In a written question, submitted to the Department for Education by Matt Western MP, the Government confirmed that data suggests 75 higher education providers offered degrees in video games and animation. Please find the full written question and answer below.
Video Games: Higher Education
Department for Education
29 March 2023
Matt Western: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an estimate of the number of Universities that offer video games degree courses in (a) England, (b) Scotland, (c) Wales and d) Northern Ireland.
Robert Halfon: The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) collects and publishes statistics on higher education (HE) at UK Higher Education Providers (HEPs). Latest statistics refer to the 2021/22 academic year.
Table 49 of HESA’s Student Data resources shows the number of HE student enrolments by HE provider and subject of study and can be found at: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/table-49(opens in a new tab). From this table it can be estimated that there were 75 HEPs in the UK with students enrolled in first degrees in the subject area of ‘computer games and animation’[1] in the 2021/22 academic year. A breakdown of the statistics by UK nation is included in the table below.
UK HE with students enrolled in first degrees in computer games and animation* subjects for the 2021/22 academic year
| HEP Country | Number of HEP offering courses in computer games and animation |
| England | 63 |
| Northern Ireland | 0 |
| Scotland | 6 |
| Wales | 6 |
| Total UK | 75 |
Notes:
*Counts of HEPs with full-person-equivalent students enrolled in first degrees in the subject area of ‘computer games and animation’.
More up-to-date information on the availability of first degrees in video games related subjects currently advertised by providers (additionally including HE in Further Education providers) in the UK can be found by searching ‘video games’ on the DiscoverUni website.
[1] Participation in ‘computer games and animation’ was identified using the Common Aggregation Hierarchy third level grouping (CAH03). More information on CAH03 codes can be found at the following link: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/collection/c21051/derived/xcah03(opens in a new tab).