News and insight

The purpose of performance indicators is to provide an objective measure of how the UK higher education (HE) sector is performing. This is the second of our releases this year and focuses on student retention.

  Open data licence: CC-BY-4.0

The first release of finance data for UK higher education providers in 2016/17 reveals a total income for the HE sector of £35.7 billion.

Higher Education Statistics for the UK serves as a quick reference guide to high-level data on all aspects of higher education in the UK. Data is published in a number of releases produced over the year. Information about graduate destinations was added on 19 July 2018.

  Open data licence: CC-BY-4.0

Following OFFA's appointment of HESA and CFE Research to undertake research into the facilitators and barriers to part-time study, particularly amongst those from disadvantaged backgrounds, Matt Clarke, Analytical Solutions Specialist at HESA, provides an update on the initial analysis.

Daniel Norton, Assistant Registrar at Loughborough University provides his viewpoint on the journey so far as an Alpha participant on the Data Futures programme.

HESA’s publication Staff in Higher Education 2016/17 reveals further details of the demographic and contractual make-up of staff in UK universities.

HESA's experimental Official Statistics publication, Higher Education Student Statistics: Alternative Providers, 2016/17 is published as an open data release. It covers students on specified courses at alternative providers - higher education providers who do not receive recurrent public funding and are not included in HESA's other student data releases. For the first time, this release includes data on the totality of HE provision in the UK, including publicly funded HE providers, alternative providers, and HE level study at Further Education Colleges.

HESA has been confirmed as the Designated Data Body under the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. A letter, published on the DfE website today confirms that designation will be effective from 1 April 2018.

New open data release reveals the highest ever number of students starting postgraduate courses

HESA publishes the HE Student data 2016/17 on Thursday 8 February 2018. As one of our most anticipated annual products, we know its vital to make the data accessible, useful, and of the highest quality. And now, it is also free of charge. Jonathan Waller, HESA’s Director of Information & Analysis, provides an update on the new format of this data and its important place in HESA’s Open Data Strategy.