Who's studying in HE?
On this page: Student numbers | Student numbers by HE provider and subject of study | Personal characteristics | Widening participation
There are known areas in which the pandemic has had some impact on the 2019/20 - 2021/22 Student data. Expand this box for more information.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic was declared by the World Health Organisation in March 2020, just over half way through the 2019/20 academic year. An insight brief has been published that analyses the impact of the pandemic on student data and trends across years of enrolments and qualifications across various characteristics. There are two known areas in which the pandemic has had some impact:
- There is evidence to suggest that among a few providers, administrative hold-ups related to the pandemic resulted in significant numbers of qualifications awarded in 2019/20 not being reported. The impact of this under-reporting is believed to explain some of the 3% decrease in the number of qualifications achieved in 2019/20 compared with 2018/19, and the impact is most noticeable on the number of part-time qualifications awarded. Qualifications that were not reported in the 2019/20 academic year have carried over to 2020/21 and contributed to the 9% increase in the number of qualifications awarded in 2020/21.
- In relation to classifications of first degrees and other awards, many providers issued public statements that a 'no detriment' approach would be adopted when it came to assessment in 2019/20. This typically ensured that students would be awarded a final grade no lower than the most recent provider assessment of their attainment.
The 2019/20 to 2021/22 data was collected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Exceptional guidance was issued to HE providers regarding a number of data fields within the collections to clarify HESA's expectations about how these fields should be treated in light of the pandemic.
The tables and charts on this page provide information on who is studying in higher education. Some information is taken from our Higher Education Student Statistics: UK, 2021/22 statistical bulletin.
All tables and charts include a link underneath allowing you to download the data. Many tables also include a link to download the complete source data as a machine-readable csv file.
Student numbers
The following tables and charts contain information on the numbers of students in higher education.
Chart 1 - Students by level of study
Academic years 2000/01 to 2021/22
Level of study is determined by the qualification that a student is aiming for.
HESA student figures include anyone enrolled for more than two weeks on a higher education (HE) course that is primarily based in the UK, unless they are an incoming exchange student, on sabbatical, writing-up or dormant. HE level students at further education (FE) colleges in Wales are included, but not students at FE colleges in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland.
See the definition of Standard registration population for more detail. For students studying primarily outside the UK, see our transnational education data.
Figure 1 - First year higher education (HE) student enrolments by level of study
Academic years 2012/13 to 2021/22
Figure 3 - HE student enrolments by level of study
Academic years 2017/18 to 2021/22
Show:
Reset filters | Download table (csv) | Download source data (csv) | About SB265 Figure 3 | Notes
First degrees are those that, for the most part, lead to a bachelor's degree qualification such as BA or BSc. See the definition for Level of study for more detail.
Chart 2 - First year students by level of study and mode of study
Academic years 2005/06 to 2021/22
The following table provides data on the breadth of UK student enrolments, including data on HE students at FE colleges throughout the UK. Some of this data is sourced from external organisations as detailed in the notes to the table.
Figure 4 - HE student enrolments at HE and FE providers by level of study and HE provider type
Academic years 2017/18 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Download table (csv) | Download source data (csv) | About SB265 Figure 4 | Notes
Student numbers by HE provider and subject of study
The table below shows the number of students at each HE provider. Use the buttons on the right to show a breakdown by sex or domicile (UK/EU/non-EU). Use the filters to restrict to first year students only, full-time or part-time students, or a particular level of study.
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Show:
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
Table 1 - HE student enrolments by HE provider
Academic years 2014/15 to 2021/22
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Source data (see note) | About DT051 Table 1
The 2019/20 academic year saw the implementation of Higher Education Classification of Subjects (HECoS) and the Common Aggregation Hierarchy (CAH). The HECoS classification replaces JACS, used in previous years, with CAH serving as a means to connect HECoS and JACS. For more information, refer to HESA's webpage on HECoS and CAH. This release uses CAH v1.3.4. HESA have decided not to utilise CAH v1.3.4 for time series analysis following investigations of the quality characteristics of CAH. More information can be found in the notes to our Higher Education Student Statistics: UK, 2021/22 statistical bulletin.
Table 46 - HE student enrolments by subject of study
Academic years 2019/20 to 2021/22
Show:
Reset filters | Reset sort | Download table (csv) | Download source data (csv) | About DT051 Table 46 | Notes
Table 9 provides data on students by subject at each HE provider for years 2014/15 - 2018/19. This is based on subjects coded according to the Joint Academic Coding System (JACS). Table 46 replaces Table 9 from 2019/20, following the introduction of HECoS and CAH in the same year. Refer to the contents page to see other tables containing JACS data.
See What do HE students study? for more detailed information
Personal characteristics
The following table provides overview information on all students broken down by sex, age group, disability status, and religious belief, and on UK domiciled students broken down by ethnicity.
Figure 5 - HE student enrolments by personal characteristics
Academic years 2017/18 to 2021/22
Show:
Reset filters | Download table (csv) | Download source data (csv) | About SB265 Figure 5 | Notes
Widening participation
The following table summarises some of our published measures of widening participation.
Figure 6 - UK domiciled full-time HE undergraduate student enrolments by participation characteristics
Academic years 2017/18 to 2021/22
Show:
Reset filters | Download table (csv) | Download source data (csv) | About SB265 Figure 6 | Notes
Local areas are given a score of 1-5 based on how many young people from those areas have historically gone into higher education. The 20% of areas with the lowest proportion of young people entering HE are called 'Low participation neighbourhoods'. POLAR stands for 'Participation of Local Areas' and is calculated by the OfS (Office for Students). POLAR is re-calculated every few years. This data is only returned to HESA for students who apply through UCAS, so to align with the cohort who typically enter through this route, the table has been restricted to undergraduate UK domiciled full-time students. Some regions of the UK have traditionally high participation rates, including Scotland and Northern Ireland. Figures in these areas, when viewed in isolation could misrepresent the contribution being made to widening participation. For a number of years, HESA publications have for this reason excluded data for Scotland from POLAR figures (both where the country of HE provider or country of domicile is in Scotland). As such, low participation figures for all countries in a given year, will not sum to totals represented at the bottom of the table.
In Northern Ireland, the Department for the Economy (Northern Ireland) recommend the use of the Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure (NIMDM) Quintiles as a more representative measure of educational disadvantage among these students. Although Northern Ireland data has historically been included in POLAR figures published by HESA, recognising the possibility for misrepresentation of this data coupled with the availability of NIMDM as an alternative in some HESA published tables from January 2019, HESA have decided to remove Northern Ireland data from POLAR figures in all publications from January 2022.
Open data licence: CC-BY-4.0HE Student Data pages
- Homepage
- Who's studying in HE?
- Where do HE students come from?
- Where do HE students study?
- What do HE students study?
- What are HE students' progression rates and qualifications?
- Contents of releases
Support and contacts
- Introduction to our data on HE students
- Definitions
- Pre-release access to official statistics
- Sign up for HESA Open data alerts
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