Revealed: The 10 UK universities with the most bed bugs crawling around student halls

A new study has revealed which UK universities have the highest rates of bed bugs.

London universities appear to be particularly prone to bed bug infestations. Out of the 10 universities with the highest rates of bed bugs, eight of them are in London. In particular, the Russell Group institution Queen Mary University of London reported 130 cases of bed bugs in student halls in three years.

The UK university with the highest rate of bed bugs is De Montfort University in Leicester. This university recorded 38 cases of bed bugs over three years. This sounds trivial, until you learn that there are only 442 bed spaces in halls run by the university. That’s almost one case of bed bugs for each 11 beds.

The Queen’s Building at De Montfort University
(Credit: Bumscissors via Creative Commons)

MattressNextDay conducted this research by submitting Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to 165 UK unis, out of which 105 supplied data. The figures refer to how many reports of bed bugs were reported per 1,000 beds in student accommodation owned or managed by that university, during the 2022/2023, 2023/2024 and 2024/2025 academic years. Keep in mind that universities may differ in how they keep records of pests – if a university reported a particularly high number of incidents, that might not be because there are more bugs, but because that university has a more thorough system for reporting this.

So, here are the UK universities with the highest rates of reported bed bugs:

10. University of the Arts London (UAL) – 13.7 reports per 1,000 beds

9. Anglia Ruskin University – 14.3 reports per 1,000 beds

8. University of Westminster – 14.9 reports per 1,000 beds

7. London School of Economics (LSE) – 32.2 reports per 1,000 beds

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6. King’s College London (KCL) – 38.7 reports per 1,000 beds

London university students in halls

5. London South Bank University – 45.6 reports per 1,000 beds

4. University of London – 47.9 reports per 1,000 beds

3. Queen Mary University of London – 49.8 reports per 1,000 beds

2. University of East London – 59.0 reports per 1,000 beds

1. De Montfort University – 86.0 reports per 1,000 beds

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Featured image by Matt Brown, via Creative Commons