Does your gender affect whether you get an offer?
It depends on the subject — and the university.
On the cover: Cardiff University. In mathematics, women and men have received offers there at almost exactly the same rate — 97.5% and 97.2% over six years. Photo: Stan Zurek / Wikimedia Commons (public domain).
The Bottom Line
Across all subjects combined, women receive offers from UK universities less often than men: 67.2% of applications against 70.2%, over the last six years. It would be easy to conclude that UK universities favour male applicants.
They don't. Look inside individual subjects and the picture reverses — in most of them, women receive offers more often than men. And look inside a single subject across different universities, and the gap between men and women can run to twenty percentage points or more, in either direction, and hold steady for years.
We examined UCAS offer data for 144 universities across 21 subjects, for every year from 2020 to 2025. This is what it shows.
What you absolutely need to know:
- In most subjects, women receive offers more often than men — even though the overall figures say the opposite
- The same subject can have very different offer rates for men and women at different universities
- These differences hold year after year, so they are worth knowing before you apply
- Most universities make offers to men and women at similar rates — only a small number of universities show big differences
- Check the course, not just the subject
1. In most subjects, women receive offers more often than men — even though the overall figures say the opposite
An offer rate is the share of applications that receive an offer. Combine every subject and women's offer rate comes out lower than men's, every year from 2020 to 2025. Split the same data by subject and women come out ahead in 16 of the 21.
Both are true at once. The reason is which subjects people apply to. Women make up the large majority of applicants to subjects that make very few offers: medicine and dentistry, where 22% of applications receive one; veterinary science, 37%; and subjects allied to medicine, including nursing, at 49%. So many of women's applications go to the hardest subjects to get into that their overall rate falls — even though, subject by subject, they are doing as well or better.
| Subject | Women's offer rate | Men's offer rate | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Women's offer rate higher by more than 2 percentage points | |||
| Education and teaching | 60.4% | 48.2% | +12.2 |
| Veterinary sciences | 37.4% | 29.6% | +7.8 |
| Social sciences | 75.0% | 70.0% | +5.0 |
| Combined and general studies | 80.9% | 75.9% | +5.0 |
| Language and area studies | 83.0% | 78.6% | +4.4 |
| Psychology | 80.4% | 76.3% | +4.1 |
| Physical sciences | 82.2% | 78.2% | +4.0 |
| Historical, philosophical and religious studies | 81.9% | 78.4% | +3.5 |
| Agriculture, food and related studies | 88.5% | 85.1% | +3.4 |
| Law | 75.4% | 72.9% | +2.5 |
| Biological and sport sciences | 81.1% | 79.0% | +2.1 |
| Within 2 percentage points either way | |||
| Geography, earth and environmental studies | 87.2% | 85.4% | +1.8 |
| Medicine and dentistry | 22.2% | 20.7% | +1.5 |
| Engineering and technology | 75.5% | 74.2% | +1.3 |
| Business and management | 77.1% | 75.9% | +1.2 |
| Media, journalism and communications | 81.0% | 80.5% | +0.5 |
| Mathematical sciences | 70.0% | 69.6% | +0.4 |
| Subjects allied to medicine | 49.0% | 49.3% | -0.3 |
| Computing | 71.3% | 72.0% | -0.7 |
| Men's offer rate higher by more than 2 percentage points | |||
| Design, and creative and performing arts | 59.9% | 63.1% | -3.2 |
| Architecture, building and planning | 64.6% | 71.8% | -7.2 |
| All subjects combined | 67.2% | 70.2% | −3.0 |
Offer rate = offers made as a share of applications received. Difference = women's offer rate minus men's, in percentage points. Six years pooled, 2020–2025. Source: Telariq data, from UCAS.
What this means for you: any headline figure about "men" and "women" applying to university is close to useless. The only comparison that tells you anything is within your subject.
2. The same subject can have very different offer rates for men and women at different universities
Across the country, computing offers places to men and women at almost identical rates. But that national average hides universities pulling in opposite directions.
