In December 2024, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced its intention to review the statistical classification of UK universities income. This review commenced in early 2025 and concentrated on the statistical classification of the transactions in which UK universities engage, rather than their sector classification.
The ONS has now as a result classified the main income sources of UK universities as published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, including tuition fees from UK and overseas students, donations and endowments, investment income, funding body grants and research grants, and contracts. This decision covers a wide range of different transactions, and the details of how each different type of transaction will be classified can be found in the Public Sector Classification Guide. More details are also included in this month's Economic statistics classifications and developments in public sector finances article.
We determined the statistical classification of each transaction in the context of internationally agreed statistical guidance as described in the United Nations System of National Accounts 2008, along with the European System of Accounts 2010 and the accompanying Manual on Government Deficit and Debt 2022 where useful and appropriate.
The classification assessment encompasses all countries in the UK, recognising that these income sources may be different for each country.
Most universities have been classified to the non-profit institutions serving households (S.15) sector in the UK National Accounts since 24 September 1998. The ONS is not planning to undertake a sector classification assessment of universities (higher education institutions), including determining whether they are individually market or non-market bodies. However, if significant changes are made to the governance of universities, they will be reviewed against other classification priorities in the future.
Please refer to our monthly Forward Work Plan for the latest updates on upcoming classification work. Should you have further queries not addressed by the Forward Work Plan, please contact econstats.classification@ons.gov.uk.