New England-wide data from the Office for Students (OfS) confirms what we have known for a long time.
A concerningly high number of students – particularly LGBTQ+ and disabled people, as well as women – are subjected to sexual violence and harassment while studying in higher education. Wonkhe’s Jim Dickinson reviews the findings elsewhere on the site.
The data is limited to final year undergraduates who filled out the National Student Survey, who were then given the option to fill out this further module. OfS’ report on the data details the proportion of final year students who experienced sexual harassment or violence “since being a student” as well as their experiences within the last 12 months.
It also includes data on experiences of reporting, as well as prevalence of staff-student intimate relationships – but its omission of all postgraduate students, as well as all undergraduates other than final year students means that its findings should be seen as one piece of a wider puzzle.
Here, I try to lay out a few of the other pieces of the puzzle to help put the new data in context.
The timing is important
On 1st August 2025 the new condition of registration for higher education providers in England came into force, which involves regulatory requirements for all institutions in England to address harassment and sexual misconduct, including training for all staff and students, taking steps to “prevent abuses of power” between staff and students, and requiring institutions to publish a “single, comprehensive source of information” about their approach to this work, including support services and handling of reports.
When announcing this regulatory approach last year, OfS also published two studies published in 2024 – a pilot prevalence survey of a small selection of English HEIs, as well as a ‘poll’ of a representative sample of 3000 students. I have discussed that data as well as the regulation more generally elsewhere.
In this year’s data release, 51,920 students responded to the survey with an overall response rate of 12.1 per cent. This is significantly larger sample size than both of the 2024 studies, which comprised responses from 3000 and 5000 students respectively.
This year’s survey finds somewhat lower prevalence figures for sexual harassment and “unwanted sexual contact” than last year’s studies. In the new survey, sexual harassment was experienced by 13.3 per cent of respondents within the last 12 months (and by 24.5 per cent since becoming a student), while 5.4 per cent of respondents had been subjected to unwanted sexual contact or sexual violence within the last 12 months (since becoming a student, this figure rises to 14.1 per cent).
By any measure, these figures represent a very concerning level of gender-based violence in higher education populations. But if anything, they are at the lower end of what we would expect.
By comparison, in OfS’ 2024 representative poll of 3000 students, over a third (36 per cent) of respondents had experienced some form of unwanted sexual contact since becoming a student with a fifth (21 per cent) stating the incident(s) happened within the past year. 61 per cent had experienced sexual harassment since being a student, and 43 per cent of the total sample had experienced this in the past year.
The lower prevalence in the latest dataset could be (in part) because it draws on a population of final year undergraduate students – studies from the US have repeatedly found that first year undergraduate students are at the greatest risk, especially when they start their studies.
Final year students may simply have forgotten – or blocked out – some of their experiences from first year, leading to lower prevalence. They may also have dropped out. The timing of the new survey is also important – the NSS is completed in late spring, while we would expect more sexual harassment and violence to occur when students arrive at university in the autumn.
A study carried out in autumn or winter might find higher prevalence. Indeed, the previous two studies carried out by OfS involved data collected at different times to year – in August 2023 (for the 3000-strong poll) and ‘autumn 2023’ (for the pilot prevalence study).
A wide range of prevalence
Systematic reviews published in 2023 from Steele et al and Lagdon et al from across the UK, Ireland and the US have found prevalence rates of sexual violence between 7 per cent to 86 per cent.
Steele et al.’s recent study of Oxford University found that 20.5 per cent of respondents had experienced at least one act of attempted or forced sexual touching or rape, and 52.7 per cent of respondents experienced at least one act of sexual harassment within the past year.
Lagdon et al.’s study of “unwanted sexual experiences” in Northern Ireland found that a staggering 63 per cent had been targeted. And my own study of a UK HEI found that 30 per cent of respondents had been subjected to sexual violence since enrolling in their university, and 55 per cent had been subjected to sexual harassment.
For now, I don’t think it’s helpful to get hung up on comparing datasets between last year and this year that draw on somewhat different populations. It’s also not necessarily important that respondents were self-selecting within those who filled out the NSS – a US study compared prevalence rates for sexual contact without consent among students between a self-selecting sample and a non-self-selecting sample, finding no difference.
The key take-home message is that students are being subject to a significant level of sexual harassment and violence, and particularly women, LGBTQ+ and disabled students are unable to access higher education in safety.
Reporting experiences
The findings on reporting reveals some important challenges for the higher education sector. According to the OfS new survey findings, rates of reporting to higher education institutions remain relatively low at 13.2 per cent of those experiencing sexual harassment, and 12.7 per cent of those subjected to sexual violence.
