Uniquely, it presents flexibility round when college students take their placement yr. Historically it slots in earlier than the ultimate (third) yr of research, however Portsmouth now presents the choice of taking it after the final yr. College students will stay a part of the college and graduate after finishing the location. It permits college students to take extra time to discover their profession choices, research alongside associates all through their research somewhat than go off on placement after two years, and join their research immediately with their profession (because the branding implies) by utilizing the location yr as a direct stepping stone into employment. Virtually all Portsmouth levels may be taken with this versatile placement possibility. Along with the opening of a London campus, the diploma revamp ought to immediate a rise in purposes, which dipped beneath 20,000 final yr to their lowest level previously decade and 40% beneath their stage in 2014. The college has carried out properly in home rankings for a while, rating as soon as once more this yr amongst our high 10 fashionable universities (these based since 1992). Set on a central campus in Portsmouth, this port metropolis offers loads of leisure for the college’s 26,000 college students.

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Keele College

Overview

Keele celebrates its seventy fifth anniversary this yr with admissions at file ranges, topping 3,000 for the primary time in September 2023. It presents a splash of color within the generally monochrome higher-education panorama, the place one college can look very similar to one other and the course portfolios can merge into one. Keele not requires college students to check twin honours, however numerous its programs are nonetheless two-subject levels. In some cases, the mixtures are complementary – chemistry with physics, atmosphere and sustainability – however in others they’re extra placing – music manufacturing and psychology, laptop science with neuroscience. All programs have a four-year possibility involving research overseas or a placement. Keele gained an total gold ranking within the newest Instructing Excellence Framework (TEF), one among simply 15 multi-faculty establishments to take action in each 2023 and the earlier TEF in 2017. It’s well-liked with college students, too, who voted it College of the 12 months within the 2022 Pupil Crowd awards, though current Nationwide Pupil Survey outcomes have been much less spectacular. Keele makes a lot of its proximity to in every single place, occupying a parkland campus close to Stoke-on-Trent that is inside an hour of Manchester and Birmingham, and inside 90 minutes of London by practice.

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College of Hertfordshire

Overview

The College of Hertfordshire is centred round two campuses a 20-minute stroll aside in Hatfield – the unique Faculty Lane campus and the newer de Havilland campus, constructed on the positioning of the city’s well-known former plane manufacturing facility. Hertfordshire’s location simply 20 miles from the centre of London makes it an interesting possibility for college kids who need the intense lights of the capital close by with out having to pay its extortionate rents. 4 in 5 college students come from London and the counties instantly to the north and north-east of the capital. It is without doubt one of the higher-ranked fashionable universities, scoring persistently properly for scholar satisfaction. It has a various scholar physique, too – Asian and black college students make up round half of the home consumption, as do college students who’re the primary of their quick household to go to college. The college works carefully with enterprise and {industry}, each within the design of its programs and the availability of labor expertise. Its observatory, at its Bayfordbury campus, homes one of many largest telescopes obtainable to college students within the UK, and sports activities services are wonderful, too.

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Manchester Metropolitan College

Overview

Manchester Met is without doubt one of the largest universities within the nation, with round 30,000 undergraduates and an additional 8,000 postgraduates. Its numbers have been swollen by final September’s file consumption of just below 11,000. Solely three universities within the UK obtain extra purposes than Manchester Met. A broad and largely vocational course portfolio, sturdy tutorial status and a rating in home league tables that at all times sees it among the many main group of contemporary universities (these created since 1992) retains the purposes flowing. One of the crucial complete programmes of monetary and private assist makes the college significantly interesting to college students from households with no expertise of upper schooling. Greater than half of the consumption come from Lancashire, Cheshire, Merseyside and Higher Manchester, however the the rest come from throughout the UK, many drawn by Manchester Met’s appreciable presence within the coaching of nurses, healthcare practitioners and lecturers. The college can also be one of many largest suppliers of diploma apprenticeships, with near 2,500 learners on campus, and has been the top-rated college coaching supplier for 5 successive years within the Charge My Apprenticeship rankings. 

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College of Sussex

Overview

The College of Sussex was ranked among the many high UK universities for sustainability within the 2025 QS World College Rankings. Occupying a web site that borders the South Downs Nationwide Park, the college has dedicated to giving greater than 42% of the land on the Sir Basil Spence-designed campus to nature by 2027. These things issues to Sussex’s college students. Purposes are operating excessive at upwards of 20,000 per yr, and admissions have been equally buoyant, bar final yr’s near-1,000 dip. Sussex recruits three-quarters of its college students from London and the South East, with round 85% educated in non-selective state colleges. The college maintained its total silver award in final yr’s Instructing Excellence Framework, though it would have been upset by the bronze for scholar expertise. It’s embedding employability into the curriculum in a bid to get extra college students into high-skilled jobs – at the moment one of many poorer areas of efficiency in our rating. The Profession Lab programme presents them internships, mentoring, perception visits to employers and the chance to change into a advisor to a enterprise or group organisation.

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Teesside College

Overview

Teesside, which was shortlisted for our College of the 12 months title final yr, wipes out digital poverty on campus at a stroke with its iPads-for-all coverage. In maybe probably the most socially progressive initiative at any higher-education establishment, Teesside’s Advance scheme offers an iPad loaded with Workplace 365, plus £100 annual credit score to spend on on-line studying sources. It permits the college to standardise digital parts after all supply and combine its immersive and simulated course parts with the software program it is aware of all college students have entry to. Teesside is conscious such generosity isn’t misplaced; it has one of the vital socially numerous scholar intakes within the nation. A decade or extra of funding has reworked the campus, simply off Middlesbrough city centre, right into a pedestrianised precinct of landmark buildings. Its programs have employability parts embedded into them and programs are designed with appreciable enter from enterprise. This interprets into a robust graduate employment observe file and good earnings. Such success additionally feeds into the most recent Instructing Excellence Framework, as Teesside was one among a small minority of establishments to win golds for its total ranking, scholar expertise and scholar outcomes. 

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College of Salford

Overview

Salford is in an excellent place, with the previous two years having seen file purposes and admissions. The college has comfortably probably the most numerous scholar inhabitants among the many three universities that successfully share an enormous scholar quarter simply off Manchester metropolis centre, with excessive numbers of ethnic minority and mature college students. This range is mirrored within the sensible assist provided to college students, which features a common contribution of £450 in the direction of course supplies and books over a three-year diploma (and as a lot as £1,500 for some first-generation college students), commuter bursaries and parental bursaries to assist with childcare prices. A college since 1967, Salford has a historical past going again greater than 100 years earlier than that when it began life as a mechanics’ institute. It continues to serve {industry} immediately, constructing experience in robotics, automation methods, and digital and sensible residing. The college has a robust presence in nursing and healthcare, with the brand new Clinic Constructing about so as to add significantly to the services on faucet. Salford has additionally gained a robust status in media and tv, benefiting from its proximity to MediaCity, which is residence to BBC and ITV studios in addition to quite a few unbiased manufacturing firms.

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College of Kent

Overview

Fashioned within the Sixties, the College of Kent borrowed its collegiate construction from an older technology of universities. College students be part of one among eight schools, the bulk named after individuals who pushed again the boundaries of information – Sir Charles Darwin, Alan Turing, Lord Rutherford to call three. The universities kind the social coronary heart of the coed expertise, breaking down this mid-sized college of round 15,000 undergraduates into bite-sized chunks. Seven of the universities are on the college’s unique campus, a inexperienced 300-acre web site within the historic metropolis of Canterbury, with the eighth, Medway Faculty, on Kent’s Medway campus, shared with Canterbury Christ Church and Greenwich universities, which takes within the historic Royal Naval dockyards in Chatham. Purposes are down by almost a 3rd from their peak in 2016, however the college achieves admirable range on campus. Black college students made up virtually one quarter of the undergraduate consumption final yr, with greater than 40% total drawn from ethnic minorities. Partnerships with native colleges and schools assist preserve excessive numbers of scholars drawn from under-represented teams.

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SOAS College of London

Overview

Soas markets itself as ‘the world’s college’ owing to a singular perspective on greater schooling – a perspective that’s a lot in demand presently, judging by the buoyant utility figures and file recruitment final yr. The whole lot right here is seen by way of the prism of Africa, Asia and the Center East – strategically, economically and politically necessary, and vastly populous, elements of the world. It drills down in nice element into topics that wrestle to get a glance in elsewhere. The place else wouldn’t it be potential to spend a yr overseas finding out Swahili, Turkish, Hebrew, Persian, Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit, Indonesian or Vietnamese as a part of a broader BA in languages and cultures? The titles of lots of its diploma programmes are just like these provided elsewhere within the College of London and throughout the UK, however the content material isn’t. Legislation has choices in Islamic legislation and legislation and society in south Asia, in addition to distinctive choices similar to oceans and outer house legislation, and topical ones similar to asylum and immigration legislation. The course portfolio appeals to a various, cosmopolitan scholar inhabitants, with round three-quarters drawn from ethnic minorities and an analogous quantity recruited from inside the capital.

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College of Huddersfield

Overview

Huddersfield has been racking up the awards in current months. It’s one among a small minority of universities to have achieved triple gold within the Instructing Excellence Framework (TEF), for its total ranking, scholar expertise and scholar outcomes. Issues improved additional when Ofsted rated its diploma apprenticeship provision excellent – making Huddersfield on the time solely the second college to realize this feat lately. The college was praised for ‘[valuing] the function that its apprenticeship programmes play in offering alternatives for individuals from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds to entry greater schooling alternatives and in retaining expertise within the native area’. The Ofsted inspectors’ phrases go to the guts of the college’s mission. The emphasis on the world of labor extends past apprenticeships, with most levels providing college students the prospect of {industry} expertise with placements starting from one to 48 weeks. The college is a giant provider of graduates to the general public sector, together with well being and social care professions and instructing.