In computing, one university's offer rate for men is 18 percentage points higher than for women. At another, the offer rate for women is 10 percentage points higher than for men. Most sit close to even, but the spread from one end to the other is 28 percentage points — for the same subject.
| Subject | Widest gap favouring men | Middle half of universities | Widest gap favouring women |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social sciences | −17.7 | −4.7 to +1.9 | +19.0 |
| Computing | −18.2 | −1.1 to +3.9 | +10.2 |
| Psychology | −2.3 | +1.4 to +5.6 | +16.9 |
| Engineering and technology | −5.1 | +0.5 to +4.7 | +11.6 |
| Business and management | −7.9 | +0.4 to +3.6 | +11.3 |
| Law | −8.2 | +1.4 to +3.7 | +10.3 |
Women's offer rate minus men's, in percentage points, each university's six years pooled. Universities with at least 300 applications from each sex. Source: Telariq data, from UCAS.
What this means for you: two universities that look equally suitable on paper can have very different track records for applicants of your sex, in your subject.
3. These differences hold year after year, so they are worth knowing before you apply
A single year's figures could be a fluke. These are not.
When a university shows a gap between men and women in a subject one year, it very nearly always shows a similar gap the next. Across 1,225 university-and-subject combinations with data in all six years, 485 had women ahead in every single year, and 82 had men ahead in every single year. The typical gap moves by only about two percentage points from one year to the next.
| University | Subject | Women | Men | Gap in every year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A campus university in the East Midlands with a national reputation for sport | Subjects allied to medicine | 69.8% | 45.8% | Women ahead by 20 to 27 percentage points |
| A research-intensive university in Northern Ireland | Subjects allied to medicine | 40.9% | 59.5% | Men ahead by 16 to 23 percentage points |
| A modern university on the northern edge of London | Computing | 47.9% | 66.0% | Men ahead by 9 to 23 percentage points |
| A collegiate Russell Group university in the North East | Social sciences | 72.1% | 53.1% | Women ahead by 15 to 26 percentage points |
| A large Russell Group university in the East Midlands | Biological and sport sciences | 79.5% | 58.9% | Women ahead by 17 to 22 percentage points |
Offer rates are six-year averages. Source: Telariq data, from UCAS.
What this means for you: a university's pattern in your subject is a reasonable guide to what applicants like you have experienced there — not a promise, but not noise either.
4. Most universities make offers to men and women at similar rates — only a small number of universities show big differences
It would be wrong to take from this that universities routinely treat men and women differently. Most don't.
Four in ten university-and-subject combinations are within two percentage points either way. The large, consistent differences are concentrated: 62 combinations, across 38 of the 126 universities with enough data to measure, show a gap of ten percentage points or more in the same direction every year. Forty-three of them favour women and nineteen favour men.
One further pattern is worth knowing. In most subjects, the more selective the university, the more the gap tends to favour women. Women achieve higher grades on average, and where offers depend most tightly on grades, that shows up in the offer rate.
What this means for you: at most universities your sex will make little difference to whether you receive an offer. The point of looking is to find the few where it does.
5. Check the course, not just the subject
Subject areas are broad. "Social sciences" covers economics, politics, sociology and social work. "Biological and sport sciences" covers both biology and sport science. Each university's figure combines every course it teaches in that area.
That matters, because men and women often apply to different courses within the same area — and those courses can be very differently competitive. At the collegiate university in the North East, economics is among the most competitive courses in the country and draws more men than women. That is likely to account for much of its gap in social sciences, rather than any difference in how men and women are treated. The same is likely true of sport science at the East Midlands universities.
What this means for you: a gap at university level may not apply to the specific course you want. The subject figure tells you where to look more closely; the course is what decides it.
Our advice
Ignore headline figures about men and women. They are dominated by which subjects each applies to, and they point in the wrong direction for most subjects.
Compare within your subject. Before you spend one of your five UCAS choices, find out how applicants of your sex have fared in your subject at each university on your list — and whether that has held steady over several years.
Then look at the course. Where a university shows a large gap, check which courses it covers before drawing conclusions.
Treat it as an edge, not a guarantee. These figures describe what has happened to applicants over six years. Your own grades, statement and references will decide your application.
Confirm entry requirements and offer-making with each university before you apply.
The not so fine print: what was excluded in this report
- The figures cover all applicants — UK, EU and international together — so they describe the overall pattern, not international applicants specifically
- UCAS counts applications, not people: one applicant can make up to five
- UCAS rounds every figure to the nearest five, so universities and subjects with few applications are excluded from comparisons
- Figures are for subject areas, not individual courses
- Applicants who described their sex in another way or preferred not to say are included in totals but not in the comparison between men and women
- Universities that recruit mostly outside UCAS, or whose figures include partner colleges, are excluded
Have a question? We'd love to hear from you — admin@telariq.com