Teeside’s University Advance scheme provides undergraduates at the main Middlesbrough campus with an Apple iPad, keyboard and £100 credit each academic year for online learning resources. Beyond the digital facilities, students have access to Teesside’s evolving campus, where a £300 million investment is rolling out a masterplan of modern resources. The Digital Life building is the latest addition in the centre of the campus, featuring cybersecurity and smart labs, digital art studios and one of the world’s largest fully immersive simulation suites — among £40 million of future-facing facilities fit to train tomorrow’s professionals in fields including AI, robotics, digital media and games design.
It follows the £36.9 million BIOS health and science building. As an “anchor institution” determined to help the northeast region to achieve its potential, Teesside has a proud history in removing barriers to higher education in a city formerly known for its steel industry. 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.
What is Teesside University’s reputation?
Teesside has leapt 20 places up our main academic ranking into 84= place, helped by much-improved feedback in the latest National Student Survey: Teesside is 31st for teaching quality (up 28 places) and 71st for the wider experience (a 19-place gain) in our new NSS analysis.
The positive reviews from students echoes those of the government’s Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), in whose assessment Teesside swept the board with gold. 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. Now, the university has a medical school in its sights and has sought approval from the General Medical Council.
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 93rd place in our research quality index. The research environment has become more stimulating with the opening in 2023 of a £5 million postgraduate hub called the Buttery, 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.
There was praise from Ofsted for Teesside’s apprenticeship provision, which was rated “outstanding” in a 2025 inspection. The university is a leading provider of the earn-while-you-learn route and has more than 2,500 students enrolled on 40-plus apprenticeships.
What degree courses have been discontinued and what new courses are available?
New courses for 2025 are law (LLB), pharmacy (MPharm) and an engineering top-up. A nursing associate course begins in January 2026. At the time of writing, no course closures had been confirmed for 2025 or 2026.
What are Teesside University’s entry requirements — and my chances of getting in?
Courses require from 128 to 80 Ucas tariff points, and more students enter with Btecs or access courses than A-levels. A flexible 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 2024 intake.
What are the graduate prospects?
Careers are prospering. Teesside is in 44th place in our graduate prospects index, based on 79.2 per cent being engaged in high-skilled jobs or further study 15 months after their degree. 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. The Launchpad start-up centre, in Teesside’s University Enterprise Zone, helps budding entrepreneurs and businesses.
What is Teesside University's campus like?
Teesside’s campus master plan has already produced 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.
When can I visit?
tees.ac.uk
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 a gym. The Saltersgill Pavilion, two miles away, has four rugby union pitches, and the university is a stakeholder in the River Tees Watersports Centre. For arts and culture there is Mima (the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art), a Tate Plus gallery that is part of the university. 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 advice for students learning to make the best use of their time.
What do the students say?
“Students can expect strong support with their education, employability and wellbeing should they choose Teesside.”
Blessing Ihuoma, students’ union president of wellbeing, and psychology graduate
What about student accommodation at Teesside University?
There are 912 rooms, which are allocated on a first come, first served basis although first-years and students with medical conditions receive priority. In 2024-25 about 90 per cent who wanted to live in got a place in halls.
How diverse and inclusive is Teesside University?
In tenth place in England and Wales in our social inclusion index (down from second last year), Teesside draws a high proportion of students from deprived areas, but its dropout rate for this group (3.4 per cent) ranks it only 89=. The majority of Teesside students (61.5 per cent, ranking ninth) are the first in their family to go to university and its recruitment from non-selective state schools (98.4 per cent) is the fifth-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 — as well as sport. Teesside also offers care leaver bursaries of £2,000, and two Brittan Scholarships of £10,000 for students who achieve AAB and face financial hardship.