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College of Lincoln

Overview

Pupil life at Lincoln in current months has taken place in opposition to a backdrop of accelerating considerations over the college’s funds, though the college stresses it expects to interrupt even or make solely a small deficit within the monetary yr that ended final month. In January, it took the weird step of publicly discussing the monetary stress it was beneath and, when 220 job losses have been introduced some weeks later, it blamed ‘rising monetary headwinds’. This turbulence has been the primary actual reverse skilled by the college in twenty years of near-continuous enlargement and funding, remodeling the material and standing of the establishment. Lincoln has invested greater than £375m within the waterfront Brayford Pool campus to create the combo of outdated and new that makes it so distinctive. An outdated warehouse is residence to the principle college library and a transformed practice engine shed is now Lincolnshire’s largest leisure venue and one of many college students’ union’s three websites. Alongside these buildings are fashionable services housing Lincoln’s tutorial colleges. It’s one among simply eight fashionable universities to have its personal medical college, run together with the College of Nottingham. There’s a second campus at Holbeach, which is residence to the Nationwide Centre for Meals Manufacturing. It presents part-time programs, principally to food-industry workers. 

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Abertay College

Overview

Scotland’s smallest college has solid a world status in computing, gaming and cyber safety. Dundee-born David Jones, the creator of the sport Grand Theft Auto, was instrumental in organising the world’s first laptop gaming diploma in his hometown at Abertay in 1997 – one among simply 45 undergraduate levels provided. The variety of candidates for admission in September 2023 fell to its lowest stage in a decade, down by 14.4% on the earlier yr, and 93% of final yr’s consumption got here from Scotland itself. Measurement is not any hinderance to the college, which has a compact, city-centre campus, nonetheless. ‘Our basket of strengths – small, fashionable and supportive – profit all our college students however are a very good match for college kids from deprived backgrounds,’ the college informed us. College students love Abertay, scoring it persistently extremely within the annual Nationwide Pupil Survey and serving to it to a high three rating in Scotland amongst fashionable universities. Scotland’s sunniest metropolis has a vibrant arts scene and buzzing nightlife, too.

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Liverpool John Moores College

Overview

Purposes and admissions each fell by greater than 10 per cent final yr, however with round 22,500 undergraduates Liverpool John Moores College (LJMU) stays one of many nation’s greater establishments. It recruits strongly from the North West – and from Merseyside particularly – with college students from the area making up greater than 3,500 of the 6,300 UK admissions in September 2023. It is usually one of the vital well-liked English universities with college students from Northern Eire, for whom there’s an prolonged, customised induction programme. The college took its title from one among Liverpool’s main businessmen and philanthropists, Sir John Moores, when it formally turned a college in 1992, however it has a historical past stretching again greater than 200 years. There are two campuses within the metropolis centre: Mount Nice, which is residence to the schools of enterprise and legislation, and humanities, skilled and social research, and Metropolis the place well being, science, and engineering and expertise college students are based mostly. There’s a selection of greater than 200 undergraduate levels. Copperas Hill, residence to the coed life and sports activities constructing sits between the 2 campuses. LJMU is a giant provider of graduates to the general public sector, particularly lecturers and nurses, and presents programs with loads of industry-informed, hands-on studying. The college has one of many extra numerous scholar populations, and a major spend on bursaries and scholarships offers monetary assist to many. 

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Staffordshire College

Overview

The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park continues to be breaking information 12 years on from London 2012. At this time the bar being raised is an educational one, as universities like Staffordshire flock to the capital’s most taking place higher-education vacation spot, the Right here East campus. A couple of fifth of Staffordshire’s undergraduate consumption got here from the capital final yr – 12 occasions the quantity admitted simply 5 years earlier than. A lot of them enrol at this spot in east London, which is residence to the college’s Digital Institute and presents 10 undergraduate and postgraduate levels. New choices being taught for the primary time this month embody cyber safety and cloud and community computing. Purposes to Staffordshire, which has its largest campuses in Stoke-on-Trent and Stafford, are greater than at any level since 2015, with a file complete of greater than 5,000 college students admitted final yr. The college has invested closely in what it dubs ‘simmersive’ expertise, which recreates real-life work and disaster eventualities utilizing simulation and immersion suites for these on vocational programs. This interprets into a wonderful graduate employment file. Few can rival Staffordshire’s dedication to social range on campus, too, and it has one of many largest portfolios of diploma apprenticeships.

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College of Stirling

Overview

The unalloyed great thing about Stirling’s loch-side campus takes some beating. However do not simply take our phrase for it. The Worldwide Pupil Barometer just lately judged Stirling to have the most effective campus atmosphere within the UK, and third finest on the earth. What will get everybody so excited? A 330-acre campus on the sting of Stirling, constructed round Airthrey Loch, with the Ochil Hills piled up behind it and a fort within the grounds. Opened within the 1967, a number of the unique buildings are actually Class A-listed, such is their architectural benefit. The college is properly conscious that the campus is a key recruitment asset and is investing in it on a rolling foundation. Greater than 85% of the 9,000 undergraduates come from Scotland, however the college recruits fairly evenly from throughout the remainder of the UK. College students are additionally drawn to the programs, which retain a broad-based method throughout the primary two years of research and sometimes supply a selection of September or January begin dates. Stirling’s standing as Scotland’s College for Sporting Excellence means its services are excellent. For the tradition vultures there’s the Macrobert Arts Centre, with its theatre, cinema and exhibition house.

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Sheffield Hallam College

Overview

Sheffield Hallam College (SHU) presents a minimum of three named assist advisers to its college students after they enrol – a scholar assist adviser to supply private assist, an educational adviser to help them with their research, and an employability adviser for planning the beginning of their profession. The goal is to maintain all college students on observe with their research after which launch them efficiently into their first jobs. It really works, too, with the college having one of many strongest graduate employment information of any fashionable college. Rooted firmly in its group, it trains greater than 1 / 4 of the brand new lecturers in Yorkshire yearly. Earlier this yr, its Institute of Training turned the primary college to be rated excellent by Ofsted for its instructor coaching throughout 4 age teams: early years, main, secondary and post-16. It is without doubt one of the largest suppliers of healthcare graduates within the nation, and its enterprise college is the most important within the UK, with some 7,000 college students. SHU’s advertising and marketing deal with – Information Utilized – succinctly captures its ethos and method to greater schooling. A Civic College Settlement enshrines its dedication to contribute to the area’s economic system and jobs, schooling and expertise, well being and wellbeing, and group and regeneration. 

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St Mary’s College, Twickenham

Overview

St Mary’s – alma mater of Sir Mo Farah – is used to topping the rostrum, so getting a gold for scholar expertise within the newest outcomes beneath the Instructing Excellence Framework won’t have induced a bout of vertigo. The college additionally earned two silvers for its total ranking and scholar outcomes, however it’s the scholar expertise that makes the establishment stand out. Positioned on a leafy campus within the prosperous south-west London suburb of Twickenham, it’s in contrast to another college within the capital, with simply 6,000 college students total and fewer than 4,000 undergraduates. In a metropolis dominated by giant – sometimes impersonal – universities, St Mary’s presents a person expertise, mirrored in its persistently wonderful scores within the Nationwide Pupil Survey. It has been a college for less than the previous decade however will have a good time its one hundred and seventy fifth anniversary in 2025. Initially a Catholic instructor coaching school, it presents a much wider portfolio of programs now, though instructor coaching stays a key exercise. Sport is necessary, too. Nineteen athletes based mostly on the college’s Endurance Efficiency Centre have been chosen to compete on the UK Athletics Championships in June. 

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Coventry College

Overview

Coventry hit the headlines for the mistaken causes final winter, because it turned probably the most high-profile college to be struck by monetary issues. The college admitted ‘troublesome selections’ will have to be taken, with £40m of cuts to be made to the 2023-24 funds and an additional £55m predicted for 2024-25. The blame was pinned on the recruitment of a smaller than anticipated variety of college students in September 2023. But Coventry is without doubt one of the top-ranked fashionable universities, having expanded into six campuses in Coventry, London and Scarborough, and the decision of assessors for the Instructing Excellence Framework in 2023 was glowing. It earned a gold award total, with an additional gold for scholar expertise and silver for outcomes. It was discovered to have ’embedded excellent instructing, suggestions and evaluation practices which might be extremely efficient and tailor-made to supporting its college students’ studying, development and attainment’. With round 38,000 college students, Coventry is without doubt one of the largest establishments within the nation. The separate CU Coventry, close to to the headquarters, presents a university-lite expertise with the choice to construct slowly in the direction of a level, module by module.

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Nottingham Trent College

Overview

Nottingham Trent College (NTU) is among the many largest and most profitable fashionable universities, with its excessive rating attracting a well-qualified scholar inhabitants. It really works onerous to stay accessible, nonetheless, and was the primary college to signal the Social Mobility Pledge, established in 2018 by the previous schooling secretary, Justine Greening, to advertise equality of alternative. No college has recruited extra college students than NTU over the previous 5 years, annually welcoming greater than 10,000 new undergraduates. Ethnic minority college students make up round one third of the cohort, with black college students, for whom NTU runs a Black Management Programme, the most important minority grouping. A campus funding programme value £250m over the following 5 years will add new studying services and make additional strides in rising the establishment’s sustainability. There are a number of Nottingham campuses – Metropolis campus is residence to 6 tutorial colleges and the brand new Nottingham College of Artwork and Design; Clifton campus homes engineering, healthcare and sport college students; Confetti Nottingham is residence to greater than 2,000 artistic applied sciences college students; and the outlying Brackenhurst campus is a 500-acre countryside web site for animal, rural and environmental sciences and residential to NTU’s veterinary nursing centre. There are additional websites in London and Mansfield.

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Robert Gordon College

Overview

For a few years, Robert Gordon College (RGU) in Aberdeen has punched properly above its weight when it comes to graduate employment. It was once simple to attribute that success to increase occasions in Oil Metropolis, however much less so now. These are tougher occasions for the UK oil and gasoline {industry} and Aberdeen has had some changes to make, however RGU sails on. If you need a college with eminently attainable Greater grade necessities that gives college students excellent profession prospects, look no additional. Round 4 in 5 graduates are in high-skilled jobs inside 15 months of leaving, having taken programs which have non-compulsory or obligatory placement years that may introduce college students to their future employers. Enterprise and {industry} have enter on the design of programs right here, and the world of labor isn’t far-off from the lecture theatres and laboratories. RGU occupies a contemporary riverside campus near the centre of Aberdeen; Garthdee is residence to round 10,000 undergraduates and 5,000 postgraduates, in addition to 550 graduate apprenticeship learners. The cultural, social and night-time distractions are commensurate with Aberdeen being Scotland’s third largest metropolis. And the encompassing coast and mountains supply infinite potentialities for these into the good outside. 

