Uh oh! These are the Russell Group unis where students are NOT HAPPY with their teaching

The all-new Complete University Guide 2025 tells us a lot of things: The best unis overall, the best Russell Groups and which unis are the best for every single subject. But what it also tells us is how happy the students at each university are with their teaching.

The guide contains a student satisfaction ranking, where each university is given a percentage and then a score out of four for how highly the students there were satisfied with their university and their teaching. The data was compiled by analysing the results of the National Student Survey (NSS) which asks all final-year students to score their uni experience overall.

The NSS asked students 25 different questions about different aspects of teaching on their course. These included:

• How good are teaching staff at explaining things?
• How often do teaching staff make the subject engaging?
• How often does your course challenge you to achieve your best work?
• How easy was it to contact teaching staff when you needed to
• How often does feedback help you to improve your work?

The Complete University Guide then compiled these answers to work out the percentage of students who are happy with their teaching and awarded each uni a score out of four. And unfortunately for the Russell Groups, not even one of them makes the top 10 overall. Now this may be that students who attend highly ranked and prestigious universities have higher expectations of their university experience and therefore may rank them lower. But still, yikes!

So, these are the Russell Group universities where students are the least happy with their teaching, according to the Good University Guide 2025 student satisfaction ranking:

12. University of Glasgow

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At Glasgow, 76 per cent of students said they were happy with their teaching in their degrees, giving it a score of 3.03 out of four overall. This means it is ranked 79th in student satisfaction out of all the universities

11. University College London

76 per cent of students at UCL also said they were satisfied with their university experience which puts it at 84th in the student satisfaction ranking overall with a score of 3.02

10. University of Southampton

Just one per cent lower than UCL, 75 per cent of students were happy with their teaching at Southampton, leaving 25 per cent who said they were unsatisfied.

9. Newcastle University

At 91st in the satisfaction rankings overall, Newcastle students are the ninth least satisfied with their university’s teaching, giving it a score of 3.01.

8. University of Bristol

Only just scraping it into the top 100 is Bristol with a score of 3.0 putting it in 99th overall.

7. University of Leeds

At Leeds, 26 per cent of students were unhappy with their experience. This puts Uni of Leeds as the seventh worst Russell Group for student satisfaction and 105th worst university overall.

6. University of Birmingham

Birmingham gets a score of 2.96 from the Complete University Guide 2025 for student satisfaction. This means it’s the 111th worst university for student satisfaction overall.

5. King’s College London

The fifth-worst Russell Group for student satisfaction is KCL where 74 per cent of students were unhappy with their teaching. This means that it gets a 2.96 score at 11th out of 128.

4. Queen Mary University of London

The lowest scoring of the London Russell Groups, QMUL has a score of 2.96 out of four, putting it at 111th in student satisfaction overall.

3. University of Manchester

Manchester students are the third least satisfied with their teaching out of all the Russell Group universities. It ranks 114th out of 129 giving it an overall score of 2.95

2. Cardiff University

Not an amazing day to be a Cardiff student, as only 74 per cent of students said they were happy with their uni experience. The Complete University Guide therefore gave it a score of 2.94.

1. University of Edinburgh

Officially the worst Russell Group for student satisfaction is the University of Edinburgh which ranks 118th lowest out of 128 universities overall. 73 per cent of students said they were satisfied with their degree experience giving it a score of 2.94 overall.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• It’s official: These are the best unis you can study at for every single subject in 2024

• Ranked: Where all the Russell Group unis placed in this year’s Complete University Guide

• Ranked: The best unis in the country right now, according to the Complete University Guide