Higher education sector insight

The Teaching Sustainability project is progressing in the light of a difficult UK higher education sector environment, involving changing student demand and the decline of some markets. The project’s work in innovating and developing our programmes portfolio is informed by a wide range of sector intelligence, including reports, research and policy papers from relevant public and private sector bodies, sector media coverage and market insight.

Here are a selection of academic and policy papers and media articles which provide some context to wider sector challenges.

Policy and academic reports, papers and research

• Cold spots: Mapping inequality in SHAPE provision in UK higher education, British Academy, 10 September 2025
• The Languages Crisis: Arresting decline, Higher Education Policy Institute, 31 July 2025
• Language Trends England 2025, British Council, 1 July 2025
• Understanding SHAPE graduates, British Academy, 10 June 2025
• UK higher education SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy) subjects provision 2011/12-2022/23, University of Manchester analysis using the British Academy’s SHAPE Observatory mapping tool, April 2025.
  • Anthropology
  • Archaeology
  • Business and Management
  • Classics
  • Development Studies
  • Economics
  • Education
  • English Studies
  • Geography (Human and Social)
  • History
  • History of Art
  • Languages
  • Law
  • Linguistics
  • Media, Journalism and Communications
  • Performing Arts
  • Philosophy
  • Politics
  • Psychology
  • Social Policy
  • Social Sciences (non-specific)
  • Social Work
  • Sociology
  • Theology and Religious Studies
  • Visual Arts
• Overlooking language skills 'risks limiting the scope and impact of UK research', new British Academy research finds, British Academy, 9 April 2025
• New interactive map signals stark warning about regional access to SHAPE subjects in higher education, British Academy, 20 February 2025
• Mapping SHAPE provision in UK higher education, British Academy, 22 November 2024
• Weekend Reading: Who can actually afford a Master’s – and what can we all do about it?, HEPI, 19 October 2024
• NCLE celebrates 2024 A-Level Results for Modern Foreign Languages, National Consortium for Languages Education, 15 August 2024
• Subject choice trends in post-16 education in England: Investigating subject choice over the past 20 years, British Academy report, 14 August 2024
• Language Trends England 2024, British Council, 15 July 2024
• The SHAPE of Research Impact, British Academy, 25 January 2024
• The revival of language learning is key to a culturally and linguistically rich future, British Academy, 26 September 2023
• ‘Cold spots’ in language degree provision in England, Taylor & Francis Online, 25 September 2023
• A Languages Crisis?, Higher Education Policy Institute, January 2020

Media coverage

• Collapse of languages has 'knock-on effects' for research, Research Professional News, 31 July 2025
• Why does it take the British Academy to plot subject geographies?, Wonkhe, 20 February 2025
• The Guardian view on humanities in universities: closing English Literature courses signals a crisis, The Guardian, 5 December 2024
• Scrap Shakespeare and study Instagram posts - how I'd save English Lit in schools [paywall], Sunday Times, 10 November 2024
• Languages make GCSE comeback [no link], The Times, 23 August 2024
• GCSE results: more young people are studying languages – but the overall picture for language learning remains bleak, The Conversation, 22 August 2024
• ‘It enriches your mind in every way’: the fight to keep the UK learning German, The Guardian, 17 August 2024
• A-level students choosing narrower range of subjects after Gove changes, The Guardian, 17 August 2024
• Why British teenagers are bidding au revoir to learning French [paywall], Sunday Times, 7 July 2024
• Is AI the final nail in the coffin for modern languages? [paywall], THE, 25 April 2024