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College of Greenwich

Overview

One of the crucial profitable fashionable universities, Greenwich is actually steeped in historical past. Headquartered on the River Thames within the Sir Christopher Wren-designed Previous Royal Naval Faculty, Greenwich has one of the vital immediately recognisable campuses on the earth. All domes and colonnades, it dominates the skyline and offers a shocking backdrop to scholar life. Greenwich secured an total gold ranking within the Instructing Excellence Framework final yr, incomes an additional gold for scholar expertise and a silver for scholar outcomes. The accompanying report praised its three-week GREFest scholar induction programme and a ‘clear alignment between instructing, curriculum and employability assist that’s coherent and works to assist profitable outcomes’. Greenwich is without doubt one of the most ethnically numerous universities within the UK. There are additional campuses at Avery Hill, additionally in south-east London, which is residence to the majority of well being and social care college students, and Medway in Chatham, Kent, the place the faculties of pharmacy, science and engineering are positioned. The latter campus additionally has sturdy naval connections, with lots of its buildings historic former Royal Navy premises. 

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College of West London

Overview

The College of West London (UWL) markets itself as The Profession College, lest anybody be in any doubt as to the umbilical connection right here between finding out and getting a job afterwards. Developments similar to the brand new college of drugs and biosciences search to supply college students with hands-on expertise tackling the wants of native communities, whereas college students finding out for his or her Airline Transport Pilot Licence as a part of their levels have entry to the college’s Boeing 737 flight simulator. UWL’s connections to the close by Heathrow airport and British Airways are typical of its enterprise hyperlinks which give college students entry to greater than 1,000 part-time, internship, graduate and volunteering alternatives. The college displays all placements to make sure that they’re of the best high quality, too. Along with its deal with graduate jobs and making a distinction in native communities, UWL has a 3rd key mission which noticed it recognised final yr as our College of the 12 months for Social Inclusion. Few can match the range on campus right here, with 68% from black, Asian and different ethnic minority teams; greater than 60% from houses the place they’re the primary to go to college; and round half being mature returners to schooling.

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College of Wolverhampton

Overview

No matter method you narrow the info, social inclusion runs by way of the College of Wolverhampton like a stick of rock. No college has extra college students who’re the primary of their quick household to go to college; white, Asian and black college students are in virtually excellent steadiness on a racially numerous campus; and mature college students make up almost half of the coed physique, inspired again into schooling by Wolverhampton’s versatile admissions insurance policies. The college is a useful useful resource to the area it serves and from which it drew 83% of its most up-to-date consumption. With campuses in Wolverhampton itself, in addition to Walsall and Telford, the college has an intensive footprint. All websites have seen hefty funding just lately, offering college students with new cutting-edge services. These embody Europe’s largest specialist structure and constructed atmosphere campus on the positioning of Wolverhampton’s former Springfield Brewery, and the Marches Centre of Excellence for Well being and Social Care in Telford, which helps to deal with essential shortfalls of well being professionals within the space.

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College of Suffolk

Overview

The College of Suffolk (UoS) is the inaugural winner of our Group College of the 12 months award, which recognises the optimistic influence the establishment is having on the cities and villages of East Anglia, the place it’s positioned. It has solely been an unbiased college since 2016, however it quickly set about establishing a robust identification. This yr, following the completion of the college’s new Centre for Dental Improvement in Ipswich, the college and the Suffolk and North East Essex Built-in Care Board signed a five-year contract to ship 18,000 hours of NHS-only dental appointments by way of UoS’s Dental Group Curiosity Firm. This social enterprise will assist plug the large gap within the availability of NHS dental remedy domestically and is one among a number of group initiatives that the college runs which helped earn it our award. The enticing principal campus on the Ipswich waterfront has seen appreciable funding in services because it builds in the direction of a projected 10,000 college students by 2030. The college has a particular scholar demographic, with extra mature returners to schooling than another college, most of them recruited domestically. This demographic and a deal with vocational programs interprets into vital numbers of scholars touchdown high-skilled jobs.

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College of Sunderland

Overview

Native, nationwide and international. Sunderland, London and Hong Kong. That is how Sunderland, our College of the 12 months for Pupil Help, likes to market itself – a vocationally targeted college that has expanded from its unique Sunderland headquarters to supply its model of upper schooling extra extensively. With greater than 60% of undergraduates recruited from houses the place dad and mom didn’t go to college, there are few establishments on this information that may higher Sunderland’s file for social inclusion. Monetary assist is strategically focused to make sure these college students are supported better of all, and there’s a concerted try and diversify the consumption for medication levels by way of beneficiant bursaries, subsidised lodging and lowered entry grades for native recruits residing in areas with the bottom charges of development to greater schooling. The college can also be a number one supplier of diploma apprenticeships, with greater than 900 learners on programmes as numerous as senior journalist, district nurse, engineering and social work. General purposes final yr have been at their highest since 2015; greater than half of the consumption got here from the North East and 27% from London – a sign of the buoyancy of the London campus.

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College of the West of England

Overview

The College of the West of England (UWE) has a bodily footprint that spans Bristol, however the college is working onerous to make sure that its eco footprint is significantly smaller. New lodging for 900 college students opening this month is claimed to be the most important low-carbon growth of its variety within the nation, enhancing UWE’s attraction to immediately’s environmentally conscious college students. The Purdown View growth is on UWE’s principal Frenchay campus to the north of Bristol, the place most programs are based mostly. There’s additionally the Metropolis campus – residence to artistic and cultural industries programs – which is unfold throughout 4 websites, providing views of a deer park and the harbourside. It options the Arnolfini and Spike Island arts venues, and the Watershed movie tradition and digital media centre. The Glenside campus in Fishponds, a 15-minute bus journey from town centre, is the bottom for allied well being, social care, nursing and midwifery college students. With greater than 25,000 undergraduates and near 12,000 postgraduates, UWE is without doubt one of the UK’s largest universities, and purposes have by no means been greater. Roughly half the undergraduate consumption comes from the quick area, however UWE’s status attracts in college students from throughout the nation.

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Plymouth Marjon College

Overview

Constantly excellent outcomes for instructing high quality, scholar assist and scholar expertise within the Nationwide Pupil Survey converse volumes about scholar life at Plymouth Marjon College. College students are a reputation not a quantity right here; an undergraduate consumption of round 800 a yr permits for larger particular person consideration and a complete assist community. College students enrol on work-focused programs, many with placement alternatives, and every scholar is assigned a private growth tutor, who runs a sequence of group and one-to-one periods all year long to assist college students work on their future plans. Marjon was based as a instructor coaching school greater than 180 years in the past and continues to be sturdy on this space, whereas quickly increasing its nursing and healthcare provision, too. Work is underway on a brand new Well being Training and Group Wellbeing Hub, which is able to increase a profitable mannequin of creating student-led programmes in group settings, bringing advantages to each college students and the native inhabitants. A decent course portfolio of simply 41 topics at undergraduate stage additionally features a vital variety of sport choices. Sporting brains breed sporting our bodies: Marjon punches properly above its weight in inter-university sports activities competitions.

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College of Chester

Overview

The college recruits greater than half of its consumption of UK college students from inside its residence patch within the North West. Many are drawn from teams under-represented in greater schooling. Slightly below a 3rd of final yr’s consumption have been mature returners to schooling, and Chester has one of many highest proportions of scholars who’re the primary of their quick household to attend college. Subtle assist buildings – acknowledged by good scores on this space within the Nationwide Pupil Survey and coming second within the 2024 Whatuni Pupil Selection College of the 12 months award – hold college students within the fold. Development and diploma completion charges are at a lot greater ranges than are the norm with such a various consumption. The college is essentially based mostly within the enticing walled metropolis of Chester, however it has outposts in Birkenhead and Warrington, in addition to its land-based centre Reaseheath, close to Nantwich. Employers assist with the design of programs, which all have a deal with digital expertise and use steady evaluation to gauge scholar achievement. 

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College of Derby

Overview

Derby is investing closely in its property and reshaping its course portfolio to maintain the establishment on the tutorial cutting-edge – and to maintain its graduates in demand with employers. A brand new enterprise college will likely be open for subsequent September’s consumption – a key enhancement for a college that works carefully with enterprise and {industry}. Derby ranks second in our topic tables for enterprise research. Greater than 60 new programs and 9 new diploma apprenticeships will diversify Derby’s attraction, too. They embody zeitgeisty levels similar to synthetic intelligence, in addition to extremely related twin-subject programs like English and publishing, psychology and sport research, and well-liked music and enterprise administration. The college has a robust regional identification, recruiting three-quarters of its college students from the East and West Midlands. A mid-sized college of round 20,000 college students, it’s based mostly on 4 websites in Derby and headquartered at Kedleston Highway, with a healthcare outpost in Chesterfield. It offers a major variety of graduates to the general public sector (through nursing, instructing and social work particularly). This helped its sturdy efficiency in our jobs rating, which is predicated on the proportion of graduates going into high-skilled jobs inside 15 months of leaving. 

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Aberystwyth College

Overview

Lower than a decade in the past, Aberystwyth’s leads to the annual Nationwide Pupil Survey (NSS) put it outdoors the highest 100. At this time, it’s inside the UK high 20 for every of the three NSS measures in our rating, and scholar satisfaction is at a stage hardly ever seen within the elite Russell Group, because of its relentless deal with the coed expertise. College students from all backgrounds really feel supported right here. After a major dip in purposes within the quick pre-pandemic years, numbers have recovered. One of many smallest universities on this information, the sturdy group spirit helps breed a fierce loyalty in the direction of ‘Aber’, as it’s affectionately recognized. Regardless of the Welsh seaside resort’s remoteness and distinctly common street and rail connections, it recruits on a UK-wide foundation, and fewer than a 3rd of the consumption comes from Wales. The West Midlands and South West are fertile recruiting grounds for the college. There are many rooms in college halls, together with in Pantycelyn, which hosted King Charles when he was studying Welsh forward of his investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969.

