Queen Mary, University of London continues its founding mission to improve lives through education. This Russell Group outlier in Tower Hamlets, east London, continues to do as well in our academic league (39th) as in our social inclusion table (41st). Since 1785, the university has grown from its roots in four historic colleges in the East End with a focus on social justice.
QMUL undergraduates are mainly taught and housed in Mile End, on the biggest self-contained campus in the capital, and the university’s additional Whitechapel campus. Drapers Bar & Kitchen is the social hub on campus while the hip enclaves of Brick Lane and Shoreditch and green spaces of Victoria Park are within walking distance.
What is Queen Mary University of London’s reputation?
A member of the Russell Group of elite research universities since 2012, QMUL has nine Nobel prizewinners among its former staff and students. Famous alumni include the novelists JG Ballard and Sarah Waters, Dr Thomas Barnardo, the Victorian philanthropist, and the celebrated scientist and Labour peer Lord Winston. The latter pair both studied at “the London” — as the former London Hospital Medical College, one of QMUL’s institutional forebears, was known.
QMUL confirmed its standing in the Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021) with 92 per cent of its submission assessed as world-leading or internationally excellent. The university’s drama and film departments produced some of the best results, along with politics and international studies, engineering, economics, and history.
QMUL achieved silver overall in the latest Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF 2023), including silver for student outcomes. Assessors commended “very high rates of continuation and completion, supported by peer-led team learning and interactive teaching methods”, and highlighted students’ “very high successful rates of progression, supported by including graduate attributes in all programmes”.
The TEF panel’s bronze rating for QMUL’s student experience is in keeping with its general record in the National Student Survey (NSS). In our analysis of NSS 2024, QMUL is 85th for satisfaction with the wider undergraduate experience (up from 107th year-on-year) but has lost ground on satisfaction with teaching quality (down four places to 121st).
Even so, the TEF panel found evidence of “a supportive learning environment, where students have access to a readily available range of very high quality academic support” — deeming this a “very high quality feature” of QMUL’s provision. Student engagement “is embedded”, they found, “and there is a collaborative approach with students to make improvements”.
QMUL has embraced degree apprenticeships and counts more than 600 trainees enrolled on six programmes in fields including financial services (new for 2024); investment operations; chartered management; and digital technology.
What degree courses have been discontinued and what new courses are available?
Management for social change is a new degree introduced in 2024. From 2025 the university will offer applied AI; international business; and a distance learning degree in pharmacology and drug discovery.
Degrees in physics with data science, and sustainable energy engineering, will not be available from 2025.
What are Queen Mary University of London’s entry requirements – and my chances of getting in?
Applicants need BBB up to A*AA at A-level to get a place on QMUL’s courses. Nearly a quarter of entrants received a contextual offer in 2023, receiving a two- or three-grade reduction in their entry requirement. The criteria for contextual offers has been expanded for 2025 entry. In 2023, just over 4,800 new first-years enrolled on courses, a quarter of them through clearing.
What are the graduate prospects?
About 150 employer events take place at QMUL from September to May and employers connect with QMUL interns for 40-hour “micro-internships”. There is funding for full internships too, many of them with local organisations and small and medium-sized enterprises. Almost four in five QMUL graduates were in highly skilled work or further study when the Graduate Outcomes study took its census 15 months after the completion of their degrees. This places the university just inside the top 50 for this measure.
What is Queen Mary University of London's campus like?
QMUL’s footprint spreads beyond the two main campuses at Mile End and Whitechapel to a total of six with extra sites at Charterhouse Square, Ilford (for medicine and dentistry), West Smithfield and Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Recent investment projects have produced 500 new study spaces at the 24-hour library at the Mile End campus and a laptop loan scheme with 200 devices. Bloc, the university’s new cinema, arts laboratory and post-production suite, opened in January 2024. A canalside building for the School of Business and Management is due to open in 2026.
Next in line for refurbishment is the Garrod building, on the Whitechapel campus,which will gain a library and study spaces along with a multifaith centre, fitness studio and bookable areas for activities.
The university’s large Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at Whitechapel includes the striking Neuron Pod, an extension of the award-winning Centre of the Cell science education centre. Also part of the QMUL estate is the People’s Palace in Mile End, where the art deco Great Hall has been restored to host events. There are also international campuses in Paris, Malta, China and Singapore.
Everything you need to know about Queen Mary University of London’s student life and wellbeing support
Since the pandemic, QMUL has poured more investment into wellbeing services, providing support for international and independent students and taking a proactive approach to wellbeing by running mindfulness workshops and a knitting group for those seeking a bit of calm. Advice on housing, money, immigration concerns and emotional wellbeing is readily available and students can seek counselling and other talking therapies. QMUL is one of the few universities to introduce mandatory training on sexual consent, and offers one-to-one support from sexual assault and harassment advisers.
On the Mile End campus, the Qmotion sport and fitness centre offers more than 25 classes a week and free personalised training programmes. There are 300 societies and sports clubs, with matches at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford. The university has its own sports grounds 11 miles away at Chislehurst for football, rugby, lacrosse, American football and cricket.
Music is well supported, and students can take part in orchestras, choirs, a jazz band and a capella groups. The Assistant Producers scheme and Peopling the Palaces festival provide opportunities for students to develop creative skills. QMUL is involved as a partner institution with the Season of Bangla drama festival and the UK Asian Film Festival.
What do the students say?
“We're a campus university in the liveliest capital! The culture and rich history of east London is on our doorstep but when you need a break, our campuses offer a welcome breather. They’ve been having a makeover from our study areas that overlook Canary Wharf to our warm (affordable!) cafes!”
Serena-Amani Al Jabbar, Queen Mary students' union president and international relations graduate
What about student accommodation at Queen Mary University of London?
Accommodation is guaranteed either on or near campus to first-years who have a firm offer and apply by June 30.
How diverse and inclusive is Queen Mary University of London?
Initiatives to widen participation in higher education are well established and evolving. Among them are the Access to Queen Mary scheme, an 18-month programme helping to prepare students for higher education, and Queen Mary Futures, four weeks of activities that introduce some of the university’s subjects. Our figures show that QMUL has the fifth-highest intake of students from black and minority ethnic backgrounds (75.5 per cent) and the narrowest black awarding gap for degrees in England and Wales (1.9 per cent). Our analysis reflects similar findings in a report in 2021 by the Institute for Fiscal Studies which ranked QMUL as the UK’s top university for social mobility.
Everything you need to know about scholarships and bursaries at Queen Mary University of London
More than two-thirds of current UK undergraduates receive the Queen Mary Bursary of £1,000 or £1,700 depending on incomes under £35,000. A range of merit-based and/or subject-specific academic awards is also offered, some but not all of them means-tested.
