Our submission to the Autumn Budget 2026

Our submission to the upcoming Autumn Budget outlines how universities are supporting the UK's biggest challenges. This includes improving graduate employability, boosting innovation, strengthening local partnerships and increasing efficiency. It also makes recommendations for government to support this work.

Universities are central to driving growth and opportunity throughout the UK. They are educating the workforce of the future, powering research and innovation and supporting businesses and communities in every nation and region.

Universities are already taking responsibility for their future. However, to accelerate change and maximise their contribution, they must be financially sustainable. Government should avoid further measures that weaken universities' ability to deliver for students, staff, employers and communities.

More detail on these proposals and recommendations can be found in our full submission document.

We propose that government supports universities to drive growth, opportunity and national renewal through:

1. Ensuring the International Student Levy is not legislated for this year’s Finance Bill and committing to work with universities to find an alternative way to fund maintenance grants.
2. Protecting per-student funding through the Strategic Priorities Grant in real terms, supporting the high-level skills pipeline in key national disciplines.
3. Introducing a national investment campaign and regional investment partnerships, driving start-ups, spin-outs, scale-ups and social enterprises while unlocking innovation and growth across the UK.
4. Providing a transformation fund and greater flexibility on VAT for shared services, enabling universities to go further faster in their transformation ambitions.
5. Introducing greater flexibility for those universities obligated to offer the Teachers’ Pension Scheme (TPS), removing a long-standing inequality that reduces some universities’ ability to deliver for their students and communities.
6. Investing in modern border and immigration data infrastructure to maintain the integrity of the immigration system and minimise scope for abuse, protecting the UK’s borders and strengthening university accountability.

We are also calling on government to reaffirm its commitments to automatically increasing tuition fees each year, protecting core quality-related research funding and ringfencing funds for participation in Horizon Europe.

Our submission to the Autumn Budget 2026 [PDF]