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Edge Hill College

Overview

The newest piece of the jigsaw that has seen the creation of an ultra-modern, spacious, enticing campus at Edge Hill College (EHU) in Lancashire falls into place this month with the opening of a swathe of recent services. However EHU has been making waves for a while now. It’s one among eight fashionable universities – these gaining their college title since 1992 – to have its personal medical college, which is the cherry on the cake of an intensive and revered suite of healthcare programs. It has one of many strongest information of widening entry to greater schooling and isn’t afraid to face out from the gang by protecting costs low on campus for all somewhat than providing eye-catching bursaries to assist probably the most impoverished few. The previous Instances Greater Training College of the 12 months started life as a teacher-training school. It’s the largest provider of newly-qualified lecturers within the area immediately and was the primary supplier in England to be rated excellent by Ofsted throughout all three age ranges (main, secondary and additional schooling) beneath the brand new harder assessments. It additionally provides numerous graduates to different areas of the general public sector, notably well being and social care and policing.

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Oxford Brookes College

Overview

Oxford Brookes College (OBU) has the most effective graduate employment information of any fashionable college, with round three quarters touchdown extremely expert jobs. It was the primary UK college to introduce the Grade Level Common (GPA) system alongside the usual UK diploma classifications. The GPA has worldwide foreign money and permits simple comparability between college students’ attainment at OBU and different universities worldwide. The utmost rating of 4.0 is predicated on all three years of finding out, and never simply on assessments in yr two and three, as is the norm within the UK. OBU is totally different additionally in its scholar profile. It’s among the many 40 universities that recruit the fewest first-generation college students (these whose dad and mom didn’t go to college) and has the identical proportion of scholars recruited from unbiased colleges (round one in 5) as loads of extremely selective Russell Group universities. Most of the 12,500 undergraduates are based mostly on OBU’s central Oxford campus in Headington. There are two outlying campuses – Harcourt Hill, residence to instructor trainees, and Wheatley, which is because of shut, with these finding out beneath the college of expertise, design and atmosphere transferring to new premises in Headington. There’s additionally a campus for nurses in Swindon.

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Cardiff Metropolitan College

Overview

Cardiff Met, our Welsh College of the 12 months, is benefiting from its residence metropolis’s present standing as one of many UK’s hottest scholar locations. Serving a extra native market than its Russell Group neighbour, with greater than half of all UK-resident college students coming from Wales, a file 12,500 purposes have been obtained for programs beginning in September 2023. The quantity admitted was overwhelmed solely by the yr earlier than. Breaking information is one thing that comes naturally for this most sporting of universities, which repeatedly ranks within the high 30 for sport within the UK regardless of its comparatively small dimension. (There are round 8,500 undergraduates). Its excellent services embody a brand new energy and conditioning suite and the Nationwide Indoor Athletics Centre. In addition to the 2 instructing campuses, Cyncoed and Llandaff, there’s a third residential campus, Plas Gwyn. The varsity of schooling and social coverage is predicated at Cyncoed, to the north-east of town centre, whereas the faculties of administration, applied sciences and artwork and design are based mostly at Llandaff. The varsity of sport and well being sciences is break up throughout the 2. Cardiff Met was named College of the 12 months by Instances Greater Training in 2021.

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College of Brighton

Overview

The College of Brighton sits within the higher echelons of the trendy college sector, with a robust tutorial status and graduate employment file. It was the primary fashionable college – these created since 1992 – to be awarded a medical college. Newly centred on the modern coastal spot of Brighton alone (following the closure of its Eastbourne campus over the summer time), the college has invested in new tutorial, social and sporting services, plus 5 scholar halls, to accommodate the inflow of scholars from alongside the Channel coast. There are three campuses inside Brighton – Falmer, Moulsecoomb and Metropolis – every with a definite vibe. Town of Brighton and Hove way back ditched its ‘kiss me fast’ picture and is now one of the vital modern coastal spots. Though purposes for the 2023 admissions cycle fell a bit of, purposes and admissions have been constructing again to the degrees of 10 years in the past. The college is without doubt one of the newest to introduce a contextual admissions scheme, which ought to assist diversify an consumption which sees round 44% of scholars drawn from houses the place neither dad and mom went to college.

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Brunel College London

Overview

Brunel sits at quantity 342 within the 2025 QS World College Rankings, up 70 locations for the reason that 2023 version. Worldwide success is necessary for a college which recruited round one in 5 of its college students from abroad final yr. This campus college on the north-western outskirts of London presents the next schooling within the capital with out the claustrophobia and congestion, though purposes and admissions in 2023 have been at their lowest ranges of the previous decade. Greater than 72% of Brunel’s UK college students come from Higher London, and it is without doubt one of the most socially and culturally numerous universities within the nation, drawing round half of its college students from houses the place dad and mom haven’t gone to college – a statistic that explains the informative (and uncommon) Data for Mother and father and Carers part on the college web site. Life sciences, enterprise and laptop science are the preferred programs. Sports activities services are wonderful, significantly for athletics, and the college punches above its weight in inter-university competitions, sitting inside the highest 40 on this yr’s nationwide rankings .

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College of Central Lancashire

Overview

The College of Central Lancashire (UCLan) is without doubt one of the most socially inclusive and progressive universities within the UK. Intensive outreach work, contextual presents and well-structured tutorial and monetary assist packages assist carry greater schooling inside attain of many who would in any other case miss out. It has excessive ambitions for its near-30,000 undergraduate and postgraduate college students, and it’s the solely non-Russell Group college to have medical colleges for each people and animals, having admitted its first scholar vets final September. UCLan’s medical college is one among 4 piloting the brand new medical physician diploma apprenticeships from this month. The college is headquartered in Preston, with additional (and increasing) campuses in Burnley and Westlakes in Cumbria. The latter presents a spread of drugs and nursing programs and is residence to the Nationwide Centre for Distant and Rural Medication, which trains clinicians in all features of drugs regarding rural environments. Nearly all college students come from non-selective state colleges, and greater than half are the primary of their quick household to go to college. 

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Goldsmiths, College of London

Overview

Goldsmiths finds itself within the eye of the storm that’s blowing by way of greater schooling as universities wrestle to steadiness the books. Purposes and admissions final September hit their lowest level previously decade, starkly illustrating the issues that the college is dealing with. Proposed obligatory redundancies have been averted in August solely when 67 employees agreed to depart voluntarily following a money squeeze prompted by falling scholar numbers and the long-term freeze of UK tuition charges. Unions and college students alike are disturbed by the college’s Transformation Programme, drawn up in response to what Professor Frances Nook, Goldsmiths’ warden, describes as a ‘actually critical’ monetary place. All of which threatens to overshadow Goldsmiths’ status as a house of creatives and free-thinkers, drawn to its fashionable New Cross campus by its standing within the arts, humanities and social sciences. Mary Quant, Steve McQueen, Lucian Freud, Edward Enninful and Damien Hirst are amongst a bunch of illustrious artistic alumni. The school presents a full suite of programs within the artistic and performing arts, in addition to levels that embrace economics, politics, legislation, computing, synthetic intelligence and administration. Two-thirds of the home consumption come from the capital and a 3rd of the undergraduate inhabitants are worldwide college students.

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College of the West of Scotland

Overview

For the eighth consecutive yr, the College of the West of Scotland (UWS) has recruited a larger proportion of scholars from deprived backgrounds than another Scottish establishment, in keeping with a report from the Scottish Funding Council which seemed on the college locations of scholars from the 20% of Scottish postcodes thought of to be probably the most disadvantaged. Because the college informed us: ‘At UWS capacity, not background, issues.’ The newest Instances Greater Training Influence Rankings positioned UWS second in Scotland (behind the College of Glasgow) and sixteenth on the earth for lowering inequalities, offering additional recognition of the college’s game-changing method. The 99% Scottish consumption at UWS is among the many most numerous anyplace within the UK, with virtually half being from houses the place dad and mom didn’t attend college, and all being educated in state colleges. Work-focused levels are provided throughout 4 campuses in south-west Scotland, with the largest of them in Paisley, Scotland’s largest city, the place 10,000 college students are based mostly. Additional outposts in Ayr, Dumfries and Hamilton (often known as the Lanarkshire campus) have seen heavy funding just lately. There’s a new campus in London’s Docklands, too, providing worldwide enterprise, collaborative well being and social care, {and professional} well being research undergraduate levels.

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Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh

Overview

Small is gorgeous at Queen Margaret College (QMU). Positioned on a contemporary campus opened simply 17 years in the past, QMU is the most effective of each worlds, sitting simply six minutes by practice from the centre of Edinburgh, whereas providing college students inexperienced, coastal environment with an excellent sense of house. QMU is residence to round 4,000 undergraduates (and a pair of,500 postgraduates) following a spread of career-focused levels. Work placements are a typical function of programs, and the college prides itself on producing career-ready graduates. There’s a sturdy provision of healthcare and instructing programs, with current campus developments such because the newly opened outside studying hub including significantly to the services for the latter. QMU serves a socially numerous scholar group the place round half are the primary of their quick household to attend college. Its contextual admissions scheme sometimes reduces presents by two grades in comparison with the usual ask. The college’s status for friendliness was strengthened by its current nomination by college students for 4 prizes on the International Pupil Residing Awards, protecting finest college housing, finest scholar wellbeing, finest moving-in expertise and finest scholar group within the UK and Eire.

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Bournemouth College

Overview

Bournemouth is a well-liked selection with candidates, who’re drawn to each the coastal location and the truth that it punches properly above its weight within the graduate employment stakes. It ranks among the many high 20 fashionable universities for the proportion of graduates securing high-skilled employment. All college students have the chance to undertake a piece placement, with lots assembly their future employer this manner, and lots of programs are accredited by skilled our bodies. The college’s strengths embody movie, tv and the media, with the Nationwide Centre for Pc Animation producing a succession of graduates who’ve gone on to work in manufacturing firms. There are two principal campuses – Talbot, which is residence to the college of media and communication, the college of science and expertise and the enterprise college; and Lansdowne, which homes the college of well being and social sciences. Bournemouth boasts a vigorous nightlife because of the city’s two universities, and 7 miles of gorgeous seaside present ample distraction when exams are over.

