National Student Survey (NSS) Results
For 2025, the Office for Students will publish the NSS data at 09:30 on Wednesday 9 July 2025.
A 50% response rate with a minimum of 10 respondents is required for the results to be published. Most University subject areas achieve the required response rate for results to be reported at level 3 of the Common Aggregation Hierarchy (CAH) coding system (if the threshold is not met for level 3 then results are included at level 2).
We are also given the results broken down into school, department and programme level to enable internal analysis. Similar to the above, 10 respondents are required for the results to be included in the internal report.
What is the latest NSS data?
2025 is the latest data to be published. You can download the following files in connection with the results or go to the NSS PowerBI dashboard to analyse the results in more detail:
- NSS 2025 raw data (excel document) – for internal use only as the data is split into University structure (School, internal departmentcode, and programme title)
- NSS 2025 free-text comments (excel document) – for internal use only
- NSS 2025 Headlines Report (PDF document) – key headlines including overall positivity, response rate, Faculty/School summary, Russell Group and sector rankings
- NSS 2025 Key data highlights (PDF document) – presentation on the day of the results giving key quantitative and qualitative data highlights
How can results be used?
- The University values NSS feedback as it enables reflection on our strengths and weaknesses so we can take positive action where required.
- Questions are grouped into themes, but you should always consider the questions that make up each theme. Theme measures should not be used in marketing or presented to others without the questions which were used to create that theme.
- Free-text comments are for internal use only and should not be used externally for any purpose e.g. to market degree programmes. Where comments are used internally, care must be taken to ensure that anonymity is maintained.
- Communications and Marketing colleagues (Central and Faculty teams) are responsible for distributing internal and external messages regarding NSS results and fielding press queries.
What happens on the day results are published?
09:30 – NSS results are released by the Office for Students
10:00 – Official institutional response-rate confirmed to Communications and Marketing colleagues
10:30 – Senior University colleagues sent the provider data and free-text comments
11:30 – Headline report sent to Senior Leadership Team and Teaching and Learning Strategy Group
15:00 – Key stakeholders are presented with the quantitative and qualitative data highlights
What is the positivity measure?
All NSS questions are marked on a four-point scale. The first two possible answers are positive and the second two are negative. The positivity measure for each question is the proportion of respondents who gave a positive answer. The overall positivity measure is the proportion of respondents who gave a positive answer across all the questions.
Pre-2023, NSS questions were marked on a five-point scale with the option to ‘neither agree nor disagree’. Also in 2023, the overall satisfaction question (Q27) was replaced with the overall positivity measure. Therefore, results from 2023 onwards cannot be compared to those completed in 2022 or earlier.
How can I find NSS results from previous years?
All NSS data files are saved in the document store and links to the raw data, free text comments and any headline reports from previous years are given in the table below:
| Year | Raw Data | Free-text comments | Supplementary documents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | NSS 2024 Results | NSS 2024 Open Comments | |
| 2023 | NSS 2023 Results | NSS 2023 Open Comments |
NSS 2023 Headlines (Powerpoint) |
| 2022 | NSS 2022 Results |
NSS 2022 Open Comments |
NSS 2022 Initial Update for SLT and TLSG (PDF) |
| 2021 | NSS 2021 Results |
NSS 2021 Open Comments |
NSS 2021 Initial Update for SLT and TLSG (PDF) |
| 2020 | NSS 2020 Results | NSS 2020 Open Comments |
|
| 2019 | NSS 2019 Results |
NSS 2019 Open Comments |
NSS 2019 First Phase Analysis (Excel) NSS 2019 Second Phase Analysis (Excel)
|
| 2018 | NSS 2018 Results |
NSS 2018 Open Comments |
|
| 2017 | NSS 2017 Results |
NSS 2017 Open Comments | |
| 2016 | NSS 2016 student comments by School | ||
| 2015 | NSS 2015 student comments by School | ||
| 2014 | NSS 2014 student comments by School | ||
| 2013 | NSS and PTES 2013 open comments summary | Senate Headline Report |
|
| 2012 | Student open comments | ||
| 2011 | Student open comments |