London Metropolitan University guide: Rankings, open days, fees and accommodation
Overview
London Met draws the vast majority of its students from the capital itself. Most are based on a large campus on the Holloway Road, in North London, which is in the throes of a significant makeover set to be complete by September 2026. Others are based on smaller campuses in Shoreditch and Aldgate on the fringes of the City of London. After some troubled years, London Met is now on a much more secure financial footing after sterling work by Professor Lynn Dobbs, vice-chancellor from 2018 to 2024. The university is as socially and ethnically diverse as the city it stands in, with black heritage students the biggest grouping in the September 2024 intake, which was the university's smallest in the past ten years. Just under half the students are from homes where neither parent went to university and even more are mature students aged over 21. Courses often include a foundation year to widen access to include pupils without the grades to progress straight on to a three-year degree. Students are split between six academic schools - computing and digital media; human sciences; social sciences and professions; business and law; the built environment; and art, architecture and design.
Paying the bills
A £370,000 pot of financial hardship support covers the bulk of financial aid offered by London Met to its students. Open to all students - undergraduate and postgraduate - the university sends regular communications to students to advertise its availability. There are no bursaries aside from a care leaver cash bursary worth £1,500 per year of full-time study. Many students are mature returners to education and have children and wider family commitments to juggle alongside studying. So, the university refers students to government support available via the adult dependants' grant, childcare grant, parents' learning allowance, and disabled students' allowances. Means-tested childcare grants cover up to 85% of childcare costs, capped at £199.62 per week for one child or £342.24 for two in 2025-26. The Parents' Learning Allowance is an extra grant to help pay for books, course materials and travel for those with children. An Adult Dependants' Grant provides a maximum of £3,545 support in 2025-26 to eligible students with an adult who depends on them financially; the dependant's own annual income must be less than £3,796. There is no university-owned residential accommodation, but with three-quarters of London Met's students drawn from the capital itself, most students live at home.
What's new?
Significant milestones are reached in an ongoing ten-year £150million campus investment programme in the next 12 months. London Met's Heart of the Campus project at its main site in Holloway Road should be complete in time for the September 2026 intake. Enhancements include new flexible social learning spaces, improved accessibility and a new main entrance and plaza. The school of arts, architecture and design (AAD) will operate from three sites from the 2025-26 academic year. Shoreditch will be the new home for fine art, fashion and textiles, siting students in one of the capital's principal creative hubs. Photography, graphics and visual communications will be housed in newly equipped spaces on the Holloway campus, with the presence of other digital and computing subjects on campus designed to foster interdisciplinary collaboration. And a small number of AAD courses will be hosted in refurbished and modernised spaces on the Aldgate campus. Four degrees within the new school of built environment are having a foundation year added to them from September 2025, including real estate, architectural technology, construction management, and quantity surveying and commercial management. Another three foundation years are offered with three wholly new programmes in building surveying, biomedical engineering, and artificial intelligence and robotics, all of them also offered without a foundation year. The addition of a mental health nursing degree following last year's introduction of an adult nursing programme further bolsters London Met's healthcare presence.
Admissions, teaching and student support
There is no formal contextual admissions scheme at London Met offering lower grades to students who have experienced educational or social disadvantage, but even without a scheme there were just two universities in the country that had a lower average number of Ucas tariff points held by freshers in September 2024. Applications are considered individually, and the university will look to place a student on an alternative course to the one applied for - such as a foundation year - if the entry requirements are thought likely to be beyond reach. Mitigating circumstances such as illness or bereavement are also taken into consideration when reviewing academic attainment. London Met runs a number of aspiration- and attainment-raising programmes to encourage applications from groups under-represented on most campuses. Partners in Education is a programme undertaken with selected sixth forms and further education colleges in the capital to provide bespoke support and activities to prepare learners for university through visit days, school competitions and conferences. Mental health and well-being support on campus is geared to the diverse student intake through a mix of online, telephone and face-to-face provision. A Small Steps, Big Difference campaign runs permanently to encourage students to take charge of their well-being and mental health, and the Centre for Equity and Inclusion sits at the heart of the university's drive to create a healthy environment. TalkCampus offers 24/7 peer-to-peer mental health support online and there is counselling available on campus from the university's own staff. Staff undertake mandatory safeguarding training with safeguarding officers embedded in all six academic schools.