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Anglia Ruskin College

Overview

A merger between Anglia Ruskin College (ARU) and the previous Writtle College Faculty, on the outskirts of Chelmsford, Essex, was accomplished earlier this yr. ARU Writtle, as it’s now recognized, is famend for its agriculture, horticulture, animal and environmental programs however had been working in deficit. Following the opening of ARU Peterborough in 2022, ARU now has a really regional footprint. Headquarters are on the principle campus in Chelmsford and there’s a additional campus in Cambridge, which traces its origins again to the Cambridge College of Artwork, opened by patron John Ruskin in 1858. It recruits greater than 60% of its college students from inside East Anglia (a area with few universities), who signal as much as programs with key work expertise embedded into the curriculum. It’s the largest supplier of nursing, midwifery and well being and social care programs in England. The college will hope that the 21% tumble in purposes for September 2023 – and a corresponding 11% drop in admissions – was only a blip given the current enlargement.

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Bishop Grosseteste College

Overview

College students like Bishop Grosseteste. They persistently put the establishment near the highest of the annual Nationwide Pupil Survey as they’ve performed this yr. The college additionally completed high of the 2023 Whatuni Pupil Selection awards for each scholar assist and lodging. It is without doubt one of the smallest universities within the nation, with simply 540 college students admitted through Ucas final yr, which probably explains the excessive ranges of satisfaction. College students will not be merely a quantity right here. Nonetheless, purposes for admission in September 2023 tumbled by 22% in contrast with the 2022 admissions cycle to their lowest stage previously decade. The proposed title change to Lincoln Bishop College, which has been submitted to the Workplace for College students for approval, may assist stem the decline in purposes just by placing the college’s location in its title. Bishop Grosseteste, or Bishop G, as it’s affectionately recognized, began life in 1862 as a small Anglican instructor coaching school for ladies. There are actually 43 diploma decisions (many with basis yr choices) along with 10 instructor coaching programmes. Bishop G has loved full college standing since 2012. The campus mixes Victorian and fashionable structure, with instructing, library and social services cheek by jowl. 

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College of Cumbria

Overview

Cumbria is planning for a vibrant future with two new campuses within the offing and the opening of a graduate-entry medical college in Carlisle scheduled for subsequent September. Within the North West, there are two campuses in Carlisle (the place a brand new flagship is deliberate) and additional outposts in Lancaster, Ambleside and Workington, whereas one other is because of open in Barrow-in-Furness subsequent January. It even stretches all the way down to London, the place it runs quite a lot of schooling and well being programmes and a world enterprise administration top-up diploma. Purposes and admissions fell once more in 2023, and they’re each roughly at half the extent they have been a decade in the past, after years of regular decline. Nonetheless, it’s hoped the brand new campuses and topics provided will see scholar numbers begin to develop. It provides giant numbers of scholars to the general public sector, with healthcare and instructor coaching on the fore. The distinctive Ambleside campus, within the coronary heart of the Lake District, presents programs tailor-made to its location, together with marine and freshwater conservation; forest administration; outside management; tourism administration; and woodland ecology and conservation.

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College of the Arts London

Overview

Six globally famend schools make up the College of the Arts London (UAL): Central Saint Martins, London Faculty of Style, Camberwell Faculty of Arts, Chelsea Faculty of Arts, Wimbledon Faculty of Arts and London Faculty of Communication. They got here collectively to kind UAL in 2004 however retain their distinct topic specialisms. There was large funding within the college’s property previously decade, and locations are at a premium – this isn’t simply probably the most prized arts college within the UK, however one of the vital well-liked on the earth. About 35% of final yr’s consumption got here from abroad. For a second successive yr, UAL obtained greater than 33,000 purposes for programs starting in September 2023, placing it forward of most British universities. Its listing of alumni reads like a who’s who of the artistic industries, from illustrator Sir Quentin Blake to singer Florence Welch, of Florence and the Machine. Greater than half of the Turner Prize winners are UAL alumni, and the end-of-year reveals are a recruiting floor for anybody searching for the brightest new creatives.

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Kingston College

Overview

Based mostly in south-west London, Kingston College has seen an almost 50% rise in purposes since 2019. With its campuses, halls, services and course portfolio always evolving, the college is efficiently attracting a major variety of potential college students. Greater than half of the coed physique is made up of first-generation college students and a fair larger proportion hail from ethnic minority backgrounds – each historically under-represented on campus. A contemporary college in all senses of the phrase, Kingston targets these teams all through their earlier years of schooling after which offers ongoing assist as soon as they enrol, with devoted careers programmes for ethnic minority college students, for instance. The system works – Kingston was awarded a coveted triple gold in final yr’s Instructing Excellence Framework, protecting an total ranking, scholar expertise and scholar outcomes. The college’s principal Penrhyn Highway campus is present process refurbishment, with work anticipated to complete in mid-2025, and there was a cool £55m funding in halls of residence to supply 1,330 vitality environment friendly, state-of-the-art bedrooms. The college attracts primarily native college students from surrounding London boroughs, with the South East area extra extensively additionally well-represented.

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College of Chichester

Overview

The College of Chichester could also be one of many smallest establishments on this information, however what it lacks in numbers, it makes up for with an abundance of character.  The college is located throughout two websites on the south coast, one in Chichester and the opposite in Bognor Regis. When established in 1839, Chichester was primarily a instructor coaching school, and the modern-day college retains a robust presence on this subject. Each main and secondary instructor coaching secured a uncommon double of excellent rankings from Ofsted, with the inspectors praising the college’s ‘beautifully designed curriculum that is delivered to life by high-quality instructing, mentoring and steering’. The college additionally has a robust portfolio of arts, performing arts, healthcare and sport-related levels. Purposes have been barely down final yr, however Chichester scores properly on scholar assist metrics. Roughly two-thirds of its consumption come from the South East, and the college is pursuing progress in its provision of diploma apprenticeship programmes. 

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Birmingham Newman College

Overview

Purposes to Birmingham Newman hit a file excessive for admission final September, the identical month because the establishment modified its title to Birmingham Newman College. Bolting to its title the title of town wherein the college sits is designed to intensify consciousness of its location to these contemplating it from outdoors the West Midlands. At present 5 in each six college students come from the West Midlands, attracted by its status for providing one thing a bit of totally different to the degree-factory norm. The college sums up this distinction as ‘a standard ethos. A contemporary method. A way of belonging’.  The college guarantees an interactive studying expertise somewhat than the standard one among giant lectures and note-taking. With round 2,000 undergraduates, Newman offers a extra private college expertise. Its scores within the Nationwide Pupil Survey are persistently a number of the highest within the nation. Its scholar consumption is among the many most numerous, with half of the scholars drawn from ethnic minorities and almost 70% the primary of their quick household to go to college. The campus is positioned in a quiet residential space on the southwestern fringe of Birmingham, overlooking the Worcestershire countryside.

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College of Worcester

Overview

The awarding of not less than 50 government-funded locations for British college students on the graduate entry medication diploma on the new Three Counties Medical College is a substantial milestone for the College of Worcester. It can assist tackle long-term shortages of medical doctors within the three counties from which the medical college takes its title (Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire), in addition to the Black Nation borough of Dudley. The medical college is positioned on Worcester’s Severn campus for well being, wellbeing and inclusive sport, which has been the scene of many of the college’s current enlargement. On the coronary heart of the college’s wonderful sports activities provision is the Worcester Enviornment, additionally on the Severn campus, which hosts the likes of wheelchair basketball. The college has 4 websites within the fairly cathedral metropolis of Worcester and recruits closely from the quick space, with three-quarters of scholars hailing from the West Midlands. Greater than half of its consumption come from houses the place neither mum or dad went to college, and it was just lately shortlisted for College of the 12 months within the UK Social Mobility Awards for the third time in six years. Worcester is a key provider of graduates into the general public sector, with instructing, nursing and well being and social care to the fore, and about three-quarters of graduates are in high-skilled jobs inside 15 months of leaving.

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Canterbury Christ Church College

Overview

The primary college students will graduate from the Kent and Medway medical college subsequent summer time, 5 years after the collaborative enterprise between Canterbury Christ Church College (CCCU) and the College of Kent opened. It is a vital second for an establishment based in 1962 as a instructor coaching school, which immediately has an excellent file for widening participation in greater schooling. It recruits almost two thirds of its college students from the South East, most of them from the quick environs of the college, which embody a number of the most disadvantaged areas in southern England. The college has one of many highest numbers of first-generation college students. Graduate employability is one among CCCU’s strongest areas in our rating; {industry} and native companies work in partnership with the college to make sure programs are related to present office wants. It’s hoped that the brand new £65m Verena Holmes Constructing for STEM topics (science, expertise, engineering and maths), named after one of many nation’s foremost feminine engineers, will increase the variety of ladies in STEM, too.

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Birmingham Metropolis College

Overview

The previous two years have seen extra purposes for locations at Birmingham Metropolis College (BCU) than ever earlier than. This bustling, uber-urban establishment is without doubt one of the nation’s bigger universities, with greater than 22,000 undergraduates unfold throughout a number of websites in central Birmingham. A rolling programme of funding has upgraded many buildings and departments. Over the summer time, BCU accomplished its transfer to the Alexander Stadium, which hosted the 2022 Commonwealth Video games and can now be residence to the college’s sports activities provision. The brand new services are simply the most recent to profit BCU college students. The Metropolis Centre campus, close to to the brand new HS2 station, sits inside an Funding Zone, which is able to pave the way in which for future developments. The college is residence to the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the College of Jewelry, which is the most important in Europe. With 70% of scholars coming from the West Midlands – and lots of of them residing at residence – the comparatively small variety of university-owned scholar rooms (2,746) isn’t the issue it may be.

