Clearing 2025 magnifies a critical fault line in UK higher education: universities face mounting financial pressure, declining international enrolment, and intensifying global competition.

The digital experience has become a decisive factor in student recruitment and institutional resilience. So, we looked into the digital experience offered by 20 non-Russel group universities during peak clearing - a moment when conversion is everything.

This report reveals our findings.

It reveals a sector clustered around adequacy rather than distinction, and suggests digital is treated as hygiene rather than a source of differentiation.

It reveals that the lowest-scoring university was just 18 percentage points away from the highest-scoring universities in the report, which were:

• University of Portsmouth - 88%  
• University of Strathclyde Edinburgh - 87%
• Lancaster University - 85% 

It reveals that the areas that set the top-scoring universities apart were also the areas where others struggled the most, including: 

• website navigation, 
• content structure, 
• clarity on clearance, and 
• building trust with student-led content

And it reveals opportunities for universities to build truly outstanding digital experiences once these are addressed. 

For full details of what we uncovered in our research, register your details today and get the report as soon as it's launched.

The universities included in the research were: Aberystwyth University, Aston University, Heriot Watt University, Lancaster University, Loughborough University, Northumbria University, Royal Holloway University of London, Swansea University, University of Aberdeen, University of Bath, University of Dundee, University of East Anglia, University of Essex, University of Leicester, University of Portsmouth, University of Reading, University of Strathclyde Edinburgh, University of Surrey, University of Sussex, University of the Arts London