The biggest factor in its eight-place rise in our main academic league table is improving graduate outcomes. A rise of 13 percentage points in the proportion of students going on to highly skilled jobs or further study within 15 months has helped Middlesex to vault 54 places up our graduate employment index into 67th place. A branch of the recruitment service Unitemps is located on campus.

Applications dropped by almost 9 per cent in the latest admissions round, following a similar decline in 2021. As a popular destination for European students for many years, the university blames Brexit, but is also feeling the effects of a revised curriculum aimed at better-prepared students.

The main campus has benefited from £200 million of recent investment, including the consolidation of library services and two new academic buildings at the business school. Although the university’s campus in Malta closes in September 2022, a Dubai outpost has opened for 4,500 students and there are 1,000 studying through Middlesex in Mauritius. A global strategy for the period up to 2031 aims to improve health and wellbeing and reduce inequality, use culture and creativity to enrich the lives of individuals and communities and help to protect the environment. 

Middlesex has invested heavily in technology to facilitate its “learning through doing” approach, delivering practical courses with personalised support. The £24 million Stone X Stadium in Hendon, opening in September 2022, will provide access to virtual and augmented reality technology. It will house purpose-built facilities for the London Sport Institute, in partnership with Saracens Rugby Club, whose grounds will house the latest technology for motion capture, force sensing plates and full-body scanning. 

New facilities for the natural sciences on the main campus will include diagnostic suites and laboratories, while nursing and midwifery students will have new clinical skills facilities including wards, consulting rooms, birthing and sensory rooms, and skills labs to develop the confidence they need to practise safely during clinical placements. Middlesex led a project to develop an electronic practice assessment document (ePAD), introduced in nursing courses across London in 2021.

The university offers 14 apprenticeship programmes, with 1,800 students training for careers from broadcast and media engineer, sports coach and social worker to environmental health practitioner, police constable or risk and safety management professional. It expects to add 1,000 places by 2023.

Almost all British students at Middlesex are from non-selective state schools and the university has climbed six places to 21st in our overall social inclusion index. Nearly three-quarters are from black, Asian or ethnic minority backgrounds and more than half are the first in their family to go to university. A contextual admissions policy — taken up by about 3 per cent of students in its year of introduction in 2021 — provides offers on average one grade lower than standard requirements for candidates facing the greatest barriers to study at Middlesex. The university offers a variety of schemes for students from low-income backgrounds, including a Summer Support Fund for those who need money urgently to cover living costs, and technology costs for online learning over the long vacation. 

Middlesex submitted work in a dozen subject areas to the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021), a broader range than the previous assessment in 2014. Business and management was the strongest area in the university's submission. But although REF 2021 recorded  improvement, rival institutions did even better and the university has slipped more than 20 places down our research quality ranking to 88=. 

The university has 1,140 residential places on or close to campus, including 630 in a privately run development near Wembley Stadium. New entrants are guaranteed accommodation if they meet the summer deadline for applications.

Sports facilities are extensive and most are conveniently located. They include a bouldering wall and fitness pod and a real tennis court, although the latter is scheduled to close in four years’ time because student usage is considered too low to justify the space it occupies. The West End and central London’s many attractions are a Tube journey away.