About Us
The University
The University of Bath was established by Royal Charter in 1966. Our main campus overlooks the beautiful UNESCO World Heritage City of Bath and offers a welcoming, supportive and inspiring environment for research or study.
The vibrancy of our campus community springs from a culture of high aspiration, enterprise, creativity, and diversity. Our research and teaching activities are focussed on our academic strength in Science, Technology, Engineering, Management, and the Social Sciences. Within these areas, we have created a virtuous circle of research and teaching excellence and our engaged, agile approach is attuned to the rapidly evolving global agenda. Our research has practical applications with social and economic benefit and is conducted in a true spirit of international and inter-disciplinary cooperation.
We are sector leaders in translating discovery into enhanced practice, policy, design, efficiency, and effectiveness. We are a first-choice university for students worldwide, offering a distinctive blend of academic reputation, outstanding graduate employment record, world-class sports facilities, and a full programme of social, cultural, recreational, and personal development opportunities. Our partnership ethos underpins our research, our placement networks, and our graduate/postgraduate employability. The provision of placement opportunities across our discipline base is unique amongst leading UK research universities.
We make a positive contribution to the vigour of our region’s economy, supporting one in every 17 jobs and accounting for around £300 million to Bath and North East Somerset’s GDP. Our Innovation Centre helps to diversify the economic profile of the city by incubating high-yield businesses, and co-ordinating a number of regional networks for advanced technology sectors.
The University at a Glance
Our academic departments are organised into three faculties and one school:
- The Faculty of Engineering and Design
- The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
- The Faculty of Science
- The School of Management
Student population
- 18,868 current students
- 13,619 undergraduates and 5,249 postgraduates
- 53% female and 47% are male with 0.1% students who don’t identify as male or female
- Over 30% come from outside the UK
- Over 130 nationalities
Student experience
- Gold in the 2017 Teaching Excellence Framework
- A ranking of 6th in the UK in the Guardian University Guide 2021
- An overall satisfaction rating of 88.3% in the National Student Survey
- Over 90 student societies and 48 student sports clubs
Research
- Research grants and contracts portfolio worth approximately £150 million
- 87% of research was defined as world-leading or internationally excellent in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF)
- Two Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education
- Construction of a new £70M research and innovation hub to support the automotive industry to develop ultra-low and zero-emission vehicles.
Placements and employability
- 89% of our employed UK full-time first-degree graduates are in the top three occupational groups, compared with 74% of employed graduates nationally
- Graduates have a mean starting salary of £27,000 (£4,500 more than the equivalent for all higher education providers in the UK)
- One of the 15 universities most often targeted by Britain’s top graduate employers
- Up to 400 employers visit the University each year as part of events organised by our Careers Service
- Approximately 65% of our undergraduates who undertake a placement or study year abroad
Campus
- Invested over £450 million in our campus in the last decade – this includes new accommodation, academic buildings and sports facilities such as the Olympic Legacy swimming pool
- The Edge, our £10.9 million arts and management building, opened in February 2016
- Redeveloped the former Bath police station into The Virgil Building, which features a student learning zone and hosts some of our professional services
Sport
- Athletes based at the University of Bath won 6 medals in the Rio 2016 Olympics
- Our £30 million Sports Training Village has indoor and outdoor facilities to accommodate more than 50 sports
- We have hosted around 250 international-level athletics competitions as well as being home to national and regional squads across 10 sports