INTRODUCTION
For the first time, BUFDG has undertaken an exercise to collate the financial data of its members in a single dataset, based on the publicly available 24/25 Financial Statements. The data is made available to BUFDG member institutions only. The aim of the exercise is to provide benchmarking data for members, improve understanding of institutional finances, and to make what is already public data more easily accessible at an earlier point in the reporting cycle.
The exercise provides the opportunity to see every institution's figures and some key metrics at a glance. So the risk from choosing any single figure to explain an institution’s, or the sector’s, financial position is reduced. However, without also taking some time to understand how the figures fit together, the danger of misunderstanding financial information remains. We hope the compendium of 'plain English' definitions and explanations available via the links to the right will help with this, as well as BUFDG's longer form Guide to University Finance. Most importantly, readers should look at the source of the data – the published financial statements – to read the Strategic Review that will provide fuller context, particularly for any unusual looking results.
ABOUT THE DATA
All data (including 23/24 data) is drawn from members' published 24/25 Financial Statements (Financial Statements show current year and prior year information side by side), and the subsequent metrics and calculations have been chosen by BUFDG to be useful to member institutions as well as to best represent a true picture of sector finances. If the 23/24 data shown differs from that as published in published 23/24 statements this may be due to a restatement (where prior year data is amended in hindsight under exceptional circumstances). It is the reader’s responsibility to check this if they have any doubt about the integrity of the information.
As not all institutions have published their Financial Statements yet the data is partial and, at the date of the most recent release (29 January 2025), we show data from the 134 HE providers who had published their statements prior to Monday 26th January. This represents over three quarters of BUFDG members in terms of both numbers of providers and institutional income / expenditure. This means that where we show sector totals and averages for 23/24, this includes only the proportion of the sector that have also published their 24/25 Financial Statements, so that direct comparison from year to year is possible.
We plan to add to this data until all providers have published their 24/25 Financial Statements.
Visit this page to see the list of current BUFDG members, and links to their published Financial Statements. The direct links to the Financial Statements are also included in the final tab of the dataset itself.
UNDERSTANDING FINANCE
Please make full use of the pages that explain financial metrics in detail, via the menu to the right, as well as BUFDG's Guide to University Finance.
If you have any questions about the FIAT project or the data itself, please contact Matt.
