National Student Survey 2025

Student satisfaction among undergraduates at college and university has risen in Wales, with 82% of final year undergraduate students saying that they were satisfied with their course this year.

This is up from 80% overall satisfaction in 2024.

The National Student Survey (NSS) is open to final year undergraduate students at higher education providers in the UK nations.

In March 2025, Medr published its Strategic Plan for 2025-2030, outlining its aim to ensure that learners receive the highest-quality provision in a tertiary education sector that strives for continuous improvement.

The NSS is one of the primary indicators of student satisfaction for Medr and the tertiary education sector, capturing comprehensive feedback from final-year undergraduate higher education students on key aspects of their educational experience — from teaching quality and course organisation to how effectively their voices are heard within their institutions.

The survey was open from 11 January to 30 April 2025.

Simon Pirotte, Chief Executive of Medr said:

“We are pleased to see improvements across all question outcomes for Wales in the 2025 NSS compared to the 2024 NSS. It is also encouraging to note that Wales continues to perform broadly in line with UK-wide scores, and exceeding them in the themes of learning opportunities, assessment and feedback, academic support, organisation and management, learning resources, student voice, and the students’ union question. These outcomes are a testament to impactful work across institutions in Wales.

“Throughout the year it has been heartening to see how institutions and students’ unions have worked collaboratively to enhance the student experience and support student success. Congratulations to all on their achievements.

“Welsh institutions take NSS outcomes seriously and are committed to working in partnership with students and their representatives to drive quality enhancement and continuous improvement. Later in the year, our second consultation on registration and funding conditions will include those relating to equality of opportunity, staff and student welfare, the Welsh language and learner engagement. We will also develop a common framework for student health, mental health and well-being.

“As we look ahead to the 2025/26 academic year, the student experience continues to be a defining strength of higher education in Wales. We warmly welcome prospective and future students to study here — where they can expect high-quality degrees, supportive communities, and a truly enriching university experience.”

2025 National Student Survey results: Comparative data for each question covered by the survey

	Question	UK 2024 (positivity score%)	UK 2025 (positivity score%)	Wales 2024 (positivity score%)	Wales 2025 (positivity score%)
1	How good are the staff at explaining things?	91	93	92	93
2	How often of teaching staff make the subject interesting?	81	83	82	83
3	How often is the course intellectually stimulating?	85	86	85	86
4	How often does your course challenge you to achieve your best work?	85	87	85	87
5	To what extent have you had the chance to explore ideas and concepts in depth?	84	85	83	85
6	How well does your course introduce subjects and skills in a way that builds on what you have already learned?	85	87	86	87
7	To what extent have you had the chance to bring together ideas and information from different topics?	84	85	83	85
8	To what extent does your course have the right balance of directed and independent study?	77	79	78	80
9	How well has your course developed your knowledge and skills that you think you will need for your future?	83	85	83	86
10	How clear were the marking criteria used to assess your work/	76	78	78	80
11	How fair has the marking and assessment been on your course?	81	84	83	85
12	How well have the assessments allowed you to demonstrate what you have learned?	82	84	82	84
13	How often have you received assessment feedback on time?	80	83	83	85
14	How often does feedback help you to improve your work?	73	75	74	75
15	How easy was it to contact teaching staff when you needed to?	86	88	86	89
16	How well have the teaching staff supported your learning?	86	88	87	89
17	How well organised is your course?	74	77	75	79
18	How well were any changes to teaching on your communicated?	76	80	77	80
19	How well have the IT resources and facilities supported your learning?	85	87	84	87
20	How well have the library resources (e.g., books, online services and learning spaces) supported your learning?	90	90	90	90
21	How easy is it to access subject specific resources (e.g., equipment, facilities, software) when you need them?	86	88	86	88
22	To what extent do you get the right opportunities to give feedback on your course?	82	85	83	85
23	To what extent are students’ opinions about the course valued by staff?	77	80	78	81
24	How clear is it that students’ feedback on the course is acted on?	63	68	66	69
25	How well does the Students’ union (association or guild) represent students’ academic interests?	73	76	75	78
26	How well communicated was information about your university/college’s mental wellbeing support services?	79	82	74	79
28	Overall, I am satisfied with the quality of the course	N/A	N/A	80	82

Each question has two options to respond positively – eg “to a great extent” and “to some extent” or “very often” and “fairly often” – and two negative options to respond negatively, with a fifth “This does not apply to me option”. A ’positivity score’ is the percentage of the total sum of the two positive responses available for each question response.

There is no UK score for question 28 as this question was asked to students studying in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland only and not to students studying in England.

Notes:

The National Student Survey (NSS) covers most final year undergraduate students studying for higher education (HE) qualifications at:

• all publicly funded higher education universities and colleges in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland;
• further education institutions in Wales with directly funded higher education students;
• further education colleges in England and Northern Ireland.

The survey, carried out by Ipsos, is funded by the four UK higher education funding and regulatory bodies (Medr, the Office for Students (OfS), the Scottish Funding Council, and the Department for Economy Northern Ireland).

Full results are available on the Office for Students website. The data will be published on the Discover Uni website at a later date, providing information to inform potential students’ choices about where and what to study.

The threshold for publication at institution level is that at least 10 students must have responded, and that these should represent at least half the students eligible to participate.

More than 357,000 students responded to the survey, a 71.5% response rate.

Student satisfaction data for the Open University in Wales is included in the figures for the Open University (though UK-wide, listed as ‘England HEI’).

Previous NSS results are listed on the Office for Students website under “archive of data”.