National Student Survey results show UCL improvements across all themes

The National Student Survey (NSS) is open to final-year undergraduates from January to the end of April each year. It is managed by Ipsos, an independent survey research agency, on behalf of the Office for Students (OfS). Across UCL we are committed to listening to students’ feedback and using this to make improvements and continue what is working well. 

Key results

2025 results show improvements in positivity scores for UCL across all themes in comparison with our 2024 results. These themes cover: 

• Assessment and Feedback (up 4.8% to 74.3%) 

• Student Voice (up 4.4% to 76.4%) 

• Organisation and Management (up 4.1% to 76.7%) 

• Teaching on my Course (up 2.8% to 86.5%) 

• Academic Support (up 2.8% to 86.7%) 

• Learning Opportunities (up 2.6% to 81.6%) 

• Learning Resources (up 1.4% to 89.9%) 

The Assessment and Feedback theme includes a 7.4% increase in positivity score from 68.2% to 75.6% for question 13, “How often have you received assessment feedback on time?” Within the Russell Group, we have risen four places for Assessment and Feedback from 16th to 12th. 

Our highest-placed theme within Russell Group institutions is Learning Resources (9th place, up from 11th). Meanwhile, Academic Support shows us in the fourth quartile of the Russell Group, with a ranking of 19th (down from 18th last year). 

We are in the first quartile of the sector for question 26 (“How well communicated was information about your university/college's mental wellbeing support services?”), rising 3.5% from 81.8% to 85.3%. 

Individual subject improvements include Mechanical Engineering, which has risen from 15th to 7th in Assessment and Feedback within the Russell Group. For Student Voice, Psychology has risen from 17th to 4th and Computer Science from 14th to 3rd. For Organisation and Management, Physics saw an improvement from 17th to 9th. In the Teaching on my Course category, Literature in English rose from 5th to 1st. 

The results show our students value the learning opportunities and support services they benefit from during their time studying with us. 80% of our students responded positively to the optional question “I would recommend UCL to others thinking of studying here”, up from 76.4% in 2024. 

Feedback also highlights the role of Students’ Union UCL, with a 3.9% increase for question 25 (“How well does the students' union (association or guild) represent students' academic interests?”) compared to 2024. Responses to an optional question also indicate increases in the Students’ Union’s positive impact on students’ sense of belonging (up 2.4%), positive impact on the local community (up 3%), and its role in helping students to develop useful life skills (up 3.3%). 

Initial reflections

Professor Kathy Armour, Vice-Provost (Education & Student Experience), said: “More than 4,700 UCL final-year undergraduate students (72.6%) shared their experience through the NSS this year. I’m incredibly pleased to see improvements across all themes in comparison with our 2024 results. These results reflect the hard work of colleagues across Faculties, Departments and the Professional Services teams who support education, as well as the efforts of students and staff working in partnership. We will continue to work on further improvements, including around academic support, and build on developments such as the feedback tracker tool in Moodle to act on what students are telling us.” 

Professor Parama Chaudhury, Pro-Vice-Provost (Education - Student Academic Experience), added: “Thank you to every student who participated and to all colleagues who contributed to this year’s UCL-wide response rate. I really appreciate the efforts you’ve made across the past academic year. Looking ahead to 2025/26, student feedback through NSS free text comments, as well as our other survey and student voice channels, will continue to feed into the Department and Faculty education planning process to ensure an excellent education for everyone who chooses to study here.” 

Next steps

Education teams in Faculties and Departments have today (9 July) received results data through Tableau along with headline reports analysing free text comments for each department to help plan improvements. 

Each area should reflect on NSS data to inform Department and Faculty Education Plans and approaches to student engagement for the year ahead. 

We are also developing a project to better understand what works for our students in areas relevant to the NSS and we plan to broaden this out to involve more colleagues who are interested. Look out for more information or contact the Student Surveys team in our Higher Education Development & Support Institute (HEDS) if you would like to express your interest.