Close
Microsoft Teams is the supported platform for meetings and collaboration at UCL. To simplify user experience, central funding for Zoom licences will will end from 1 August 2026.
Zoom was introduced at UCL in 2020 to address the short-term need for advanced collaboration tools and an online teaching platform during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Online collaboration and meeting capability remains essential – and Teams is now well established across UCL. Where possible, staff who have continued to use Zoom should now move to Teams as the institutional platform for this activity. This change will simplify how we work by reducing the number of platforms in use, improving integration with existing tools, and ensuring a more consistent experience across UCL.
What does this mean for me?
Zoom will remain available where there is a clear need, but most staff should now use Teams for their day-to-day activity.
If you need a licensed account in order to host a meeting, this can be funded by your department on a per-user basis. There is no change to the process for requesting large meetings or webinars. If you need to join but not host a Zoom meeting, you do not need a licensed Zoom account. You can use a basic UCL Zoom account to join meetings at no cost.
Staff users with existing Zoom licences will be contacted in advance of 1 August. They will be asked to confirm whether they still require their Zoom licence, and if they do, a request will be made to their Faculty or VP area to request budget information for cross charging.
Staff who do not respond will have their paid Zoom accounts removed and will revert to a basic account. They will continue to be able to join Zoom meetings and host meetings of up to 40 minutes, and can reapply for a paid licence in future if required.
Any new requests for staff Zoom licences after this time will need to be requested via the software hub.
What is the alternative to using Zoom?
Microsoft Teams remains available to all staff at UCL at no additional cost to departments. For most use cases, Teams provides the same core functionality as Zoom, with the added benefit of being fully integrated into Microsoft 365 products such as Outlook and SharePoint.
Training, guidance, and feature comparisons will be made available to help you make the transition.
Comparison of Zoom and Teams functionality
We've created a webpage providing a comparison between Zoom and Microsoft Teams and an explanation of how to use specific key features within Microsoft Teams.
What will be available for students?
Licensed Zoom accounts will still be available for students at no additional cost from 1 August 2026, however this will be kept under review. It is therefore recommended that where students are using Zoom, they also move to using Microsoft Teams.