It is a welcome sign that the university’s £330 million development of the Waterside Campus, which opened in 2018, is finally paying off. A few minutes’ walk from the town centre, the 58-acre campus has a four-storey Learning Hub, where most teaching takes place, as its centrepiece. Big lecture theatres have been replaced by classrooms for up to 40 people and smaller lecture spaces.

Overall, however, Northampton has dropped 17 places in our main academic league table and into the bottom ten. 

Northampton had adopted a system of “active blended learning” before the pandemic struck, combining face-to-face and online provision and making use of the new configuration of the campus, which was designed for a “flipped learning” model where students prepare in advance for their teaching sessions and interact more with their peers and staff. The system was able to accommodate more online learning during the pandemic and has returned to more face-to-face learning since.

The university was rated gold in the Teaching Excellence Framework before the new campus opened, not least for its focus on social enterprise. Every student has the opportunity to work in a social enterprise as part of their course, developing entrepreneurial skills to make them more employable.

The Northampton Employment Promise guarantees an internship of at least three months or a postgraduate course to any graduates who have not found full-time work within a year of graduating with at least a 2:2 degree or Higher National Diploma. The university also works closely with the Northamptonshire Growth Hub, assisting local businesses as well as providing opportunities for student placements and part-time jobs. In our analysis of graduate prospects, based on the proportion in highly skilled jobs or on postgraduate courses 15 months after leaving Northampton, the university ranks joint 84th.

Five new degrees are planned for 2023: in animation, artificial intelligence and data science, computer networks engineering, software engineering, and pharmacology. The university also expects some growth in the numbers taking its ten degree apprenticeship programmes, which include provision for nursing associates, non-destructive testing engineers and occupational therapists.

More student placements will be available for arts, science and technology and health students through the creation of the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire NHS Group, a new alliance with the University of Leicester and hospitals in Northampton and Kettering. 

The alliance will also open up research opportunities. The university increased the size of its submission to the latest Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021) but has fallen into the bottom ten on this measure in our table (123rd).

Northampton fares much better in our social inclusion index (33=), admitting almost all of its undergraduates from non-selective state schools and featuring in the top 30 for the proportion of mature students. Professor Anne-Marie Kilday, who took over as vice-chancellor in 2022 after moving from Oxford Brookes University, has identified equality, diversity and inclusion as her top priorities, making higher education “a catalyst for positive social impact”.

The university has a variety of schemes to encourage students from underrepresented groups into higher education, and awards a bursary of £400 in the second and third year of a degree to students with a household income of less than £25,000, with the choice of a laptop or accommodation discount in the first year. Northampton also co-sponsors a University Technical College at the nearby Silverstone motor-racing circuit.

Northampton is one of few universities in the UK to offer all students free access to sports facilities. The students’ union provides the necessary kit. The sports dome is used for teaching as well as recreation, and there is a pavilion, outdoor games areas and an artificial pitch. The Active Campus features a mile-long trim trail with 14 pieces of outdoor exercise equipment, table tennis tables, table football, and lawn games such as badminton or boules. Leisure facilities are shared with the local community.

All new full-time students who apply by late May are guaranteed a room in halls, either on or close to the campus. Those who arrive through Clearing are guaranteed a room in the Scholars Green halls, four miles away. The town centre has a number of popular bars including the Platform, a students’ union venue housing a nightclub, bar and café.