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Leeds Beckett College

Overview

In key areas of provision, Leeds Beckett presents college students excellent new services. Training, legislation, sport, nursing and well being sciences have all seen vital current funding. College students listed below are a cheerful bunch, returning scores within the Nationwide Pupil Survey which might be significantly higher than its neighbour, the College of Leeds. Pupil expertise, which earned a silver, was the highest-rated facet within the newest outcomes of the Instructing Excellence Framework. Nonetheless, the college earned disappointing bronze awards for each its total ranking and for scholar outcomes. In addition to its principal metropolis centre campus, Leeds Beckett has a second web site in Headingley, which is residence to instructor coaching and sport – two of the areas for which Leeds Beckett is finest recognized. Round half the consumption are recruited domestically from Yorkshire and the Humber, with 45% coming from houses the place dad and mom or carers didn’t go to college. Leeds Beckett works onerous to confess a excessive proportion of scholars from backgrounds historically under-represented on campus, with its entry and widening participation staff working with round 10,000 younger individuals in additional than 150 colleges and schools annually.

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College of East London

Overview

A major makeover of the property on the College of East London (UEL) is beneath method as a part of the establishment’s Imaginative and prescient 2028 growth technique. This goals to reinvent UEL by way of elevated collaboration with {industry} companions, equipping college students with extra of the abilities employers want and empowering them to realize profession success. That is being steadily rolled out for one of the vital socially inclusive scholar populations in any college. UEL occupies a number of websites, principally the Docklands campus overlooking the historic Royal Docks and the brand new College Sq. Stratford, residence to UEL’s Institute of Performing Arts. An extra older (however quickly to be redeveloped) campus, additionally in Stratford, is residence to the varsity of schooling and communities, the place most instructor coaching takes place. There are six tutorial colleges in complete, all providing job-focused programs which employers have helped design. UEL is one among solely 10 universities to be given the College Psychological Well being Constitution Award by the charity Pupil Minds, which recognises wonderful follow in psychological well being and wellbeing. 

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College of South Wales

Overview

In case you’ve received an excellent enterprise thought, then the College of South Wales (USW) might be the place for you. It justifiably lays declare to the title of Entrepreneurial College of Wales for the fourth yr in a row, in recognition of it being the Welsh college that has backed probably the most graduate start-up companies. Official information from the Greater Training Statistics Company reveals that USW supported 96 new graduate companies in 2022-23, taking the entire variety of lively graduate companies it has helped to greater than 500. Throughout the UK as an entire, USW ranks eleventh out of 220 establishments for brand spanking new start-ups and ninth for the variety of lively graduate companies. Dr Ben Calvert, USW’s vice-chancellor, stated ‘supporting start-ups and small companies is a part of our DNA’. Entrepreneurial success is not any accident at a college the place programs are designed and delivered with vital enter from enterprise and {industry}. Engagement, collaboration and partnership are the cornerstones on which the establishment is based. It has 5 websites throughout South Wales: three in Pontypridd, and two others in Cardiff and Newport. The college is headquartered on the Treforest campus, the largest of the Pontypridd websites. Cardiff is residence to the college’s artistic industries programs, whereas Newport offers schooling and instructor coaching, enterprise, computing, social work and psychology levels. The whole lot else is taught in Pontypridd.

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De Montfort College

Overview

One of many bigger fashionable universities, with 21,500 undergraduates, admissions for De Montfort College (DMU) climbed to shut to six,500 final September whilst purposes fell to their lowest stage in a decade. The college takes a holistic view of the coed expertise, and it’s rolling out block instructing throughout its programs to boost this. College students are taught one module at a time, versus the extra conventional method of taking quite a lot of them concurrently. They’re examined on the finish of every seven-week block of instructing, finding out two modules consecutively per time period, and 4 per tutorial yr. ‘Instructing designed round you’ is the advertising and marketing pitch DMU deploys for this method – and it appears to work, with 92% of scholars saying that engaged on one module at a time helps their work-life steadiness. The college sits on a compact campus within the centre of Leicester, one of many UK’s most numerous cities, and attracts half of its UK college students from the East Midlands. Worldwide college students make up round one third of undergraduates total, additional including to the cosmopolitan really feel.

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Middlesex College

Overview

Middlesex is without doubt one of the bigger universities on this information, with round 20,000 undergraduate and postgraduate college students, however it presents a commendable stage of bespoke schooling tailor-made to the person. ‘To deal with the wants of our numerous scholar physique, and recognising that many are working or caring for household in parallel with their research, we provide blended studying choices for our college students the place that is applicable and possible,’ the college informed us. So, whereas programs are primarily delivered in particular person, the college tweaks supply to go well with particular person circumstances the place potential. This flexibility is backed up by the in depth private and monetary assist provided to provide college students the most effective likelihood of success. Recruiting largely from inside the capital, Middlesex has one of the vital ethnically numerous scholar populations with just below three-quarters coming from an ethnic minority. Black college students are the most important ethnic group on campus, accounting for greater than 35% of final yr’s consumption. Middlesex is predicated on a single campus in Hendon, north London, and offers many vocational programs devised in partnership with enterprise and {industry}. Purposes are 45% down on the place they have been in 2016, however admissions stabilised final September with just below 3,000 new starters.

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Norwich College of the Arts

Overview

Norwich College of the Arts, our Arts College of the 12 months, is the highest-ranked specialist arts college outdoors of London. An actual-world focus runs by way of all of its programs alongside fostering the creativity you’ll anticipate. Norwich’s pedigree was confirmed by its current triple gold award beneath the Instructing Excellence Framework, protecting an total ranking, scholar expertise and scholar outcomes. Norwich is the one specialist arts and design college to realize this feat. Based mostly on a metropolis centre campus, the college occupies 12 buildings in Norwich’s cultural quarter that are outfitted with the most recent fashionable expertise, artwork studios and workshops. A compact programme of 27 undergraduate levels covers the performing arts (performing), visible arts (animation, illustration, pictures and tremendous artwork), televisual arts (movie and shifting picture manufacturing, animation and visible results), design (design for publishing, video games artwork and design, graphic design, inside design, textile design and person expertise design) and vogue (vogue communication and promotion, vogue advertising and marketing and enterprise, and vogue). Programs involving artistic computational expertise, similar to artistic computing, artistic expertise and robotics, and person expertise design – all serving a jobs market starved of suitably certified graduates – will guarantee Norwich continues to punch above its weight within the employment stakes.

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College of Bolton

Overview

#UniAsItShouldBe is the most recent advertising and marketing deal with for Bolton, one of the vital socially inclusive and accessible universities within the nation. Maybe with a watch to the college expertise of many throughout the pandemic, the marketeers are pushing Bolton as someplace that delivers an excellent expertise for college kids in addition to getting ready them for working life. It’s a fraction of the dimensions of its big-city neighbours – Manchester, Manchester Met and Salford – with fewer than 8,000 undergraduates, almost 80% of whom are drawn from the quick space and the north-west extra extensively. Purposes and admissions each fell sharply throughout the 2023 entry cycle however purposes are nonetheless properly above pre-pandemic ranges. It performs persistently properly within the annual Nationwide Pupil Survey, and scored a silver total in the latest Instructing Excellence Framework, with the coed expertise incomes gold. It gained a bronze ranking for scholar outcomes, partly as a result of one of many highest dropout charges of any college. Nonetheless, Bolton offers many the prospect of a better schooling that they’d not get elsewhere. 

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Wrexham College

Overview

Owain Glyndwr, the warrior chief who briefly established an unbiased Welsh state within the Center Ages, has disappeared from the title of Wrexham College in what vice-chancellor Professor Maria Hinfelaar described as a ‘momentous and thrilling step’. The title change from Wrexham Glyndwr College was actioned final September as a way to determine the college extra carefully with the most recent metropolis in Wales, which has had greater than its share of headlines since Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney purchased its soccer membership in 2020. The membership has loved successive promotions and begins this yr in League One for the primary time in 20 years – the type of rating enchancment that the college would additionally like to see. (This yr’s 16-place enchancment in our league desk is an efficient begin.) All of the optimistic publicity may need rubbed off on the establishment, with purposes hitting file ranges over the previous two years. College students get pleasure from their expertise right here, with persistently wonderful scores being recorded within the Nationwide Pupil Survey. An £80m campus funding programme is properly beneath method, and a brand new healthcare simulation centre opened final yr for Wrexham’s substantial variety of nursing and allied well being college students.

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College of Roehampton

Overview

Roehampton is shifting closely into the availability of on-line levels for individuals who don’t need to research on its enticing parkland campus in south-west London. For now, the 9 programs on supply are all postgraduate enterprise levels, however the college is shifting shortly to undertake extra choices with 100% on-line finding out. The transfer comes as enrolments dropped to their lowest level previously decade, 43% beneath the extent they have been at in 2016. As soon as a part of the College of Surrey, it’s 20 years since Roehampton turned a college in its personal proper. It’s organised into 4 schools, Digby Stuart, Froebel, Southlands and Whitelands, which have been based as instructor coaching schools within the nineteenth century, and instructor coaching continues to be a central pillar right here. The universities create bite-size communities of scholars and assist Roehampton present a much more private college expertise than is on the market elsewhere within the capital. The college, which has a wonderful status for social range on campus, additionally has a sizeable inhabitants of nursing and healthcare college students and is increasing into inexperienced expertise with its new Sustainable Engineering and Expertise Training Centre and a raft of related programs.

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Tub Spa College

Overview

A college rebrand goals to dispel the notion that artistic arts universities, similar to Tub Spa, lack the onerous edge wanted to supply graduates who obtain properly after they depart. ‘Skilled creativity’ is the brand new byword for this college. As vice-chancellor Professor Sue Rigby put it: ‘Creativity is our human superpower’, and with admissions final September up by 1.5% to a brand new excessive, Tub Spa appears to be avoiding the kryptonite. Enterprise, computing, instructor coaching and a few science choices can be found alongside the liberal arts levels. Along with its three principal websites in and simply outdoors of Tub, there’s a new BSU London campus, in modern Hoxton, which hosts a number of BAs in enterprise and administration, in addition to a BSc in well being and social care administration. The college is headquartered at Newton Park, 4 miles outdoors of Tub, with its grounds landscaped by Functionality Brown. These finding out artwork and design are positioned on the Locksbrook campus within the metropolis centre, whereas the textile programs are based mostly at Sion Hill, within the Lansdown district.

