Last year’s University of the Year has a pioneering past: it was the first British university to accept students regardless of religion or social background and the first to admit women on equal terms. Now University College London (UCL) is striding into the future at its second campus at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, east London. UCL East has nine faculties offering more than 50 new cross-disciplinary and interdisciplinary degree programmes, allowing for project work and collaboration. Multidisciplinary research labs and studios at the One Pool Street building provide the setting for exploring ecology, robotics, urbanism, culture, disability and heritage.
Proud of its pledge to be the home of “disruptive thinking” since 1826, UCL is spearheading the art of “disagreeing well” at a time of increasingly polarised debate. The university’s series of events and online resources aims to draw staff, students and the wider community into discussing what it takes to allow those with very different views to exchange ideas and coexist harmoniously.
UCL is the biggest component of the University of London Federation with about 40,000 students at its main base in Bloomsbury, central London. All have growing opportunities to become rounded individuals with record expansion of UCL’s co-curricular and extracurricular activities in sport, the arts and volunteering under the five-year Student Life Strategy running until 2028.
What is University College London’s reputation?
Thirty Nobel laureates have developed their expertise at UCL and its research continues to make a global impact. The university is fifth in our research quality index, based on the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021), in which 93 per cent of its work was rated world-leading or internationally excellent. Law; medicine; area studies; and social sciences were among the highest-scoring subject areas. UCL’s research pedigree has helped secure a top ten spot in the QS World University Rankings for the past 13 years running: it is ninth in the latest (2025) listings. The connected curriculum framework means that undergraduates have the opportunity to take part in research too — a big draw for students.
UCL gained silver overall in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF 2023), with silver for student experience and gold for student outcomes. The TEF panel commended its “use of research in relevant disciplines, innovation, scholarship, professional practice and employer engagement contributing to an outstanding academic experience”. Rates of completion were “outstanding”, the panel said.
Yet students have given UCL mixed reviews in successive National Student Surveys (NSS) — a common trend at research-led, big city universities. In our new NSS analysis, UCL ranks 115th for student satisfaction with teaching quality, falling from 88th in our previous edition. Although it fares better for feedback on the wider undergraduate experience (59th) this is also a fall of 22 places. The Student Life Strategy, a collaboration between UCL and the students’ union, is aimed at improving the situation.
What degree courses have been discontinued and what new courses are available?
UCL has withdrawn two degrees from 2024: heritage, sustainability and society; and Scandinavian studies and history. It has introduced three new options — early childhood education; human neuroscience; and information in society — and relaunched the former education studies degree as education, society and culture.
Another seven degrees are launching in September 2025: art and technology; business and health (as a three-year bachelor’s degree and a four-year integrated master’s); communications; construction engineering, innovation and leadership (four-year integrated master’s); philosophy and computer science; and youth, society and sustainable futures.
What are University College London’s entry requirements – and my chances of getting in?
Standard grades required for a UCL degree programme start at ABB and go up to A*A*A at A-level. Contextual offers are made between one and five grades lower than the standard, benefiting about 16 per cent of new entrants in 2023. UCL’s engineering foundation courses have lower than standard requirements. UCL does not take part in clearing.
The demand for places continued its annual ascent in 2023, with about 77,600 applications — more than double the number a decade ago in 2014. The number of places available has risen by only half the rate of applications over the same ten-year period. In 2023 the university accepted just under 7,600 undergraduates — more than half of them (4,100) recruited from abroad.
What are the graduate prospects?
UCL remains ninth according to our analysis of the Graduate Outcomes survey, with 87.5 per cent of leavers in highly skilled jobs or further study within 15 months.
The university is a top recruiting ground for large employers, in seventh place in the High Fliers graduate market report 2023-24. It also has a strong record on producing entrepreneurs: in 2024, 19 UCL alumni and students made it onto Forbes’ Top 30 Under 30 list of leading entrepreneurs and creatives in Europe. The university’s free extracurricular entrepreneurship programme provides student start-ups with a springboard.
What is University College London campus like?
The Main Building on UCL’s quad, facing Gower Street in central London, fits the image of an academic heavyweight with its grand portico and cloisters. UCL has 16 specialist libraries and a new student centre has added 1,000 study places. Finance students practise on a virtual trading floor. UCL’s medical school is among the largest in Europe.
At UCL East, the One Pool Street building houses multidisciplinary research labs and a lecture theatre which doubles as a cinema, as well as housing for over 500 students. The Marshgate building has workshops and the UCL Institute of Making.
Everything you need to know about University College London’s student life and wellbeing support
Student advisers help first-years to settle in and those seeking to boost their wellbeing can spend time with therapy dogs. UCL’s free mental health support includes counselling, psychiatric support and workshops. In their final year, all undergraduates are offered a counselling session to get their heads straight in the third term. There is tailored support for international students from countries in conflict.
Cultural and artistic opportunities are boundless on and off campus. UCL has three museums. The Grant Museum of Zoology reopened in February 2024 after a year-long, £300,000 project to add displays with a focus on the human impact on biodiversity. The Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology provides a window to ancient history and the UCL Art Museum displays sculpture, painting, prints and drawings from the 1490s to the present day. Works of art are all around UCL’s campuses and its Slade School of Fine Art and Bartlett School of Architecture hold annual summer exhibitions. There are 450 sports clubs, societies, liberation networks and volunteering projects to join and UCL has a successful YouTube channel with more than 38,000 subscribers, where students post “Day in the Life” content and students can find advice or watch lectures and performances.
As part of the Student Life Strategy, the first UCL Campus Run (5k or 10k) took place at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in April 2024. Indoor sports and fitness facilities are on campus but outdoor pitches are a free coach ride away in Hertfordshire. UCL East is within easy reach of Hackney Wick, opening up fashionable East End enclaves to students, while the West End is tantalisingly close to the main campus.
What do the students say?
“Extra and co-curricular experiences are highly valued at UCL and over half of all students get involved in activities such as volunteering, creative arts, sports, and cultural festivals. I have found my lifelong best friends during my journey here. UCL’s dynamic environment, which mirrors London's rich diversity, offers a comprehensive university experience that nurtures leadership and personal growth.”
Goksu Danaci, UCL students’ union president and politics, sociology and East European studies graduate
What about student accommodation at University College London?
First-years who apply in time (early June) have priority for more than 8,000 residential places. Self-catering rent starts at £145 a week. UCL guarantees university accommodation to students aged under-18, care-leavers and those with additional needs for the duration of their studies.
How diverse and inclusive is University College London?
An ethnically diverse intake puts UCL 22nd, but overall it falls just outside the top 100 (107th) in our social inclusion index. UCL spends £3 million a year on summer and Saturday schools, literacy and study skills programmes to encourage wider participation. It is the first British university to be the sole sponsor of a non-selective comprehensive secondary school — UCL Academy in Camden, north London. However, only 52.5 per cent of UCL students are recruited from non-selective state schools (112th). In 2023 UCL launched a summer school in India to prepare students for university.
Everything you need to know about scholarships and bursaries at University College London
About three in ten of UCL’s UK undergraduates receive some financial aid. UCL’s main undergraduate bursary — £1,000 to £3,000 — is awarded to those with household income below £42,875. Accommodation bursaries are offered in the first year to students from lower-income and widening participation backgrounds. Most scholarships based on academic merit are means-tested. Some also include paid summer work placements and community volunteering opportunities.
