Which universities seem most stable for History degrees this September?

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With DC starting a History degree in September and all the recent news about redundancies and cuts to Humanities, I am starting to feel a bit concerned about his options. Which universities are currently considered relatively safe with lower likelihood of this happening? Exeter (DC's insurance) now seems like a bad idea, due to likely strikes (UCU currently voting on this) and large scale compulsory redundancies. Heard similar issues are happening at Leicester, Sussex and Lancaster. Bristol also talked about strike action recently. Durham is his firm and I know they have been talking about working to rule. Is this carrying on/likely to escalate in September? Warwick told us at the OHD that they are expending the History department but it wasn't one of DC's top two choices and he de-selected it. Now thinking that this was a shame and should have been his insurance. The plan will probably be to go through clearing if he doesn't meet his Durham offer. Any inside information on which Russel group universities are likely to be a bit more stable? In addition to Warwick, York is another option. Oxbridge and UCL are very unlikely to be in clearing so no point considering.

I thought some being off campus was just a blip for a year due to a problem with one of the blocks. Have they said it'll be ongoing? When dd applied prior to the blip you definitely got a place on campus in first year.

When we visited at the OHD they said it's not guaranteed. I'm guessing it's even more likely if you get a place through clearing.

I saw this recently about whether unis were in deficit /surplus. Doesn't cover all unis though
https://thetab.com/2026/05/12/ranked-all-24-russell-group-universities-by-how-terrifying-their-financial-deficits-are

Ok that's a shame. I thought it'd have been resolved by now

1.Nottingham University – £85.3 million deficit!

I read that Exeter staff are particularly unhappy as the Humanities department are actually not in debt yet they are having to make enormous savings as a department which seems highly unfair.

Post-study visa length cut from 3 years to 18 months. No longer allowed to bring dependants on a taught student visa.

KCL. Very strong history department and the university is in an ok position overall.

Don’t know if it’ll go into Clearing though. It did a couple of times but not in the last few years I don’t think.

What will this mean for humanities at Exeter do we think? Surely he’ll mean a lot less courses? We visited recently and ds liked it for geography but looking at various league tables and now this I’m not sure it’s a sensible choice!

I have a son at York studying History. Pretty solid.

Your DS will need to do most of his work independently if he's planning on reading history. The impact of work to rule or strike action won't be as pronounced as it would be in a lab science or engineering.

Brexit is a bit of a red herring at undergraduate level. EU Students paid UK fees so they didn’t particularly help the funding position and were subsidised by non-EU overseas students paying ££ in the same way that UK domestic students are/were. Now they have to pay full overseas fees so fewer of them are coming. Not to say that Brexit hasn’t affected exchange programmes and access to some research funding.

Other overseas students have declined for lots of reasons - visa situation, VAT on boarding school fees (decline of 10% in last year in overseas boarding pupils means fewer of these applicants for U.K. unis), decline in reputation of U.K. universities and increase in reputation of universities in some of those students home countries or nearby (eg China has 6 unis in top 100 QS ranking, Singapore is in Top 10), and U.K. universities are relatively expensive with few scholarships for overseas applicants, and a lot wanted to come to London which is extremely expensive on top of fees, some (much cheaper) top European unis now offer courses taught in English so they are attractive alternatives too.

The UK has no over-arching strategy for its university sector. It’s tragic.

Actually not quite - the visa situation was limited as a result of some international students wanting to bring several (up to 8) extended family members into the country with them as dependents.

@Notanorthener sorry - I wasn’t clear. I wasn’t suggesting that Brexit impacted international students directly, because as you say, Europe wasn’t classed as international, I was saying that it increased the impression of a culture that wasn’t welcoming.

Incidentally, my point about the Conservatives was not specifically a political one. It was a statement of fact. Equally. Labour have not reversed it and neither party (or any other) has a solution to the funding issue.

Not sure that alone would have caused the bottom to drop out of international applicants. Assuming that isn’t the majority.

Dropped by almost 20% as a result of this policy. We don’t yet know the impact of the reduction in time for post-study visa, maybe another 10%?

Ds is Warwick History going into third year. The department is excellent and he has studied some diverse areas in his module choices. He had found everything well organised and lecturers and subject librarians available in their office hours and by email. Warwick does seem to have several finance, consulting, public speaking societies you can choose to do that potentially may help after in job applications .
Obviously with a history degree it pays to look at what modules are on offer at the different universities and whether it plays to your interests- although of course modules can change. Ds gets to live in Venice (where Warwick has had a long term base on the Grand Canal) studying the Renaissance for the first term next year. This was basically why he chose Warwick as his firm.
Accommodation seems to have settled and when he comes back from Venice he has guaranteed campus accommodation next year. This year he stayed in private halls 20 mins walk from campus and these were good. There’s lots of clubs if you aren’t in campus uni halls and he met friends this way and from his course rather than from his first year flat. Warwick allocates accommodation later so this may actually work better if you get a place in clearing.