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College of Westminster

Overview

Based mostly on the proportion of former college students who go from receiving free college meals to being among the many high 20% of earners by the age of 30, Westminster ranks second in England for social mobility. The decision got here from the Institute for Fiscal Research and schooling charity the Sutton Belief, and highlights how central social inclusion is to Westminster’s mission: 73% of scholars come from ethnic minorities, 56% are the primary of their quick household to go to college and 96% are educated in non-selective state colleges. The college, based mostly on 4 campuses – Cavendish, Regent and Marylebone in central London, and Harrow a bit of additional out – has loved file enrolments previously two years, with purposes at their highest since 2015. Three-quarters of the house consumption are Londoners, however one quarter of undergraduates come from abroad, making scholar life right here as cosmopolitan because the capital itself. Getting ready college students for employment is a thread that runs by way of all programs, which embody experiential studying within the first and second years. There are obligatory short-term placements or work-related tasks, in addition to non-compulsory year-long experiences. The college is working to embed digital internships into programs to make sure equality of entry, too.

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College of Buckingham

Overview

Buckingham is the one unbiased college on this information and it pioneered two-year levels way back as a extra environment friendly method of delivering greater schooling. The price of a two-year diploma right here is now the identical as a three-year course within the state sector, however the saving of a yr of residing prices nonetheless makes going personal a less expensive possibility. The quid professional quo is that college students should work tougher – the tutorial yr is split into 4 phrases with a lot shorter breaks between them. The numbers of purposes and admissions on the college, which just lately marked 40 years of Royal Constitution standing, have by no means been greater. Nonetheless, it stays one of many smallest universities on this information, with round 3,500 college students. Fewer than half of those are undergraduates. Round 50% of the scholars come from abroad, giving the campus a cosmopolitan really feel, however numbers of UK college students are rising. All programs will quickly be taught in Buckingham, following the choice to shut the college’s pricey campus for medication and well being sciences college students in Crewe, Cheshire by 2026. 

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College of Bedfordshire

Overview

One of many champions of widening participation, Bedfordshire has skilled a pointy downturn in purposes in current occasions, with the close to 8,000 who utilized within the 2023 admissions cycle being round half the quantity that sought a spot right here a decade in the past (and 18% down on 2022). It has invested closely in scholar services, nonetheless, with a medical simulation suite one of many newest tasks to come back to fruition. The Luton-headquartered college is well-liked with college students, scoring properly persistently for instructing high quality within the annual Nationwide Pupil Survey, however it was awarded the bottom bronze award total and for scholar outcomes within the newest regulatory Instructing Excellence Framework. It did earn a silver for scholar expertise, nonetheless. An in depth community of scholar assist buildings is in place as a result of the truth that its consumption is made up largely of these from non-traditional backgrounds, though this isn’t sufficient to forestall round one in 5 college students dropping out throughout their first yr. The overwhelming majority of scholars are drawn from the quick space or from the South East, East Anglia and London.

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Buckinghamshire New College

Overview

Buckinghamshire New College (BNU) received our College of the 12 months for Pupil Help in our final version, in recognition of the distinctive efforts it makes to supply a optimistic expertise for its college students. It has minimised most of the hidden prices of college and offered revolutionary assist buildings. In flip, college students reward it with excessive scores for instructing high quality, assist and expertise within the Nationwide Pupil Survey. Document numbers of purposes and admissions in 2023 have been roughly double their pre-pandemic ranges. Headquartered in Excessive Wycombe, the college has additional outposts for healthcare programs in Uxbridge, and work-related programmes in Aylesbury. For college kids with stars of their eyes, it additionally runs 15 programs from Pinewood Studios, together with movie manufacturing, animation and visible results. Greater than half of scholars are the primary of their quick household to go to college, and it additionally has the second-highest proportion of scholars in any English college doing diploma and higher-level apprenticeships, accounting for 16% of all learners. It has hyperlinks with main employers, together with Sky, British Airways, Transport for London and a number of NHS trusts and native authorities, too. 

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Liverpool Hope College

Overview

The smallest of the three Merseyside universities, Liverpool Hope has seen a 35% rise in purposes over the previous ten years. Its undergraduate inhabitants is beneath 4,400, and this provides Hope the scope to implement a contemporary, student-focused method to college schooling. Hope believes small instructing teams allied with sturdy scholar assist providers permit it to supply a private schooling, making certain that no one will get misplaced within the crowd. Hope scores significantly properly for scholar assist within the Nationwide Pupil Survey, with scholar expertise not far behind. The college is continually evolving its diploma portfolio and has just lately added 16 new programmes to its roster. A spread of programs will likely be delivered within the college’s new multi-million-pound i3 constructing which is about to open on its principal Hope Park campus this yr. The campus sits simply 4 miles from Liverpool’s bustling metropolis centre, the place a second base – Hope’s Inventive Campus – may be discovered. Aigburth Park is the college’s purely residential campus and is only a 20-minute bus journey away from town centre. 

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Arts College Bournemouth

Overview

This artistic group of three,500 undergraduates on the south coast is one among 5 specialist arts universities that we rank on this information. Devoted to arts, design and media, Arts College Bournemouth (AUB) presents 28 levels – seven launched this month – and three basis levels to a largely southern clientele, with 80% of scholars drawn from London, the south-east and the south-west. Sharing one among Britain’s sunniest seaside resorts with the a lot bigger Bournemouth College (which has a campus subsequent door) has its benefits when it comes to guaranteeing an lively scholar nightlife and making the world a student-centric vacation spot. After two years of purposes and admissions at file ranges, purposes for entry in September 2023 fell by 24%, and the college took the unpopular choice to shut its BA in dance. The opening this month of the varsity of arts, media and inventive industries administration will draw an inflow of scholars to its raft of recent programs. Bournemouth Movie College is the most important outdoors of London, and the Crab drawing studio – designed by AUB alumnus Professor Sir Peter Cook dinner – is the primary such facility to be in-built an artwork college in additional than a century.

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College of Gloucestershire

Overview

Break up between town of Gloucester and the Regency city of Cheltenham, the College of Gloucestershire has continued its funding in key areas. With cutting-edge services set to open in September 2025, Gloucestershire’s Institute of Training and programmes together with social work and psychology will quickly be based mostly within the former Debenhams constructing within the coronary heart of Gloucester metropolis centre. The college’s Park campus in Cheltenham can also be set to be revitalised this yr, with a £5.8m mission beneath method. These advances, alongside progress in computing-related topics and lively encouragement for college kids to interact with synthetic intelligence (AI), marry up properly with Gloucestershire’s hyperlinks with native, cyber-based employers similar to GCHQ, Intel and IBM. Regardless of this deal with all issues technological, the college retains a robust programme of arts, humanities and instructing programs. The college attracts greater than half of its admissions from the encompassing South West area, and an analogous proportion are first-generation college students in an consumption that’s overwhelmingly educated within the state sector.

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College of Winchester

Overview

The 4 years for the reason that opening of the West Downs Centre – a sustainable growth that acts as a gateway to each town of Winchester and its college – have seen the best variety of purposes within the college’s historical past. This game-changing growth is residence to the college of enterprise and digital applied sciences. The college has come a great distance from its basis greater than 180 years in the past as a instructor coaching school, though instructor coaching stays a key element of its Twenty first-century providing. An total silver within the newest Instructing Excellence Framework assessments was accompanied by reward for excellent scholar assist and the embedding of employability expertise into the curriculum. Alongside lecturers, Winchester seems giant numbers of graduates into nursing, social work and lots of different well being and public service professions. The King Alfred Quarter, the college’s principal campus, is a brief stroll from each the West Downs campus and the beautiful centre of this affluent cathedral metropolis. The campus accommodates a horny mixture of outdated and new buildings and homes many departments, the social hub, the library and the Queens Highway and Burma Highway scholar villages.

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College of Northampton

Overview

Housed on a brand new campus near the city centre, all college students at Northampton get a free laptop computer after they enrol or a £500 lodging low cost or a £500 catering credit score. There’s additional bursary assist value £400 a yr in subsequent years of research for college kids from houses with a family earnings of £25,000 or much less. The common bursary package deal displays the demographic right here, which is predominantly college students drawn from teams which might be historically under-represented at college. This sort of assist makes an actual distinction. Greater than half of the consumption are from households the place dad and mom didn’t attend college and half are ethnic minority college students, with black college students alone making up one third of final yr’s entrants. It was the primary UK college to be designated a Changemaker Campus in 2012, in recognition of its efforts tackling social injustice and altering the world by way of supporting innovation and enterprise. Alongside their diploma, college students can earn a Changemaker certificates which rewards volunteering or paid group work in addition to creating and delivering a brand new mission to create a optimistic social influence. Final yr’s Instructing Excellence Framework assessments noticed the college downgraded from gold to silver, though it achieved this mark in total ranking, scholar expertise and scholar outcomes.

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College for the Inventive Arts

Overview

Certainly one of 5 specialist arts establishments included on this information, the College for the Inventive Arts (UCA) is without doubt one of the largest, and has a robust regional footprint because of its campuses in Canterbury, Epsom and Farnham. The three campuses, set in small cities and cities, lend themselves to creating compact, supportive tutorial communities, with good bonds between college students and employees. There’s a additional facility at Maidstone Studios for these finding out tv manufacturing. Greater than 7,500 undergraduates are enrolled on diploma programmes spanning the artistic industries, together with performing, vogue atelier and tailoring, automotive and transport design, video games growth, jewelry and silversmithing and journalism and communications. The portfolio is increasing to incorporate studio follow (product and furnishings design) from this month, with physique artwork (histories, cultures and practices) and vogue (millinery, equipment and shoe design) taking their first college students in September 2025. Whether or not you need to be a tattoo artist or a tailor, UCA has it coated, with graduates impressed by forebears who embody Dame Zandra Rhodes, Karen Millen, Dame Tracey Emin and Stephen Webster. 

