These are the hardest UK uni subjects in 2025, according to students

Every uni student in the UK probably thinks their subject is the hardest. Medicine students moan about how many placements they have to do. Engineers whine that their exams are the worst.  Humanities students spend more time typing complaints to the group chats about their essays than they do typing out their actual essays. Well, the results of 2025’s National Student Survey reveals how challenging 357,174 students across the UK really find their courses. So, we can see what students think the hardest UK unis subjects are in 2025.

357,174 students were asked the question, “How often does the course challenge you to achieve your best work?” This feels like a pretty strong indicator of how hard different students are actually having to work.

The most challenging UK uni subject in 2025 is apparently veterinary sciences. Interestingly, far fewer medicine students found their courses challenging than vet med students do.

The least challenging uni subject is apparently computing. I will be interpreting this as a free pass to make jokes about computing students just playing games all day.

By the way, the percentages refer to the proportion of students who gave a positive response to the question “How often does the course challenge you to achieve your best work?”

So, these are the hardest UK uni subjects to study in 2025, according to students:

21. Computing – 83.0 per cent

20. Medicine and dentistry – 84.5 per cent

19. Media, journalism and communications – 84.6 per cent

18. Psychology – 85.1 per cent

=16. Agriculture, food and related studies – 86.0 per cent

Praying these cute cows are still alive

=16. Law – 86.0 per cent

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15. Social sciences – 86.2 per cent

14. Business and management – 86.8 per cent

13. Design, creative and performing arts – 87.2 per cent

12. Mathematical sciences – 87.3 per cent

=10. Historical, philosophical and religious studies – 87.4 per cent

=10. Language and area studies – 87.4 per cent

=8. Engineering and technology – 87.5 per cent

=8. Geography, earth and environmental studies – 87.5 per cent

People only study geography so they can go on lots of trips, right?

7. Subjects allied to medicine – 87.7 per cent

6. Biological and sport sciences – 88.5 per cent

5. Combined and general studies – 88.7 per cent

4. Architecture, building and planning – 89.6 per cent

3. Physical sciences – 89.8 per cent

2. Education and teaching – 90.3 per cent

1. Veterinary sciences – 91.4 per cent

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