Online postgraduate courses in UK higher education: What’s the current picture?
UK higher education is currently growing in lots of different ways. Record numbers are applying and going to universities, and it’s been predicted that by 2030 there will be a million people applying for places. This is largely due to an increasing 18-year-old population and an ever growing number of internationally mobile students.
Transnational education, of which online distance learning is a part, is also growing….and there has been significant growth in the number of postgraduate (PG) students as a whole and in particular the proportion of international PG students.
By these indicators demand to study at a UK university is increasing and is likely to continue to do so in the coming years. However, the key question is whether the current level of supply can meet that demand going forward?
It seems pretty unlikely that the infrastructure and resource that the typical campus residential experience is built upon is going to be able to sufficiently scale to meet this projected demand.
So online distance education will need to play an ever more important role going forward, to both meet demand from UK domiciled students and overseas students wanting to further their education with a UK university.
This is undoubtedly one of the reasons why a number of universities are becoming more serious about their online distance education portfolio.
What do we know about current online student numbers?
Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) showed that 10% (nearly 280,000) of UK-based students in 2021/22’s academic year were studying by distance learning . This breaks down as roughly one third postgraduate and two thirds undergraduate.
However, it’s worth noting that over 75% of all UK-based students studying an undergraduate course by distance learning are enrolled at the Open University. The university with the second largest number accounts for less than 3%. So online undergraduate provision is hugely uneven and nearly 65% of the universities listed on the HESA data had no online undergraduate students in 21/22.
Despite the numerical splits, postgraduate courses have had a much stronger association with online distance education over the years. There’s certainly a more even distribution of students across universities, although the Open University (for UK students) and University of London (for overseas students) are out in front on student numbers according to 2021/22’s data.
Exploring the UK HE online postgraduate landscape
As online distance education becomes a greater priority, more competitive and arguably a necessity for UK universities, understanding the online postgraduate taught (PGT) space becomes more important. Understanding and analysing that landscape is one of the ways in which I’ve been supporting universities developing their online distance portfolios and now seems like an opportune time to present a snapshot of the current UK landscape.
As such, the following insights are based upon research conducted on the online PGT courses of over 175 UK universities and present a general picture of the current landscape. It’s worth saying at the outset that this is obviously a dynamic space and so a snapshot in time is the best way to think about this insight.
How many online PGT courses are there?
My research highlighted that there are now over 3,250 postgraduate taught courses offered by UK universities. These are courses at Level 7 so qualifications such as MSc, MA, MBA, PgDip, PgCert etc, that are offered as fully online, or with an option to choose to study in that way. It’s worth saying that this is a significantly greater number of online distance courses than is available at undergraduate level.
Over 55% of these courses are online master degrees, with the other 45% being made up of either standalone PgDip’s, PgCert’s, PGCE’s or those qualifications as exit awards from the aforementioned masters degrees.
What are the top subject areas for online PGT courses?
It will be unsurprising to many to see that courses in health & medicine, business & management and education dominate in terms of the top subject areas for online PGT courses. The number of courses in the health and medicine though are considerable, and there are a number of universities who’s portfolios are almost exclusively in this subject area.
Top 3 subject areas for UK HE online PGT courses
28% Health & Medicine
16% Business & Management
12% Education
This top tier is then followed by a second tier of courses in Computer Science & IT, Law, Social Sciences and Humanities.
Unsurprisingly, this subject hierarchy in lots of ways reflects the main demographic for online PGT courses, which is working professionals where continuing professional development is either desirable or expected by virtue of their profession.
What proportion of universities are offering PGT online distance courses?
Whilst I highlighted earlier that there is a more even distribution of postgraduate courses across UK universities there is certainly a hierarchy and a significant proportion offer little to no online PGT provision.
Just over 10% of the universities I researched have portfolios of online PGT courses that exceed 50 courses. Whereas, just over 50% barely have an online PGT portfolio in that they offer between 0-10 courses.
Whereas some universities included in that cohort are small and/or focus on subject areas that have not typically been offered as online distance education in the past, this cohort does include 25% of Russell Group universities and some other significant and large universities.
There are certainly some big brands and players that could ramp up their online distance portfolios significantly in the years to come and provide significant competition for those who are more established in this space.
Who are the more established universities for PGT online distance education?
