I'd be more worried about self funding TBH. Given you've doubts about the university, can you not wait for the next round of funding and re-apply?

I think it is helpful to have a bit of status, but it matters much less than at undergrad level. I'd look for things like how many of their PhD students complete, how many go on to do things they wanted to do post-PhD, etc.

Agree that you should try to get some funding. When you do a PhD you need a supportive supervisor and department and sounds like maybe things would be better on that front at Uni 2. I also agree that people don’t really look at the status of where you did your PhD but you may be disadvantaged in terms of networks and contacts that you’d have access to at somewhere more prestigious.

Is there a massive difference? Are we talking Cambridge vs Anglia Ruskin kind of thing?

Oh, if it's London that helps! I'm not sure whether or not this is field-specific (so do check with your potential supervisor), but in my field, you can often go along to seminars at other universities than your own - not always all of them, but many. If you're in London there would be several places you could network, so you wouldn't be isolated in the way you might be at a university without much networking clout that's also geographically a bit cut off.

Do you want an academic career, OP? You might want to look into prospects of being employed post-PhD and they could be higher at the less prestigious place, especially if they are prepared to give you some teaching. Also, your top concern should be your supervisor and whether you feel you can have a good working relationship. It’s no good being at a prestigious place if you don’t get on with your supervisor.

It depends to some extent why you are doing a PhD, what you intend to do next, and how your work will fit into the greater body of human knowledge.

There are some paths - eg if you are doing the PhD in order to establish your expertise in a specific area which you then intend to work in outside the university sector, with the letters after your name increasing your credibility - then the institution doesn't matter too much.

If you intend to stay in academic research after gaining a PhD (the qualification is fundamentally intended to be a "license to carry out academic research unsupervised") then the most important thing is the reputation and networking power of your supervisor themselves. There will be a strong correlation between that and the standing of the university but its not always going to match up. This factor will be critical in establishing any kind of foothold on the greasy pole of academia.

If your thesis topic is going to be a fairly typical, modest and uncontentious addition to the body of human knowledge then both these matter less than if your thesis is going to need defending against a weight of contradictory research that claims the opposite to your theories. If the latter then both institution and supervisor will matter much more.

Great point, Pota! There's definitely more opportunities at uni 2 for employment post-PhD - in fact they've already approached me to ask if I could do some BA-teaching...

Ok, just be cautious here. That's not 'employment'. That's casualisation of teaching, which is great while you're doing a PhD (you need teaching experience), but which is not wonderful thereafter. Casual teaching at university level is not a job that pays the bills, unless you take on inhumane amounts of it and sacrifice the possibility of doing any research.

I expect I'm over-cautious because you are clearly in a different field from me, and I know that in industry-facing subjects things do work differently. But, I would be a bit nervous of somewhere where they asked me to teach before I'd even started the PhD, because I'd be worried they'd be wanting you to teach so much your PhD would suffer.

None of this is a reason not to go with university 2, who sound like a good fit, but I don't think you should assume that the fact they are keen to get you teaching means that you'll easily move into permanent teaching faculty afterwards.

Tricky. Supervisor support is the most important thing but it's not the only thing. How much experience do the two possible supervisors have? Can you speak to previous or current PhD students for either? (They should be happy to put you in touch.) Would there be other students in your field, a research community? (Though perhaps less crucial in London as there's a big larger pool of seminars etc locally.)

I think it is quite subject specific. If you hope to stay in academia I would look at the departments where you might aspire to work after you have completed your PhD and see where their staff got their PhDs from.

As an example, in my own department, there are about 20 staff with UK PhDs, but although it is possible to get a PhD in the subject from most universities, we only have staff with PhDs from six UK universities and have multiple staff from five of those. If you look at the staff at all five of those universities, you will see the same set of UK universities represented, it is quite a closed shop.

You need a supervisor that will support you, as long as the university has a decent research tradition (pretty much all universities established prior to 1992 do plus some newer one in specific areas) then go for it. Dd has friends who have left very prestigious universities to come here and say they get support and learn more

I think you need a better idea of why you are doing this before throwing thousands of pounds of your own money at it! Doing a PhD is utterly unlike doing any other kind of qualification. It is not just the natural next step if you already have a Masters degree.

I didn't start my PhD understanding this, but it wasn't my money. I had full funding.

What is it that makes a PhD seem like the right path, rather than eg a Masters degree or just taking a 1 year sabbatical from work to write a book? Obviously these things are very different but with no plans for what you are going to do next, you really need to examine your motivations and work out what you actually want before you can possibility prioritise what factors are most important in your path to getting there.

I'm doing a self-funded, distant, part-time PhD at a less prestigious university (all the things you'll be told not to do!), chosen entirely for the supervisory team who are perfect for my research, and supportive of my personal circumstances (my own disability and my role as mother/carer) which are linked to my research topic and link to their areas of research interest. It's working perfectly tbh. I've landed some paid research hours on a project loosely related to mine and hopefully will get more similar work. I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with my PhD, but I knew I wanted to be the one to do this specific piece of research, and I'm really enjoying the process.

I am in a similar situation. No one was interested in supervising me at University 1 (stellar), but University 2 were keen to have me.

University 2 is still a recognised research centre for RCUK funding.
However, University 2 is not so easy to get to.

I have shelved the problem for now by postponing until January and applying for University 3 (prestigious and easy to get to) in the meantime.

It will all come out in the wash!