In 2022/23, the Open University, which focuses on remote learning, had approximately ******* students enrolled on courses, the highest in the UK during that academic year. After the Open University, University College London had the highest number of students in the UK, at ******, while the University of Manchester had the second-highest, at ******. The UK's oldest university, The University of Oxford, had approximately ****** students studying there.

In 2022/23 there were estimated to be over **** million students enrolled in higher education courses in the United Kingdom, which was the highest number of enrolled students during this provided time period. Although the number of students in the UK fell from *** million in 2011/12 to **** by 2014/15, this trend reversed in subsequent years, reaching the peak in the most recent year. Largest UK universities At ******* students, the mainly remote, Open University had the largest number of students enrolled among UK-based higher education institutions in 2022/23. University College London had the second-highest number of students at ******, followed by the University of Manchester at ******. At the UK's two oldest and most prestigious universities, Oxford and Cambridge, there were ******, and ****** students respectively. The university with the most students in Scotland was the University of Glasgow at *******students, with Wales' being Cardiff University at ****** students, and Northern Ireland's Ulster University having ****** students. Student Debt in the UK For students that graduated from English universities in 2024, the average student loan debt incurred over the course of their studies was over ****** British pounds. Although students graduated with less debt from universities in Wales, Northern Ireland, and especially Scotland, this too has been growing recently. In 2024, students from Scottish Universities graduated with an average of ****** pounds of debt, compared with ****** in Wales, and ****** in Northern Ireland. The overall outstanding student loan debt in the UK reached over *** billion pounds in 2023/24, with the vast majority of this debt from students who studied in England.

Students from the Chinese ethnic group had the highest entry rate into higher education in every year from 2006 to 2024.

Survey of over 20,000 UK students on their top priorities for university: social/lifestyle, satisfaction, nightlife, affordability. Data shapes Unifresher's ranking system.

This statistic shows the application rate, by ethnic group, of 18-year-old pupils from English state schools to United Kingdom (UK) universities in 2013. Of pupils of Chinese origin, 56 percent applied to a university in 2013, the highest application rate of any ethnic group.

Out of the ten highest-ranked universities in the United Kingdom, The University of Edinburgh had the most residential buildings for the calendar year 2021/2022, with a total of 193 at that time. The University of Bristol and the University of Manchester constituted the remainder of the top three, with 106 and 86 buildings, respectively.

Interest in the relationship between the activities of universities and action on climate change is growing, but until recently there has been little focus on the role of researchers, particularly with regards to how research practices and culture can enable or inhibit change. This study addresses this gap, exploring researchers’ perceptions of universities’ measures to tackle their own emissions, their own engagement on issues surrounding the climate crisis, and challenges and opportunities for researchers to contribute to them. We present findings from a large, mixed methods survey of 1,853 researchers from 127 UK universities across disciplines and career stages, including comparing responses across these professional differences, and analysis based on over 5,000 open text responses provided by the survey participants. The results show that while most have some knowledge of the actions being taken and feel that climate emergency declarations are making a (small) difference, many think not enough is being done. They feel that responsibility for university climate action sits across government, universities and research councils, but almost all researchers are also personally worried about climate change and want to do more themselves to address it. For the most part, they also strongly support climate advocacy by those engaged in research. Yet high workload, uncertainty about what actions to take, perceived lack of agency or power, inflexible university processes and pressure to travel are just some of the many barriers researchers face in taking action. The study highlights how these barriers can be overcome, and the steps universities and researchers can take to better incorporate climate action into their research culture and practices.

The Centre for Climate Change Transformations (C3T) will be a global hub for understanding the profound changes required to address climate change. At its core, is a fundamental question of enormous social significance: how can we as a society live differently - and better - in ways that meet the urgent need for rapid and far-reaching emission reductions?

While there is now strong international momentum on action to tackle climate change, it is clear that critical targets (such as keeping global temperature rise to well within 2 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels) will be missed without fundamental transformations across all parts of society. C3T's aim is to advance society's understanding of how to transform lifestyles, organisations and social structures in order to achieve a low-carbon future, which is genuinely sustainable over the long-term.

Our Centre will focus on people as agents of transformation in four challenging areas of everyday life that impact directly on climate change but have proven stubbornly resistant to change: consumption of goods and physical products, food and diet, travel, and heating/cooling. We will work across multiple scales (individual, community, organisational, national and global) to identify and experiment with various routes to achieving lasting change in these challenging areas. In particular, we will test how far focussing on 'co-benefits' will accelerate the pace of change. Co-benefits are outcomes of value to individuals and society, over and above the benefits from reducing greenhouse gas emissions. These may include improved health and wellbeing, reduced waste, better air quality, greater social equality, security, and affordability, as well as increased ability to adapt and respond to future climate change. For example, low-carbon travel choices (such as cycling and car sharing) may bring health, social and financial benefits that are important for motivating behaviour and policy change. Likewise, aligning environmental and social with economic objectives is vital for behaviour and organisational change within businesses.

