The amount of time that students in the UK are spending studying has markedly declined as more than two-thirds take up employment in response to financial worries, according to new data.?

The Student Academic Experience Survey 2025 found that term-time employment has become ¡°the new normal¡± and ¡°even the new expectation¡± following the upheaval of the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis.

But rising levels of employment among full-time students ¨C?first identified in last year¡¯s survey?¨C are?starting to affect how much time is spent on study, raising concerns about how money troubles are transforming the academic experience.?

The survey, carried out by Advance HE and the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), found that the number of hours spent on independent study has fallen to 11.6 hours a week, down from 13.6 hours in 2024 and 15.7 hours in 2021 ¨C a 26 per cent decrease in five years.?

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While contact hours have changed little this year and remain close to the highest levels recorded in the 19-year survey, ¡°the overall workload has declined strongly¡±, the report says, which ¡°is perhaps understandable given the large majority of students who work for pay¡±.?

Report co-author Jonathan Neves, head of business intelligence and surveys at Advance HE, told Times Higher Education,?¡°something had to give, and it looks like it¡¯s independent study¡±.

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He added that, historically, part-time work has been undertaken by students during the holidays but it has now become ¡°the norm and expectation¡± for them to be working alongside their studies.?

The number of students in term-time employment has reached 68 per cent of all students, rising from 56 per cent in 2024. This is up from 35 per cent in 2015 ¨C a trend report co-author Josh Freeman, policy manager at Hepi, described as ¡°unbelievable¡±.?

The report, which surveyed more than 10,000 students, found the number of hours worked per week may have ¡°peaked¡± last year, with the average number of hours spent in paid work falling from 14.5 hours per week to 13.1 hours in 2025.

Students who had previously attended a private school were most likely to be undertaking paid work, with 77 per cent of them carrying out paid work compared with 63 per cent of state school students.?

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But the report noted that private school students were much more likely to undertake only one to five hours of paid work per week, and were commonly doing so to ¡°explore possible career paths¡±, compared with state school students who ¡°did so to supplement living costs¡±.?

Freeman said that this trend could result in a ¡°bifurcation¡± of the student experience?and was reflective of the ¡°graduate premium starting to decrease¡± as more young people attend university.

¡°A degree is no longer the passport to a fantastic graduate job that it might once have been, so students are looking for other ways to distinguish themselves, and I think the high levels of part-time work, even among people from private schools, is probably evidence of that,¡± he said.

Neves added that despite the financial challenges facing students, universities should do more to encourage students to understand the transferable skills developed during their paid employment, and how these can be deployed in their studies and career development.

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¡°I think it¡¯s quite right to say that fully understanding the changes in the university experience is a challenge for the sector and probably for us all, but there are some positive points among this on the resilience of students and resilience of the sector that it¡¯s important not to lose sight of.¡±

The survey also finds:?

• Thirty-seven per cent of students polled said their course was ¡°good¡± or ¡°very good¡± value ¨C down from 39 per cent in 2024. Twenty-nine per cent of students said their course was "poor" or "very poor" value?¨C up from 26 per cent in 2024
• There has been a ¡°sea change¡± in the number of assessments set, rising to 5.8 summative assignments and 4.1 formative assignments, up from 5 and 2.3 in 2020 ¨C a trend authors suggest could be?a result of institutions attempting to ¡°grapple with the potential opportunities and challenges posed by AI in this space¡±
• When asked about tuition fees and how best to weather the financial crisis, a ¡°slight plurality¡± of students support maintaining current fee levels and accepting a reduction in?teaching quality, but almost as many students support a small increase in fees to maintain quality levels
• Despite cuts to the academic workforce, the speed at which assessments were marked and returned jumped notably, with 42 per cent of assessments returned within 1 to 2 weeks, compared with 29 per cent in 2024
• A growing proportion of students report that their university experience has exceeded their expectations, rising from 22 per in 2024 to 26 per cent in 2025

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com