University of Bedfordshire

Publication date: 10 August 2026

Contents:

  1. Summary main findings
  2. Data by socio-economic status
  3. Things you need to know
  4. Data sources
  5. Download the data

Summary main findings

The data shows that University of Bedfordshire had an:

  • equal access ranking of 13 out of 94 universities in the UK
  • social mobility coefficient ranking of 14 out of 94
  • social mobility coefficient ranking (adjusted for location) of 12 out of 94

18 to 19 year olds from the least advantaged half of the population (deciles 1 to 5) made up:

  • 38% of candidates who met the entry requirements for University of Bedfordshire
  • 43% of candidates who met the entry requirements, weighted to favour those who live closer to the university – read more about our location adjustment
  • 65% of the actual student intake

This shows that:

  • the university is successfully recruiting candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds
  • with location adjustment, the university is successfully recruiting candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds

Data by socio-economic status

Visualisation

Cumulative percentage of students who met the academic entry requirements for this university, and who enrolled, by socio-economic status (2018 to 2020)

This chart compares the university's actual student intake (blue line) against the pool of 18 to 19 year olds who met its entry requirements (red line).

If the blue line sits above the red line, the university recruits a higher proportion of disadvantaged students than expected.

The yellow line (‘equal’) represents a hypothetical equal scenario where the university's student body exactly matches the socio-economic makeup of all 18 to 19 year olds in England.

The blue line (‘enrolment’) shows the actual socio-economic profile of the first-year, full-time students who successfully enrolled at the university.

The red line (‘required’) shows the socio-economic profile of the available pool of 18 to 19 year olds across the country who achieved the minimum grades needed to attend.

Click or tap on legend items to toggle visibility

Data

Cumulative percentage of students who met the academic entry requirements for this university, and who enrolled, by socio-economic status (2018 to 2020)
Decile Enrolment Equal Required (with location weighting) Required (without location weighting)
0 0 0 0 0
1 13 10 6 5
2 25 20 13 11
3 37 30 21 19
4 54 40 32 28
5 65 50 43 38
6 73 60 53 49
7 82 70 63 60
8 88 80 73 72
9 94 90 84 85
10 100 100 100 100
  • Download the data (CSV, 259B)

    • Download

    For the full download file, see Download the data.

    Things you need to know

    Socio-economic status ‘deciles’ are calculated by grouping students into 10 equal groups, from decile 1 (the most socio-economically disadvantaged students) to decile 10 (the most advantaged).

    The socio-economic status of students is based on:

    • whether they received free school meal
    • whether they attended a state or independent school
    • the wealth of their local neighbourhood

    We use the actual A-level and BTEC grades of the students who successfully enrolled to estimate the percentage of those who met each university’s academic requirements, not the advertised entry guidelines. We excluded the lowest 10% of these grades to account for special cases.

    Location adjustment

    The location adjustment gives more importance to qualified students who live closer to the university.

    This reflects the reality that many disadvantaged students prefer to study locally.

    You should use:

    • the social mobility coefficient ranking (adjusted for location) for universities that recruit locally
    • the non-adjusted view for universities that recruit nationally

    Data sources

    This analysis tracks real students' educational journeys using official government records. The data follows students from their GCSEs in the 2015 to 2016 academic year, to their university enrolment at age 18 or 19 (between 2018 and 2020). We deliberately used data from before the COVID-19 pandemic to provide a clear, fair, and stable reference point before the disruptions caused by the pandemic.

    The specific datasets used are:

    • National Pupil Database (NPD) from the Department for Education (DfE)
    • student record data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
    • Get Information About Schools (GIAS) service from DfE
    • National Statistics Postcode Lookup from the Office for National Statistics (ONS)

    See About the data for more information about the data and methodology. You can also read the full report.

    Download the data

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