Our Research Themes recognise that transformative change requires: inspiring yet workable visions of the future (Theme 1); learning lessons from past and current societal shifts (Theme 2); experimenting with different models of social change (Theme 3); together with deep and sustained engagement with communities, business and governments, and a research culture that reflects our aims and promotes action (Theme 4).

Our Centre integrates academic knowledge from disciplines across the social and physical sciences with practical insights to generate widespread impact. Our team includes world-leading researchers with expertise in climate change behaviour, choices and governance. We will use a range of theories and research methods to fill key gaps in our understanding of transformation at different spatial and social scales, and show how to target interventions to impactful actions, groups and moments in time.

We will partner with practitioners (e.g., Climate Outreach, Greener-UK, China Centre for Climate Change Communication), policy-makers (e.g., Welsh Government) and companies (e.g.,...

The University of Oxford was the top ranked university in the UK in 2025, and was given an overall score of 98.5 by Times Higher Education, while the University of Cambridge had the second highest score of 97.4. The third and fourth highest ranked Universities were all located in London.

These data were generated as part of a two-and-a-half-year ESRC-funded research project examining the digitalisation of higher education (HE) and the educational technology (Edtech) industry in HE. Building on a theoretical lens of assetisation, it focused on forms of value in the sector, and governance challenges of digital data. It followed three groups of actors: UK universities, Edtech companies, and investors in Edtech. The researchers first sought to develop an overview of the Edtech industry in HE by building three databases on Edtech companies, investors in Edtech, and investment deals, using data downloaded from Crunchbase, a proprietary platform. Due to Crunchbase’s Terms of Service, only parts of one database are allowed to be submitted to this repository, i.e. a list of companies with the project’s classification. A report offering descriptive analysis of all three databases was produced and is submitted as well. A qualitative discursive analysis was conducted by analysing seven documents in depth. In the second phase, researchers conducted interviews with participants representing three groups of actors (n=43) and collected documents on their organisations. Moreover, a list of documents collected from Big Tech (Microsoft, Amazon, and Salesforce) were collected to contextualise the role of global digital infrastructure in HE. Due to commercial sensitivity, only lists of documents collected about investors and Big Tech are submitted to the repository. Researchers then conducted focus groups (n=6) with representatives of universities (n=19). The dataset includes transcripts of focus groups and outputs of writing by participants during the focus group. Finally, a public consultation was held via a survey, and 15 participants offered qualitative answers.

In the 2022/23 academic year, 30 percent of undergraduates obtaining their degree were awarded a degree with first-class honors, the highest possible grade for UK graduates. Almost half of all students achieved an upper second or 2.1, with 20 percent obtaining a lower second or 2.2, and just four percent of graduates obtained a third, the lowest possible pass grade. The share of UK students graduating with a first-class degree has increased significantly in this time period, while the share of students obtaining a 2.2 has fallen the most in the same time period. GCSE and A-Level grades also on the rise Higher grades for the UK's main qualification for high school students, the general certificate of secondary education (GCSE), have also increased recently. In 1988 for example, approximately 8.4 percent of GCSE entries received the highest grade, compared with 21.8 percent in 2024. This is also the case to a lesser-extent for advanced level GCSE results (A-Levels), with the share of entries being awarded an A or A* increasing from 17.8 percent in 2000 to 27.8 percent in 2024. There is no consensus on if these improvements are due to increased ability, or to grade inflation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, grades in the UK were a lot higher than in other years. This was due to teacher and tutor assessments being giving a higher weighting than normal, with exams being postponed or cancelled completely. The UK's top universities Britain's oldest and most famous universities, Cambridge and Oxford, remained the two highest-ranked universities in the UK in 2025, with the London School of Economics finishing third. According to the ranking, the University of St Andrews was the top university outside the south of England, with Durham University being the highest-ranked university in the north of England. The largest university in terms of enrolled students was the mainly remote focused Open University, which had over 140,000 students in 2022/23. Among universities that mainly taught on-campus, University College London had the most students enrolled, at almost 52,000.

In 2022/23 the overall annual expenditure of higher education institutions in the United Kingdom amounted to approximately **** billion British pounds, an increase on the previous year.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This study is comprised by the data collected for a wider project exploring the historical relationship between higher education and the UK economy. The project sought to provide a long-term explanation of the relationships between funding, widening access and socio-economic aspects of higher education. Three main areas were considered:
-The provision of an in-depth historical account and analysis of the numbers and extent of students and staff for the purposes of evaluating the main characteristics of UK higher education development back the 1920s.
-The provision of an in-depth historical account and evaluation of levels and structures of income and expenditure in higher education
-The interpretation of these data with reference to major socio-economic indicators.

Main Topics:

This study is a collation and analysis of statistics on UK higher education which refers to pre-1992 universities and includes all institutions delivering degrees afterwards. The dataset, which gathers historical series on funding and development of universities from the early 1920s, is the result of research into primary and secondary governmental and institutional sources.

Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

This is a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of Chinese international students in the UK, with a comparison group of UK home students. It is part of a wider study with other surveys in Germany and China. The study population are taught (undergraduate and postgraduate) Chinese students studying in UK universities. Areas covered in the questionnaires: Socio-demographic characteristics and course details; family background (parental education, occupation, household income, siblings); prior education (academic achievement and educational migration); motivations for study abroad and decision-making process; personality traits and values (e.g., risk-taking attitude); study experience in current course; health and wellbeing; future life course aspirations; cosmopolitan vs national orientations.

Young people moving away from home to seek 'bright futures' through higher education are a major force in the urbanization of China and the internationalization of global higher education. Chinese students constitute the largest single group of international students in the richer OECD countries of the world, making up 20 percent of the total student migration to these countries. Yet systematic research on a representative sample of these student migrants is lacking, and theoretical frameworks for migration more generally may not always apply to students moving for higher education. Bright Futures is a pioneering study that investigates key dimensions of this educational mobility through large-scale, representative survey research in China, the UK and Germany. We explore this phenomenon in two related aspects: the migration of students from the People's Republic of China to the UK (this data collection) and Germany for higher education, and internal migration for studies within China. This research design enables an unusual set of comparisons, between those who stay and those who migrate, both within China and beyond its borders. We also compare Chinese students in the UK and Germany with domestic students in the two countries. Through such comparisons we are able to address a number of theoretical questions such as selectivity in educational migrations, aspirations beyond returns, the impact of transnationalization of higher education on individual orientations and life-course expectations, and the link between migration and the wellbeing of the highly educated. Bright Futures is a collaborative project, involving researchers from University of Essex, University of Edinburgh, UNED, University of Bielefeld and Tsinghua University. The research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK), German Research Foundation (Germany) and the National Natural Science Foundation (China).

Data on the top universities for Computer Science in 2025.

Full resource found at: https://sparcopen.org/our-work/big-deal-knowledge-base

Sourcing: Pricing Data: Individual entries are linked to third party resources within the database; non-linked entries come from Freedom of Information requests (courtesy of Ted Bergstrom and Paul Courant). FTE Data: UK Higher Education Statistics Agency for UK FTE (HE student enrollment FTE + HE staff); DOE IPEDS for US FTE (“Full-time equivalent fall enrollment” + “Total FTE staff”); Universities Canada and COPPUL for Canadian FTE (student data only). Institutional Categories: Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

Data on the top universities for Engineering in 2025, including disciplines such as Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, and Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Cambridge Centre for Business Research Survey of Knowledge Exchange Activity with Universities by United Kingdom Companies, 2017-2021 contains the results of an online survey of directors of UK companies in 2020-2021.

The survey was designed to assess the extent and nature of the knowledge exchange interactions of their companies with the university sector. It covers the three-year period to March 2020 prior to the Covid-19 pandemic and questions relating to the subsequent impact of the pandemic on knowledge exchange patterns. The researchers inquired about 33 modes of interaction grouped into four broad categories. These were commercialisation (3 modes), people-based (10 modes), problem-solving (12 modes) and community-based (4 modes).

The survey covers a sample of 3,823 companies in all sectors, regions and countries of the UK and employment sizes ranging from micro-firms less than 10 employees, to the largest public listed corporations. The response rate was 4.4 per cent and a detailed response bias analyses by survey wave and prompt wave showed largely insignificant sample response bias compared to the sampling frame drawn from the FAME database of all UK companies.

The dataset provides a unique source of data on a critical period of challenge for knowledge exchange in the UK. David Sweeney, the then Executive Director of Research England which sponsored the survey commented on an initial report of results in 2022 that "This report which has an exclusive focus on company interactions with universities, is an important addition to our understanding of the collaboration process" (The Changing State of Business-University Interactions in the UK. Centre for Business Research and NCUB. 2022 p2).

The survey dataset contains many variables comparable with a similar previous postal survey of an earlier period by two members of the current research team. The data from this is available from the Data Archive under SN 6464 - Cambridge Centre for Business Research Survey of Knowledge Exchange Activity by United Kingdom Businesses, 2005-2009.

Main Topics:

The survey was designed to assess the extent and nature of the knowledge exchange interactions of UK companies with the UK university sector.

Interactive data visualizations and rankings of top UK schools (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales) based on GCSE results.

Data on the top universities for Physical Sciences in 2025, including disciplines such as Chemistry, Geology, and Physics & Astronomy.

This dataset contains the amount of money paid by UK higher education institutions to six major publishers (Wiley, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Sage, Oxford University Press, and Cambridge University Press) for academic journals from 2010-14. The data was obtained by sending FOI requests to each institution through the website whatdotheyknow.com See http://theinformed.org.uk/2014/09/the-cost-of-subscription-publishing/ for details.