There are obviously different ways of measuring how established a university may or may not be, but simply by virtue of the number of courses / distance learning study options the following 16 universities have the biggest number
Universities with the most number of online PGT courses (in alphabetical order)
University of Dundee
University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh Napier University
University of Highlands and Islands
King's College London
University of Law
Leeds Beckett University
University of Leicester
University of Liverpool
University of London
University of Manchester
Open University
University of Portsmouth
Queen Mary University
Robert Gordon University
University of Wales, Trinity St David
However, it’s worth reiterating that these universities are measured by the number of courses rather than the number of students they have enrolled on these courses. Measuring by numbers of students wouldn’t necessarily radically alter this list but would certainly change it.
Gauging universities by number of students, not courses, would likely highlight how some universities boasting large portfolios will have a decent proportion of courses with relatively small numbers of students.
What about online education company partnerships?
Having recently posted research on the current state of online programme management companies (OPM) and UK university partnerships it’s also interesting to explore what proportion of online PGT courses are now offered in partnership with an online education company.
It appears that over 10% of all the online PGT courses I researched are under the umbrella of an OPM partnership. The subject focus of those courses doesn’t deviate wildly from the overall picture but business & management and computer science & IT double in proportion and education reduces by a half.
Top subject areas for online PGT courses delivered in partnership with an OPM
35% Business and Management
25% Health and Medicine
15% Computer Science and IT
6% Education
Approximately 12% of online PGT courses offered in partnership with OPMs are MBA’s and these partnerships are responsible for over 40% of all the online MBAs offered by UK universities.
There has been talk of an MBA boom as part of the significant growth in PGT enrolments in recent years and it would be interesting to understand what role OPMs may have played in this.
One last observation of interest on OPM partnerships is how in a number of cases they form 100% of the online PGT courses a university offers. Whilst this exclusivity is interesting in and of itself what it often seems to demonstrate is how in a relatively short space of time an OPM has been able to enable some universities to go from no online portfolio whatsoever to a portfolio of courses formed of mostly higher demand courses. Although these partnerships have their critics this is undoubtedly one appealing aspect for universities looking to develop an online PGT portfolio.
A word about pricing…
As many will know, unlike undergraduate courses universities have more freedom to price PGT courses at the level they want, and MBAs perhaps present the starkest example of this freedom.
The range of pricing I discovered for online MBAs was as little as £6,000 and as high as £42,000. Whilst not as large, there are similar disparities amongst other common course titles such as MA Education, MPH Public Health and MSc Computer Science.
Inevitably, reputation really does count here in terms of the level that courses are priced at, and for prospective students pricing can really make the difference in a way it doesn’t as much at undergraduate level.
One last point to make here is around pricing for UK domiciled vs international students. The uninitiated may quite reasonably draw the conclusion that an online distance course would be priced the same for UK and international students given the mode of delivery. Whilst there are a lot of examples of providers pricing courses the same for UK and international students this is far from the norm.
The biggest price differentials for UK and international students I observed were all in larger and prestigious universities who in the main tended to fairly consistently price courses differently for UK and international students.
The growing size of postgraduate education in UK universities has highlighted how this space is less regulated and one wonders whether pricing and pricing disparities might be one area explored in the future if more regulation is developed.
Where next?
For seasoned online distance education professionals and followers the current picture perhaps offers no huge surprises, but provides a snapshot in which to observe future trends and evolution.
Although some universities who have next to no online PGT portfolios are developing online education in other areas, the reality is that several have quite some distance to travel if they want to offer prospective students the opportunity to study with them online.
There are many that are on that journey or about to begin it - so expect further growth in the number of courses and an increase in competition in the coming years.
The top subject areas are ones that have long been associated with online PGT study and are representative of the most commonly associated student demographic. However, it will be interesting to see how traditionally underrepresented subject areas grow in the years to come.
A number of universities focussed on subject areas such as the arts have started to develop their online portfolios and although in smaller supply currently, there is a breadth of subjects people can study online at UK universities. This includes courses ranging from comedy writing to brewing & distilling, and Shakespeare to football coaching.
The extent to which the online PGT space becomes more diverse in terms of subjects will to extent be driven by demand as well as universities perhaps being braver and willing to test the market in new areas.
However, whatever happens in the years to come, for all the reasons stated earlier UK universities can no longer afford to neglect online distance education and many will need to consider this more seriously if they are not already.
As demand to study at UK universities looks likely to increase - online distance education provides universities with one component of the solution to both a potential problem and a future opportunity.
