Teesside is powering ahead with an ambitious overhaul of its campus. The flagship BIOS building opened in 2023, with £36.9 million of resources ranging from simulated operating theatres to cutting-edge laboratory spaces, and a Digital Life building is under construction in the centre of the Middlesbrough campus. Set to open in 2025, it will bring AI and robotic suites and visual effects studios among £40 million of future-facing facilities fit to train tomorrow’s professionals in fields including fintech, AI and digital sustainable engineering. 

The university is not short of ambition. As an “anchor institution” determined to help the northeast region achieve its potential, Teesside plays an outstanding role in widening participation — and is runner-up Sunday Times University of the Year for Social Inclusions 2025. Three in ten of its intake of undergraduates come from areas of socioeconomic deprivation — no university recruits a higher proportion. Many students are commuters who travel across the Tees Valley region to their studies. Careers are prospering: Teesside is in 44th place (up from 60th) in our new graduate prospects index —  based on 79.2 per cent being engaged in high-skilled jobs or further study 15 months after their degree. 

The Teesside University Advance award of an Apple iPad with Office 365 and keyboard is open to all full-time students enrolled on honours degree courses. It is not means tested — in many ways making its efforts to level the digital playing field fairer still because everyone ends up with the same bit of kit. Credit of £100 is given to students each academic year to spend on books and other course-related essentials.

What is Teesside University’s reputation?

Located in a city formerly known for its steel industry, Teesside swept the board with gold in the government’s Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF 2023). The university is one of an elite group to gain the TEF’s top rating overall and for both underpinning factors: student experience and student outcomes. The panel praised “course content and delivery that inspire and stretch students to their fullest potential", as well as “highly effective and tailored approaches to supporting students to achieve educational gains, particularly in relation to employability".

But Teesside undergraduates returned much cooler feedback on their university in the most recent National Student Survey (NSS): Teesside is 59th for teaching quality (down 36 places) and 90= for the wider experience (a 52-place drop) in our new NSS analysis.

Almost two-thirds of Teesside’s submission to the Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021) was rated world-leading or internationally excellent, and it sits in 94th place in our research quality index. The research environment has become more stimulating with the opening of a £5 million postgraduate hub called the Buttery in 2023, where students can study, collaborate and socialise alongside researchers in their field. Teesside has also opened the £13.1 million Net Zero Industry Innovation Centre, where the research focus is on industrial decarbonisation and net zero technologies, with a view to creating more clean energy jobs. 

Teesside’s portfolio of 27 higher and degree apprenticeships is gaining another 14 in 2024 and 2025, in fields including AI data specialist, digital marketer and solicitor. Existing programmes are already training about 2,600 apprentices for roles including engineer, curator, police constable and midwife.

What degree courses have been discontinued and what new courses are available?

New degrees in digital media and communications; finance, investment and banking; and an integrated masters in optometry launched on campus in September 2024. Teesside also introduced six online degrees: history; finance, investment and banking; chemical and process engineering (top up); electrical and electronic engineering (top-up); instrumentation and control engineering (top-up); and mechanical engineering (top-up). At the time of writing, no course closures had been confirmed for 2024 or 2025.

What are Teesside University’s entry requirements — and my chances of getting in?

Courses require from 80 to 128 Ucas tariff points, and more students enter with Btecs or access courses than A-levels. A flexible offer-making strategy gives admissions tutors some leeway to make offers within a range of tariff points, taking into account applicants’ contextual information. Foundation years are offered as a route into university for students who have grades significantly below the minimum entry tariff. Teesside’s recruitment of international undergraduates has more than tripled in the past decade to represent about 10 per cent of the 2023 intake.

What are the graduate prospects?

Nursing and midwifery, and computing and engineering are some of Teesside’s biggest subject areas, and job-specific, vocational degree programmes help to keep its graduate employment rates within the top half of UK universities. Teesside has a programme of more than 200 internships each year with local and national employers, as well as industry mentor schemes. The Launchpad start-up centre, in Teesside’s University Enterprise Zone, helps budding entrepreneurs and businesses. 

What is Teesside University campus like?

Teesside’s campus master plan has already turned £275 million investment into new developments, mainly in Middlesbrough, including the distinctive Curve teaching building, which won architecture awards in 2016, and a £7 million library upgrade. The Phoenix and Themis buildings are fresh from substantial upgrades, providing dedicated bases for the university’s International Business School and the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Law. 

The smaller Darlington campus, near the railway station, has new bioinformatics and imaging laboratories for use by the School of Health and Life Sciences.

At the university’s new London campus at Here East, the former media centre for the Olympic village, Teesside students can choose from courses in animation, gaming, visual effects, business and computer science — and study flexibly through a blend of face-to-face and online learning.

Everything you need to know about Teesside University’s student life and wellbeing support

Sports clubs and societies are mainstays of Teesside’s social scene. The Olympia sports complex on campus incorporates a sports hall with capacity for 500 spectators, a climbing wall and gym. The Saltersgill Pavilion, two miles away, has four rugby union pitches, and the university is a stakeholder in the River Tees Watersports Centre.

Middlesbrough’s affordable private rents are even more attractive in light of the cost of living crisis.

Personalised support is the goal for Teesside’s mental health service, which has one-to-one counselling and runs workshops to promote a healthy lifestyle. The sleep and lifestyle management clinic provides timely advice for students learning to make the best use of their time.

What do the students say?

“Teesside is a place where students from all over the world can feel supported and at home. The campuses are in the heart of thriving communities. Where issues have arisen, or students have asked for change, we are able to work very positively and constructively in partnership with the university to progress this. Students can also expect strong support with their education, employability, and wellbeing.”
Femi Abolade, students’ union president of wellbeing, and master’s in public health graduate

What about student accommodation at Teesside University?

Rooms are allocated on a first come, first served basis and in 2023-24 about 90 per cent who wanted to live in got a place in halls.

How diverse and inclusive is Teesside University?

Moving up to second place in England and Wales in our social inclusion index, Teesside not only draws a high proportion of students from deprived areas, it does well to maintain a relatively low dropout rate for this group (-0.6 per cent, ranking 30=). The majority of Teesside students (57.3 per cent, ranking 11=) are the first in their family to go to university and its recruitment from non-selective state schools (98.6 per cent) is the third-highest. University outreach work in schools and colleges aims to raise aspirations and dispel myths about higher education, and Teesside offers support with personal statement writing, interview preparation and guidance on fees and funding.

Everything you need to know about scholarships and bursaries at Teesside University

There are valuable subject-specific scholarships encompassing arts and media, business, computer games, computing, engineering, nursing and health, and science — worth from £2,000 to as much as £27,000. Sports performance scholarships reward elite student athletes, and the Beth Mead scholarship supports four football students who identify as a woman with £400 per year of study.