Education

Priority one: Portfolio

We continue to offer an exceptional education and ensure that all of our 27,000-plus students - across all five of our faculties - get an excellent student experience.

Our students are among the brightest and best in the world and are using the skills they are gaining to make meaningful contributions to society. From driving global sustainability to inventing an innovative solution to help blind people in the kitchen and championing women in STEM and inspiring the next generation of engineers. 

Student-centred education continues to be at the heart of what we do and how we do it. This is all about putting the needs and interests of our students at the centre of all our activity, from the courses we offer, to our teaching, our assessment and feedback, our campus experience, our virtual learning environment, our student support community, and our approach to employability.

This year, we moved to a student-centred timetabling model. By putting students at the fore of scheduling our lectures and seminars we can be far more deliberate in how we sequence learning activities, giving them a better and broader learning experience.

We launched StudySkills@Sheffield - a new website featuring a collection of how-to guides for students to develop their skills for learning while at the University. The skills resources cover research skills, academic writing, assessment and exams, university skills, digital skills, and maths and statistics.

We were delighted to welcome a panel of students to our Education Conference 2025, where students played a fundamental role in working with us to explore education through the eyes of our learners and delivering a student-centred curriculum.

We have a dedicated and enthusiastic community of staff who care deeply about our students’ learning and educational experience. Our Education Awards recognised and celebrated our inspiring lecturers and teachers for their excellent practice in learning and teaching and their innovation, inclusivity and unwavering commitment.

Priority two: Employability

We continue to enhance our placement year offer and our aim is that high quality work experience will become part of all our undergraduate programmes.

We were ranked as the 5th Best UK University for Work Experience at the RateMyPlacement Awards. These awards, which are entirely voted for by students, demonstrate our ongoing commitment to supporting students with their work-experience journey.

All undergraduate students have the option to undertake a placement year as part of their degree. 618 students completed year-long placements this year, a 9.6 per cent increase on 2023-24, and the level of interest from new first-year students suggests numbers could rise significantly in the future, contributing to positive graduate outcomes.

Our students go on to successful careers all over the world. We were ranked 15th out of the 24 Russell Group universities in both the Guardian and the Times league tables measuring graduate prospects, rising from 16th and 17th place respectively.

Our graduates have successfully secured professional roles in a wide range of fields, including scientific and technical positions, roles in NHS Trusts across the region and beyond, graduate-level manufacturing jobs at major corporations like Rolls-Royce, Deloitte, and PwC, and careers within the
arts and entertainment industry. Additionally, 87 of our own graduates were employed by the University.

Priority three: Digital experience

We are designing a rich and inclusive digital environment that will support excellent and inspiring teaching, enabling all students to engage effectively in their learning.

A new Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) platform, Blackboard Ultra, has been rolled out across the University. Our VLE is key to how we deliver education; it provides the infrastructure behind our programmes and enables us to give our students a consistent and coherent learning experience. The new platform provides a better student user experience, allows students to connect information and knowledge in an inclusive, personalised digital space, and supports a programme-level approach.

We want all our students to have equal access to a digital device and the technologies they need for their studies, and we are adapting spaces to meet the evolving needs of our students. By providing devices where a student doesn’t have one, and having teaching spaces adapted to enable traditional and digital delivery as appropriate, we’re able to embed digital learning in the curriculum in a far more authentic and pedagogically appropriate way. This leads to students having increased opportunities to both develop and apply digital skills within their learning. We have successfully piloted the approach in English and Computer Science and will be rolling it out to the wider university.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how we live, work, and learn. We want to ensure all students are equipped with the knowledge and skills to critically engage with AI technologies, helping them to understand the societal impact and ethical issues and how to use AI tools appropriately within their programmes and then in their future careers. We are also exploring portfolio opportunities with respect to AI which build on our existing AI-aligned programmes.

Our Education pillar and related case studies