UK Universities Open for January 2027 Intake
Roughly 80 UK January 2027 universities are taking applications, across about 5,000 foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The problem with every list you will find is that it is copied between agent sites and never checked. So this one is split honestly: universities that have published their own January 2027 page, and universities that appear on aggregator lists but where we could not find an official January 2027 page to confirm it. Either way the rule is the same — January entry is decided course by course, not university by university. A university running a January intake does not mean your course does.
Universities with an official January 2027 page
These have published their own January 2027 entry page. That is the only confirmation worth acting on.
| University | What is confirmed |
|---|---|
| Queen Mary University of London | A January 2027 start across business and management, economics and finance, law (LLM), medicine and life sciences, physics, and pre-master's routes. Publishes a 1 December application deadline for guaranteed accommodation, and a Global Scholarship worth up to £7,000. |
| University of Strathclyde | A January 2027 entry point across roughly 57 postgraduate taught programmes — 26 in engineering, 14 in humanities and social sciences, 9 in science, 8 in the business school. No blanket deadline is published; Strathclyde directs applicants to the faculty admissions teams. |
Listed by aggregators, not yet confirmed on an official page
These names recur across January-intake listings. We could not find a university-published January 2027 page for them, so treat this as a shortlist to check, not a confirmed list.
- University of Liverpool
- University of Birmingham
- Loughborough University
- University of Portsmouth
- Northumbria University
- University of Salford
- University of Lincoln
- Brunel University London
- Royal Holloway, University of London
- University of Exeter
- Coventry University
How to check your own course in two minutes
- Search the university site for your course name plus “January 2027” — not the university name plus “January intake”.
- Open the course page and look for the start-date selector. If January 2027 is not in that dropdown, the course does not run in January, whatever a listing says.
- Read the deadline on that same page. It is course-specific and it overrides any sector-wide date.
- Email the admissions team for the course, not the general enquiries address, and keep the reply.
Which courses actually run in January
January catalogues skew heavily postgraduate and heavily taught. The courses that reliably appear are business and management, computer science, data science and AI, accounting and finance, engineering conversion routes, public health and MBA programmes. Lab-heavy, placement-linked and professionally accredited courses are the ones most often September-only, because the cohort structure will not split.
If your target course is September-only, the honest options are to wait for September 2027, switch to a related course that does run in January, or look at the Spring 2027 intake in the USA and the February 2027 intake in Australia.
Before you shortlist on the university name
Ranking is the weakest of the three inputs for a January application. The deadline you can actually meet, the course being offered at all, and the post-study outcome matter more. Start from the January 2027 UK intake guide for the full timeline, and note that every January 2027 starter lands on the 18-month Graduate Route rather than 24 months.
UK Universities Open for January 2027 Intake — FAQs
Which UK universities are open for January 2027 intake?
Queen Mary University of London and the University of Strathclyde have published their own January 2027 entry pages. Around 80 UK universities run a January entry in total, and names that recur on listings include Liverpool, Birmingham, Loughborough, Portsmouth, Northumbria, Salford, Lincoln, Brunel, Royal Holloway, Exeter and Coventry. Confirm on the course page, because January entry is decided course by course.
Do all UK universities offer a January intake?
No. Roughly 80 of them do, and even those offer only part of their September catalogue in January. Lab-heavy, placement-linked and professionally accredited courses are most often September-only because the cohort cannot be split. Check the start-date dropdown on your specific course page rather than the university-level listing.
How do I confirm a course actually has a January 2027 start?
Search the university website for your course name plus "January 2027", open the course page, and check the start-date selector. If January 2027 is not in that dropdown, the course does not run then regardless of what an agent listing says. The deadline printed on that page is course-specific and overrides any sector-wide date.
Does Queen Mary University of London have a January 2027 intake?
Yes. Queen Mary publishes a January 2027 start covering business and management, economics and finance, law LLMs, medicine and life sciences, physics, and pre-master's routes. It lists a 1 December application deadline for guaranteed accommodation and a Global Scholarship worth up to GBP 7,000.
Are January intake universities lower ranked than September ones?
Not systematically. Russell Group members including Queen Mary, Birmingham, Liverpool and Exeter appear in January listings alongside post-92 universities. What changes in January is the breadth of the catalogue and the size of the scholarship pool, not the calibre of the institutions offering it.