Based on a campus a ten-minute walk from the city centre, the university’s investment in its facilities continues. The Esther Simpson Building opened in 2022 as part of an expansion by the business and law schools. A new trading room, flexible teaching areas and behavioural laboratories are among its resources. The Faculty of Biological Sciences has received a significant refurbishment too, giving students access to the latest laboratories. 

These developments follow the recently opened Sir William Henry Bragg Building for engineering and physical sciences, with its facilities to engineer materials at atomic and molecular scales. The Laidlaw Library and the refurbished Edward Boyle Library are also among the campus’ modern resources, while a £17 million upgrade to the students’ union building, once famed for having the longest bar in the country, improved social spaces and performance venues. 

The biggest investment, £174 million over the next decade, is to put its Climate Plan into action — aiming to support climate change mitigation and adaptation locally and globally. Most of the budget, £150 million, is being put toward the university’s goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. The university, an “official observer” at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow in 2021, sent a delegation of more than 40 staff and students to represent it at United Nations and government events. 

Leeds secured gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework (T EF), impressing its panel with an emphasis on education inspired by “discovery, global and cultural insight, ethics and responsibility, and employability”. The assessors found that students take charge of their experiences with academic and co-curricular opportunities that can enhance their learning while preparing them for the world beyond university.

The university has risen six places in the QS World University Rankings to reach 86th place in the 2023 edition.

There are more than 500 undergraduate programmes, with students encouraged to take courses outside their main subject. The Leeds Curriculum promotes the broadening of intellectual horizons and requires undergraduates to produce a final-year research project. The university supports more than 1,000 students each year to complete work placements with organisations locally, nationally and globally. Leeds advertised more than 9,000 vacancies including 2,500 internships in 2021. 

For graduate prospects, Leeds has slipped slightly but remains in the top 30 in our analysis based on the numbers in highly skilled work or postgraduate study at a point 15 months after leaving university.

Leeds continues to channel its research expertise into tackling Covid-19. In 2022 it teamed up with the World Health Organisation on a global strategy to protect future generations against similar threats. The Leeds Cancer Research Centre opened in 2021, with state-of-the-art infrastructure in discovery biology, physical sciences, engineering, artificial intelligence and clinical research designed to accelerate the translation of new treatments and technologies to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. 

The university’s Vulnerability and Policing Futures research centre has opened in partnership with the University of York, exploring how policing can prevent and reduce the risk of harm to the vulnerable. 

Leeds has had a digital education service since 2013. Its lecture-capture technology and multimedia management systems record lectures and virtual classroom sessions, supplementing the face-to-face experience. In-person teaching is the key focus, however, and there are no plans to deliver programmes on campus and online within the same cohort, the university points out. 

Even so, Leeds has crashed out of the top 100 for each of our two measures of student satisfaction, our analysis of the latest National Student Survey shows. For satisfaction with teaching quality, Leeds has plunged 40 places year-on-year to rank 122nd, while it is 116= for how students feel about the wider undergraduate experience, a fall of 49 places.

Two-thirds of Leeds students come from families with a history of university education and three in ten are drawn from independent or selective state secondary schools. This means that Leeds has one of the lower proportions of students from non-selective state comprehensive schools in the UK.

Among the university’s widening participation schemes are contextual offers of a two-grade reduction on published entry requirements, which benefited 26 per cent of entrants in 2022. To be eligible applicants must either come from deprived postcodes, have completed the university’s access scheme or taken a foundation year through the Lifelong Learning Centre. Leeds’ financial package of scholarships and bursaries is one of the biggest in UK higher education, benefiting 30 per cent of admissions. 

Those living in halls get free access to the Edge sports centre (discounted rates are offered university-wide), and its impressive fitness suite. The facility is complemented by the Brownlee Centre, the UK’s first purpose-built triathlon training base, housed at Sports Park Weetwood, three miles from the main city centre campus. The centre is named after Jonny and Alistair Brownlee, the Leeds alumni and Olympic medal-winning brothers. 

Although the university’s 98-acre site is close to the city centre, much of the accommodation is further out. There are 9,294 student bedrooms, enough for the university to guarantee accommodation to first-years, and international students for the duration of their studies. 

Support for students’ mental health is embedded through schools and faculties, the Lifelong Learning Centre and residential services. Same-day drop-in appointments are available remotely and the number of counselling staff has been increased. 

Friendly, multicultural and renowned for fun-packed social options, Leeds is one of the UK’s leading student cities.