Changes to 2025 student data surveys to inform funding
Notification of changes to HESES and MDS
To inform the calculation of OfS grants, all higher education providers that are registered with the OfS in the Approved (fee cap) category are required to complete the HESES survey, which will collect data on the number of students registered with the provider.
Providers which offer pre-registration courses in medicine and dentistry are required to complete the MDS survey. The MDS survey is used to monitor medical and dental recruitment and collect data on the intakes in the current and previous academic years.
This document provides notification of the changes that we intend to make to these surveys for 2025 from last year.
- Ref:
- OfS 2025.57
- Date:
- 10 September 2025
Changes made in previous years
- Ref:
- OfS 2024.37
- Date:
- 29 July 2024
- Ref:
- OfS 2023.33
- Date:
- 27 July 2023
On 13 November 2023 we announced extensions to the HESES submission and sign-off deadlines for certain providers.
Following these decisions:
- The deadlines for further education and sixth form colleges and academies remain unchanged.
- The submission and sign-off deadlines for all other providers have been extended. The new deadlines are available on the HESES page and the Deadlines page.
- Ref:
- OfS 2022.35
- Date:
- 7 July 2022
Last updated 26 September 2025 + show all updates
26 September 2025 - Annex B now includes an additional column requested by providers that lists subject grouping.
10 September 2025 - Published 2025 notification of changes.
29 July 2024 - Published 2024 notification of changes.
13 November 2023 - Added link to an update letter on the Data Futures programme.
27 July 2023 - Published 2023 notification of changes.
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