Outstanding outcomes for our students

Why Durham?

When you study at Durham you’ll graduate with so much more than a degree. You’ll have the chance to develop your skills, explore your career options and ensure you’ve got the best possible start to your future.

With 27 academic departments offering more than 120 undergraduate courses, our teaching is research-informed and led by dedicated academics, many of whom are world-leading experts in their field. 90% of our subjects are ranked in the UK top 10 in The Complete University Guide 2024.

At Durham academic success is only half the story though. Our transformative wider student experience will also help you develop as a person. 85% of our students are involved in sport, music, theatre, volunteering or student enterprise.

Durham is a collegiate university, which means your student experience will be distinctive and based in one of our 17 college communities. Every college has its own character and traditions, and each one offers an inspiring and supportive community.

Our graduate success rates speak for themselves - we currently rank 50^th in the world for employer reputation in the QS World University Rankings 2024. Many of our graduates go on to achieve incredible things in law, science, academia, business, the arts, government, journalism and athletics. 

An inclusive and inspiring environment

At Durham, we welcome students from all backgrounds and encourage everyone who has the merit and potential to succeed to take a look at what we have to offer. We are committed to widening access and participation, and our undergraduate student body has significantly diversified in recent years.

In the academic year 2022/23, around a quarter of our home undergraduate students had been accepted at Durham through our widening access schemes. These include our Foundation Programme, Supported Progression, the Sutton Trust, and our guaranteed contextual offer.

In the past four years, we have seen a 70% growth in UK Black undergraduate entrants, and between 2016 and 2022 the proportion of entrants with a declared disability has risen more than 70%. As we look to diversify the student body more broadly, we have also increased the proportion of international (non-EU) undergraduate entrants to 27% between 2016 and 2022.

A UK top 10 and a World top 100 University

• We were ranked 7th in the UK in The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 and in the Guardian University Guide 2024. We were also 8th in the Complete University Guide 2024.
• In each of the above guides, a high number of individual subjects at Durham achieved a top 10 position in their field. 
• In the QS World University Rankings 2024 we were ranked 78th. The same rankings placed us 50th in the world for Employer Reputation. 
• We were 27th in Europe in the new QS World University Rankings: Europe 2024.
• 94% of our graduates achieved a 2.1 or above (HESA 2020-21).
• 89% of UK and EU leavers were in work and/or further study 15 months after graduating (Graduate Outcomes Data 2020-21).
• We were placed joint 77th in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2023, demonstrating our commitment to a sustainable future.

The Teaching Excellence Framework 2023 (TEF)

The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) is a national scheme run by the Office for Students (OfS) that aims to encourage higher education providers to improve and deliver excellence in the areas that students care about the most: teaching, learning and achieving positive outcomes from their studies.

The TEF does this by assessing and rating universities and colleges for excellence above a set of minimum requirements for quality and standards.

Read more

What do the results mean?

Our overall rating is Silver, this means our student experience and student outcomes are typically very high quality.

Our Student Outcomes rating is gold, this means that student outcomes at Durham are typically outstanding. The TEF panel determined that all the features for student outcomes at Durham – the proportion of our students continuing in and completing their degrees, and progressing to highly skilled employment or further study – were outstanding, judging “there to be evidence of typically outstanding quality student outcomes across the aspect as a whole, including for students from underrepresented groups.”

The panel found our approaches to supporting our students’ educational gain to be “evidence-based and of demonstrable impact [and] … the approaches described to be highly effective and tailored to the mix of students and their different starting points,” ensuring that “all students can achieve educational gains, through both the curriculum and the co-curriculum.”

Our Student Experience rating is Silver, this means that the student experience at Durham is typically very high quality. The panel found our approach to research, innovation, scholarship, professional practice and employer engagement to be an outstanding quality feature.

These ratings were awarded in 2023, for four years.