University of Hertfordshire

The University of Hertfordshire is a public university based in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. It began as Hatfield Technical College, founded in 1948 and opened to 1,738 students in 1952 on land donated by aviation figure Alan Butler, with a focus on training aerospace engineers. It became Hatfield Polytechnic in 1969 and gained university status as the University of Hertfordshire in 1992. Teaching takes place on two Hatfield campuses, College Lane and de Havilland, the latter opened in 2003 on a former British Aerospace site, and the 50-hectare Bayfordbury site houses one of the UK's largest teaching observatories. The university has six schools: Hertfordshire Business School; Creative Arts; Education; Health, Medicine and Life Sciences; Hertfordshire Law School; and Physics, Engineering and Computer Science. It has nearly 34,000 students from more than 110 countries, and it reports more than 19,000 international students. In REF 2021 over 78% of its submitted research was rated world-leading or internationally excellent. Its Adaptive Systems Research Group developed Kaspar, a social robot used to help autistic children practise social interaction. Students can spend time at more than 170 partner universities abroad, and the Hertfordshire International College on campus runs pathway programmes into its degrees.

Placed 901-950 in the QS World University Rankings 2026 and 851-900 in QS 2027, 601-800 in THE 2026 and 701-800 in THE 2027, and 37th in the Guardian University Guide 2027.

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College Lane in Hatfield is the main campus, with the original college building, the Learning Resource Centre, halls, the Hutton Hub Medical Centre and the Students' Union; de Havilland, opened in 2003, holds the business and law schools, a mock courtroom and the Weston Auditorium. The two are linked by a free 7-minute shuttle bus, and the Bayfordbury site has the observatory and field stations.

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Undergraduate degrees start in September through UCAS. Many taught master's run in September and January, for example MSc Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (25 September 2026 and 22 January 2027), and the MBA (Data Analytics) also starts in May (11 May 2027). The Super Early Bird Scholarship needs a GBP 5,000 deposit cleared by 31 October 2026 for January 2027 entry, and the full payment discount requires fees paid by 8 February 2027. No fees are charged in a sandwich placement or study-abroad year.