Discover key facts about Royal Holloway.

Academic ranking

• Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 - we remain within the top 25% of all UK research in Research Excellence Framework 2021.
• In Times Higher Education’s (THE) analysis and rankings of the REF 2021 results (May 2022), Royal Holloway is ranked 15 in the UK for the overall quality of its research outputs.

UK league table rankings

• The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2024 - we were ranked 29th.
• The Guardian University Guide 2024 - we were ranked 47th.
• The Complete University Guide 2024 - we were ranked 37th.
• Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2024 - Royal Holloway’s score puts us in the top 400 in the world, and joint 41st overall in the UK.
• Royal Holloway is placed 34th in the UK in the category of 'International Outlook': recognising our broader outlook as a global university. The rankings use three separate indicators to judge 'international outlook' - international staff ratio; international student ratio; and proportion of internationally co‐authored research papers.

Student numbers

• We have a total of 12,161 students.
• Of these, 9,509 are from the UK (including Channel Islands and I.O.M), 617 are from the European Union (EU), and 2,035 are international (outside the EU) students.
• We have 10,137 undergraduates, 1,372 postgraduate taught and 652 postgraduate research students.

(Figures shown are full-time equivalent. Excludes Writing-up PhD students.)

Staff numbers

• We have 1,824 established members of staff working at Royal Holloway across academic, administrative and support areas (Jan 2023).
• In addition, we have visiting teachers, student interns and student staff who work across campus. Our staff widely represent countries across the world.

Alumni

• There are over 100,000 alumni of Bedford College, Royal Holloway College and Royal Holloway and Bedford New College worldwide.
• Notable alumni include novelist George Eliot, suffragette Emily Davison, the first woman doctor in the west Dr Elizabeth Blackwell, actor Mark Strong, EU Foreign Minister Baroness Cathy Ashton, broadcaster and scientist David Bellamy and Paralympic triple gold medallist Sophie Christiansen.

Campus

• With our spectacular Founder’s Building and famous Picture Gallery, our campus has been named as one of the most beautiful campuses in the world
• It’s situated in 135 acres of parkland in Egham, Surrey.
• This is 19 miles from central London and seven miles from Heathrow Airport.
• We also have our central London location at Bedford Square, Stewart House and Senate House in Bloomsbury.

Income and expenditure

See Financial information for details of where our money comes from and how we spend it and our overall economic impact.

Our motto and coat of arms

• Our coat of arms celebrates the heritage of Bedford College, founded in 1849 by Elizabeth Jesser Reid and Royal Holloway College, founded in 1886 by Thomas Holloway
• The two colleges merged in 1985 to form who we are today - Royal Holloway, University of London
• Our motto  ‘Esse quam videri’ means 'to be rather than to seem'.