University of Buckingham

The University of Buckingham is a non-profit, private university in the UK and the oldest of the country's five private universities. It is located in Buckingham, England, and was founded as the University College at Buckingham in 1973, admitting its first students in 1976.

The University of Buckingham is the oldest of Britain’s independent universities. We have used our independence to pioneer a distinctive approach to higher education.

On 27 May 1967, The Times published a letter from Dr J. W. Paulley, which said, “Is it not time to examine the possibility of creating at least one new university in this country on the pattern of those great private foundations in the USA, without whose stimulus and freedom of action the many excellent state universities in that country would be so much poorer.”

This idea was taken up by a number of people in the business and academic worlds and three London conferences followed, two in 1968 and one in early 1969.

• It is the only independent university in the UK with a Royal Charter, and probably the smallest with around 2,000 students (approx 1,300 on campus)
• Buckingham is proud to have been leading the National Student Survey (NSS) in student satisfaction since 2006
• The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) ranked Buckingham top for job prospects with 96.9% (July 2013)
• University has joined the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) in 2001