My dd was at York for a different degree subject and adored York as a place. She did hit covid times and some strike action, whereas Ds has had no disruption at Warwick.
The main disadvantage of Warwick is it isn’t in a lovely place like York. However the campus has lots of green areas and Ds likes going for walks because of this. Warwick students socialise mainly on campus or in Leamington Spa where lots live in the second year.
I’m happy he chose Warwick basically.

I think we are agreeing? I was referring to the suggestion that the policy was just restricting the people who wanted to bring in 8 family members.

I read that Exeter staff are particularly unhappy as the Humanities department are actually not in debt yet they are having to make enormous savings as a department which seems highly unfair.

Yes, it looks like the faculty of Arts & Humanities at Exeter will be losing up to 25% of its academic staff. And according to the articles I've read, the university is not in debt, and will be running a good surplus by 2030. The cuts to academic staff seem to be targeted almost entirely at arts academics, not STEMM.

It's ironic, as in the sector, we all see Exeter as led by its arts & humanities academics in both teaching and research. It's English department is a top 50 in the world, its Theatre department is regularly in the top 5 in the UK.

Parents & applicants need to make a big fuss about these attacks on arts & humanities. They have an immediate effect on your DCs' education - fewer face to face hours, bigger classes & so on.

My dd has just graduated from Warwick history. Really loved the course and chose some very interesting and diverse modules. dd also did the semester in Venice - your ds is going to love it. Such an amazing experience!
Financially Warwick seems pretty stable, think lots of money comes in from Warwick Business School which apparently is now ranked second in the country

Exactly. Such nonsense about RG, which is JUST A BRANDING EXERCISE? Nottingham in crisis. LIverpool had cuts. Southampton had cuts and made people sign NDAs to stop it getting out. QMUL had horrendous cuts, They are all cutting. It comes out of the blue. Don’t compound the problem everyone has by swallowing the RG bullshit. And, as an academic, I say: you’ll not escape it, so put your efforts into defending our sector, rather than imagining you can find some way to escape the hellscape with compliant academics who DON’T have the temerity to strike.

Some unis guarantee accommodation through clearing when they don’t guarantee it to insurance students - to help tempt good clearing students to pick them. However, this is unlikely to be in a specific location, which is your key concern.

Clearing starts earlier than a level results day because a level results are one of the last to come out, after IB, Irish leaving certificate, Scottish highers etc. But the universities won’t tweak the expected a level grades down until they know what’s what with a level result patterns.

It’s supply and demand though too. No matter how amazing the Exeter English dept is, there aren’t enough English students to spread around the top English uni depts. 85,000 did English A level in 2000, now it’s down to 52,000. A drop of 40% is going to impact the demand for university places. And I don’t see this trend at A level changing without a strategic intervention in schools and universities rethinking their subject offerings. Perhaps Exeter has done some future forecasting and sees its numbers falling further in future.

Is it better to have lots of poorly funded depts across the country or a few well resourced specialist unis/dept? (I know that comes with its own problems.)

It comes back to what universities are for and what is driving subject choice. There is a case for studying English for its own sake & for all the skills it develops. But this message is not being delivered in schools or by govts.

Also, how many £ overseas students are interested in studying English - or humanities in general?

But I agree with PP, that all unis are under financial pressure - with the exception of Oxbridge, Imperial and LSE, although there will be reprioritisation and restructurings going on in those too - and across subjects. Nottingham is cutting 1/3 of its physics dept which is (a) STEM (obviously!) and (b) conducts world leading and well sponsored research (eg medical physics, especially MRI developed there - research that attracts £££ funding).

History is not taught at Bath.

Another resource is this report on the financial situation at UK universities - https://zenodo.org/records/18876752

It includes a traffic light rating of each university and a 2 page assessment of each institution. Make sure you read the methodology too (particularly p44) because a red rating doesn't mean you should discount a university, but does mean you should be extra cautious about doing your due diligence.

It's a bit late now for 2026 entry but at open days for your top universities you absolutely should be asking the students and staff if they are happy and the department is stable. You can't guarantee an honest answer but we tend to be a rather blunt bunch.

Nottingham Uni seems to be the uni in the worst place at the moment. They are making huge redundancies right now and they've been hit with other troubles at the same time with the cyber attack. I can absolutely understand students not wanting to start there this September but then that will make the finances even worse.

Another academic here who agrees with @phyllidafosset The sector is more chaotic than balance sheets convey.

One can not be stupid by ignoring banner headlines of trouble. Beyond this almost everything is up in the air.

Restructuring is possible anywhere, deficit or no. Whether industrial action follows depends largely the details, and to some extent on the pre-existing relationship between management and staff. I think the best bet for an entering student is to concentrate on finding their best fit, taking the headlines about institutional fitness under advisement. Then 🤞