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College of Wales Trinity St David

Overview

The oldest college in Wales can also be the one to have undergone probably the most vital transformation previously 15 years. The College of Wales Trinity St David (UWTSD) started life in 1822 as St David’s Faculty in Lampeter; solely Oxford and Cambridge have an extended historical past amongst Welsh and English universities. It now contains campuses in Lampeter, Carmarthen and Swansea (the previous Swansea Metropolitan College till 2013) and has additionally expanded its footprint to cowl London (opened in 2012), Cardiff (2015) and Birmingham (2018). Nonetheless, UWTSD’s coronary heart stays in south-west Wales, the place every of the campuses has a definite course bias and environment. The historic and exquisite Lampeter campus presents a broad sweep of humanities programs; Swansea is residence to many of the science, expertise and engineering levels, with energy additionally in artwork and design; and Carmarthen acts as a base for artistic arts programmes along with enterprise, sport and schooling. The small outposts in London (for undergraduate levels in well being and social care, enterprise administration, utilized computing, and management and administration expertise for the office), Birmingham (principally schooling, well being and social care, utilized computing and enterprise administration) and Cardiff (principally schooling, legislation, policing and performing arts) full the image.

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Solent College Southampton

Overview

Solent College secured a prestigious triple gold within the newest Instructing Excellence Framework, protecting an total ranking, scholar expertise and scholar outcomes. A mid-sized college, Solent serves a largely native scholar inhabitants, with round two-thirds of the consumption recruited from the South East. The college was created from a sequence of mergers, which introduced collectively the Faculty of Nautical Research within the close by village of Warsash, Southampton Faculty of Artwork and town’s Faculty of Expertise. Solent has seen purposes and admissions fall by 50% over the previous decade as competitors to draw college students hots up. Its maritime programs are its defining function, and it runs cadetship open days for potential college students curious about a life at sea. Amenities are second to none and embody bridge simulators and a singular ship dealing with centre, which options an 11-ship scaled mannequin fleet used for coaching masters, senior officers and pilots. Solent’s tight portfolio of programs additionally covers all the things from vogue and movie to enterprise and nursing.

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York St John College

Overview

York St John (YSJ) occupies a web site near the historic metropolis centre of York and a stone’s throw from York Minster, the place commencement ceremonies happen in spectacular environment. Purposes and admissions in 2023 each hit information for the second successive yr, and the college’s programs are proving a success with immediately’s careers-focused sixth-formers – with instructor coaching, nursing and allied well being programmes to the fore. YSJ is without doubt one of the smaller universities on this information, and so is extra able to delivering a college expertise with a private contact. Final yr’s gold ranking for scholar expertise within the Instructing Excellence Framework bears this out, as does the college’s excessive rating for scholar assist beneath our evaluation of this yr’s Nationwide Pupil Survey outcomes. YSJ caters for a extra native scholar inhabitants than its metropolis neighbour, with 60% of final yr’s consumption coming from Yorkshire and the North East. The opening of a well being simulation suite has boosted services for the rising variety of nursing and healthcare college students, whereas diploma apprenticeships for artistic digital design professionals and broadcast and media methods engineers launched from subsequent September improve YSJ’s presence on this key space, too.

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London Metropolitan College

Overview

London Met has loved some wonderful scores within the Nationwide Pupil Survey (NSS) lately after sustained funding within the scholar expertise. The college has reinvented itself and now seems to be optimistically to the long run, launching a brand new college of the constructed atmosphere final yr to produce graduates to one of many capital’s key industries. The institution of a brand new grownup nursing diploma additionally tremendously expands its healthcare providing. London Met displays the cosmopolitan nature of the capital metropolis it serves, boasting one of the vital numerous scholar our bodies of any UK college. However the outcomes of the current Instructing Excellence Framework have been a combined bag. Gold for scholar expertise confirmed current successes within the NSS, however a bronze for scholar outcomes was much less good, with the college rated silver total. College students are break up between six tutorial colleges – computing and digital media; human sciences; social sciences and professions; enterprise and legislation; the constructed atmosphere; and artwork, structure and design. The latter is located on the Aldgate campus, however the Holloway Highway campus is much bigger. 

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Hartpury College

Overview

Hartpury College, located 5 miles from Gloucester, presents fewer than 40 levels, with a deal with land and animal-related programmes and sports activities – each areas wherein the college excels. Excessive requirements have been recognised with a triple gold award – protecting scholar expertise, scholar outcomes and an total ranking – within the 2023 Instructing Excellence Framework, secured by solely 15% of establishments nationally. Programs may be broad (environmental science; agriculture; sport and train sciences) or very particular (racehorse efficiency and rehabilitation; human-animal interplay with psychology). They’re in demand, with purposes hitting a brand new excessive for admissions in September 2023. Hartpury solely achieved college standing in 2018, however it has a historical past stretching again to 1948. It shares a campus with Hartpury Faculty (rated excellent by Ofsted), which presents A-levels, T-levels and diplomas – in addition to the chance to maneuver into greater schooling with out ever ‘leaving’. College students have use of the 72-hectare House Farm and 4 others close by, which mix to make a totally fledged industrial farming enterprise and are residence to cows, sheep and arable land. The college punches properly above its weight in inter-university competitions, notably rugby – with its semi-professional facet ending mid-table within the second-tier English championship final season. 

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Royal Agricultural College

Overview

Celebrating its one hundred and eightieth anniversary subsequent yr, the Royal Agricultural College is without doubt one of the smallest establishments on this information, specialising in land-based programs for the farmers and rural employees of tomorrow. The RAU aspires to be the main small college in its subject (no pun supposed) however faces stiff competitors from the likes of Harper Adams College, particularly. It presents seven core levels (in agriculture, agricultural enterprise administration, enterprise administration, atmosphere and sustainability, equine science and enterprise, actual property, and rural land administration) plus a number of complementary basis levels, basis years, top-up programs {and professional} placement years. The college is working onerous to develop the variety of college students its recruits from state colleges by including extra science and business-based programs alongside the standard farming fare. For a few years, the RAU had the largest proportion of privately educated college students, outstripping even Oxford and Cambridge. Slightly below one third of the consumption is drawn from the South West, however such is the status of the college – for which King Charles is the patron (and near-neighbour) – that it recruits properly from throughout the UK, with just below 400 new college students final September.

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Arts College Plymouth

Overview

‘Run by artists and designers for artists and designers.’ So boasts Britain’s latest specialist arts college – and one among 5 that we profile and rank on this information. It additionally hints on the intensely sensible slant of programs at Arts College Plymouth (AUP), which can also be comfortably the smallest college on this information. AUP started life because the Plymouth Drawing College in 1856 and is one among three universities on this Devon coastal metropolis. It was shortlisted for College of the 12 months within the 2024 Whatuni? Pupil Selection Awards, ultimately coming fourth based mostly on opinions from its college students, who additionally charge the college’s private contact persistently extremely within the annual Nationwide Pupil Survey. Staffing ranges are among the many most beneficiant, and the coed physique is comprised largely of scholars from backgrounds often under-represented in greater schooling. Town-centre campus has 13,000 sq. metres of studios and workshops unfold throughout 4 buildings. New partnerships with outdoors organisations and investments in tools hold scholar life anchored in the true world. The compact undergraduate course portfolio of simply 21 levels consists of six which have a distance-learning first yr with a January begin. College students on these programs research flexibly at residence, within the studio or at one among AUP’s worldwide host establishments for his or her first yr, which they full by the start of August.

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Birkbeck, College of London

Overview

Birkbeck is one among solely three universities that we profile which don’t function in our rankings. One of many constituent schools of the College of London, Birkbeck is included on this information due to its wonderful provision of accessible, versatile and revolutionary greater schooling, however these qualities and the big variety of part-time college students that comes with them makes it very onerous to check Birkbeck to different establishments. The college presents a variety of undergraduate, postgraduate, full-time and part-time programmes, with daytime courses now being provided alongside Birkbeck’s conventional night instructing occasions. The college’s course portfolio is evolving on a regular basis and the vast majority of Birkbeck’s rising scholar physique undertake their research alongside duties outdoors of schooling – the college has a excessive inhabitants of mature college students. To serve that inhabitants higher, Birkbeck has made vital developments in the way in which it delivers instructing, with the introduction of recent HyFlex expertise set to revolutionise the way in which that college students can have interaction in classes remotely.

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The Open College

Overview

With virtually 200,000 college students finding out for 200 {qualifications} – principally first levels – throughout 400 modules, the Open College (OU) does greater schooling on an even bigger scale than another establishment. It does just about all the things just about. That is the unique distance-learning college, arrange by Harold Wilson’s Sixties Labour authorities, which has offered college schooling to greater than 2.3m individuals over greater than 5 a long time. In recognition of its top quality programs and the excellent – and long-standing – function the OU has performed in delivering greater schooling to so many individuals, it’s our College of the 12 months for Instructing Excellence. Delivering its programs on-line, college students can work every time and wherever they need. Three quarters of these enrolled are in work, however 10% of undergraduates are aged 17 to 21, for whom the OU can seem as an more and more enticing possibility, with 120 credit (equal to finding out full-time for a yr) costing £7,272, in comparison with £9,250 in tuition charges plus residing prices at a traditional college. There aren’t any formal entry necessities, though entry modules may also help new learners set up if they’re outfitted for scholar life. College students can construct credit over a few years or they’ll research full-time, finishing a level in three years. The OU’s distinctive construction – with no college students on campus – means we’re unable to incorporate it in our rankings, however the place information is on the market, similar to measuring scholar satisfaction and analysis high quality, the OU has lengthy proven it may well compete with the most effective of the standard universities.

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College of the Highlands and Islands

Overview

The College of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) presents a singular greater schooling to eight,500 or so undergraduates. This isn’t the ‘brilliant lights, massive metropolis’ expertise seen elsewhere, even at its bigger campuses in Inverness and Perth. UHI brings college schooling to the individuals in one of the vital distant and sparsely populated areas of Europe by way of a community of 12 campuses and 70 studying centres dotted across the mountains and islands of northern Scotland. The college’s decentralised construction makes it inconceivable to incorporate in our rankings, however it’s profiled on this information because of the key public service it offers. College students can base themselves on one of many campuses, break up their research between residence and campus, or research completely on-line. There are campuses within the likes of Lerwick and Kirkwall within the north (UHI Shetland and UHI Orkney), in Stornoway (UHI North, West and Hebrides), the Isle of Skye (Sabhal Mor Ostaig) within the west and UHI Perth within the east. Sabhal Mor Ostaig is the one Gaelic-medium school on the earth, and the course portfolio on different campuses additionally displays the native tradition, panorama and employment choices.

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