UK students often fight their way into Russell Group unis because these places supposedly have brainier lecturers and look better on your CV. Well, I hope they’re LinkedIn followers are impressed, because it turns out that the student accommodation at Russell Group unis isn’t always that great.
University Compare’s new league tables for 2026 includes a ranking of how nice the accommodation is at lots of UK unis. Apparently students are pretty unimpressed by the Cardiff accommodation. Cardiff ranked 95 out of 100 UK universities. Ouch. Glasgow and Bristol weren’t far behind Cardiff.
At the other end of the scale, Newcastle University and the University of Liverpool apparently have the nicest student accommodation out of all the Russell Group unis in 2025. Newcastle apparently has the third best accom in the UK, behind only Edge Hill University and Liverpool John Moores University.
A very, very spacious room at Newcastle University
University Compare came up with these league tables by asking real UK unis students if they would recommend the accommodation at their uni. They complied that data into an accommodation score, from between one and five.
I didn’t forget about King’s College London (KCL), the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) or the University of Manchester. University Compare didn’t have enough data on these unis to include them in the league table.
So then, here are the Russell Group unis ranked by how bad the accommodation is in 2025, according to University Compare:
21. Newcastle University – scored 4.14
20. University of Liverpool – scored 4.11
19. University of Sheffield – scored 3.97
18. University of Exeter – scored 3.96
The halls at Exetaaaaaah don’t look too shabby
17. University of Cambridge – scored 3.91
16. University of Leeds – scored 3.90
15. University of Birmingham – scored 3.86
14. Queen’s University Belfast – scored 3.84
13. University of York – scored 3.81
12. University of Warwick – scored 3.80
11. Durham University – scored 3.71
10. University of Nottingham – scored 3.65
9. Queen Mary University of London
8. Imperial College London – 3.55
7. University of Oxford – scored 3.54
6. University of Edinburgh – scored 3.53
These University of Edinburgh halls are infested with silly fresh
5. University of Southampton – scored 3.50
4. University College London (UCL) – scored 3.50
3. University of Bristol – scored 3.46
2. University of Glasgow – scored 3.34
1. Cardiff University – scored 3.32
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