Facts and figures

Five academic schools: Applied Sciences; Arts & Creative Industries; Business School; Computing, Engineering & the Built Environment; Health & Social Care. 

Three campuses: Craiglockhart, Merchiston, Sighthill. 

17 specialist research centres.

Over 20,000 students from more than 145 countries: 73% on campus in Edinburgh, 14% studying online, and 13% studying for an Edinburgh Napier degree at a partner university.

1,816 academic and professional services staff.

We graduate around 6,000 students each year in Edinburgh and overseas.

Top 5 UK modern university for graduate prospects (Sunday Times Good University Guide 2027).

Home to more than 450 graduate apprentices across Computing, Engineering and Business.

Over 90% of full-time undergraduate students engage in work-related learning opportunities each year.

95% of UK undergraduate students and 97% of our UK postgraduate students are in work or further study 15 months after graduation (HESA 2023/24).

13% of our full-time undergraduate entrants are from SIMD20 postcodes.

We’re the only university in Scotland to offer all four fields of nursing and midwifery registration education, and we train nearly 1,000 new NHS nurses and midwives every year.  

Since 2012, our distance learning platform, Global Online, has delivered 16 programmes to over 7,900 students.

Nearly 80% of our academic staff hold Advance HE Fellowships.

We are the lead partner in the award-winning Edinburgh-based collaborative project, HUB for SUCCESS, which helps people with care experience get into and stay in education.  

We host the world-first Mountain Bike Innovation Centre for Scotland, which assists businesses to capitalise on one of Scotland’s fastest growing adventure sports.

Our Business School achieved AACSB accreditation in 2023—only 6% of business schools worldwide have this distinction.

We were the first university in Scotland to receive a gold award from the MOD’s Defence Employer Recognition Scheme for our educational support and commitment to the armed forces community. 

We are a key partner in a £6m award by the UKRI Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge to accelerate the decarbonisation of UK industry.  

We deliver Transnational Education with academic partners in China, Hong Kong, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Switzerland and Vietnam.

We are twice winners of the Queen’s University Prize (2009/2015).

In 2023, Computing professor Bill Buchanan OBE was named Most Innovative Teacher of the Year at the Times Higher Education Awards – the ‘Oscars of UK higher education’.

We’ve increased our income from research and knowledge exchange activities by 40% since 2020/21.

Nearly 700 business start-ups have been supported by our enterprise incubator Bright Red Triangle since 2014.

We were the first UK university to have both undergraduate and postgraduate course options certified by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and we received an NCSC Gold award in 2023 for our contributions to cybersecurity.  

We are a top 10 UK university and second in Scotland for generating successful spin-out companies (Octopus Ventures 2023).

We are home to the world’s first PhD in Surf Therapy. 

Second top university in Scotland for environmental and ethical performance according to the People and Planet University League (2025/26).

We’ve achieved a 27% reduction in net carbon emissions since 2018/19 and 4,671 tCO2e carbon emissions against a target of 5,138 tCO2e in 2022/23--and we’re on track to achieving net zero in our operations by 2030.

We co-founded the world leading Mikoko Pamoja conservation and restoration project in Kenya which won a United Nations honour in 2023.

In 2023, 13 Edinburgh Napier students were part of the team that built a world-first bamboo-timber grid structure in China.