Of students who reported to their HEI, only around half of rated their experience as “good”. But for women as well as for disabled and LGBTQ+ students there were much lower rates of satisfaction with reporting than men, heterosexuals and non-disabled students who reported incidents to their university.
This survey doesn’t reveal why students were rating their reporting experiences as poor, but my study Higher Education After #MeToo sheds light on some of the reasons why reporting is not working out for many students (and staff).
At the time of data collection in 2020-21, a key reason was that – according to staff handling complaints – policies in this area were not yet fit for purpose. It’s therefore not surprising that reporting was seen as ineffective and sometimes harmful for many interviewees who had reported. Four years on, hopefully HEIs have made progress in devising and implementing policies in this area, so other reasons may be relevant.
A further issue focused on by my study is that reporting processes for sexual misconduct in HE focus on sanctions against the reported party rather than prioritising safety or other needs of those who report. Many HEIs do now have processes for putting in place safety (“precautionary” or “interim”) measures to keep students safe after reporting.
Risk assessment practices are developing. But these practices appear to be patchy and students (and staff) who report sexual harassment or violence are still not necessarily getting the support they need to ensure their safety from further harm. Not only this, but at the end of a process they are not usually told the actions that their university has taken as a result of the report.
More generally, there’s a mismatch between why people report, and what is on offer from universities. Forthcoming analysis of the Power in the Academy data on staff-student sexual misconduct reveals that by the time a student gets to the point of reporting or disclosing sexual misconduct from faculty/staff to their HEI, the impacts are already being felt more severely than those who do not report.
In laywoman’s terms, if people report staff sexual misconduct, it’s likely to be having a really bad impact on their lives and/or studies. Reasons for reporting are usually to protect oneself and others and to be able to continue in work/study. So it’s crucial that when HEIs receive reports, they are able to take immediate steps to support students’ safety. If HEIs are listening to students – including the voices of those who have reported or disclosed to their institution – then this is what they’ll be hearing.
Staff-student relationships
The survey also provides new data on staff-student intimate relationships. The survey details that:
By intimate relationship we mean any relationship that includes: physical intimacy, including one-off or repeated sexual activity; romantic or emotional intimacy; and/or financial dependency. This includes both in person and online, or via digital devices.
From this sample, 1.5 per cent of respondents stated that they had been in such a relationship with a staff member. Of those who had been involved in a relationship, a staggering 68.8 per cent of respondents said that the university or college staff member(s) had been involved with their education or assessment.
Even as someone who researches within this area, I’m surprised by how high both these figures are. While not all students who enter into such relationships or connections will be harmed, for some, deep harms can be caused. While a much higher proportion of students who reported “intimate relationships” with staff members were 21 or over, age of the student is no barrier to such harms.
It’s worth revisiting some of the findings from 2024 to give some context to these points. In the 3000-strong representative survey from the OfS, a third of those in relationships with staff said they felt pressure to begin, continue or take the relationship further than they wanted because they were worried that refusing would negatively impact them, their studies or career in some way.
Even consensual relationships led to problems when the relationship broke up. My research has described the ways in which students can be targeted for “grooming” and “boundary-blurring” behaviours from staff. These questions on coercion from the 2024 survey were omitted from the shorter 2025 version – but assuming such patterns of coercion are present in the current dataset, these findings are extremely concerning.
They give strong support to OfS’ approach towards staff-student relationships in the new condition of registration. OfS has required HEIs to take “one or more steps which could make a significant and credible difference in protecting students from any actual or potential conflict of interest and/or abuse of power.”
Such a step could include a ban on intimate personal relationships between relevant staff and students but HEIs may instead chose to propose other ways to protect students from abuses of power from staff. While most HEIs appear to be implementing partial bans on such relationships, some have chosen not to.
Nevertheless, all HEIs should take steps to clarify appropriate professional boundaries between staff and students – which, as my research shows, students themselves overwhelmingly want.
Gaps in the data
The publication of this data is very welcome in contributing towards better understanding patterns of victimisation among students in HE. It’s crucial to position this dataset within the context of an emerging body of research in this area – both the OfS’ previous publications, but also academic studies as outlined above – in order to build up a more nuanced understanding of students’ experiences.
Some of the gaps in the data can be filled from other studies, but others cannot. For example, while the new OfS regulatory condition E6 covers harassment on the basis of all protected characteristics, these survey findings focus only on sexual harassment and violence.
National data on the prevalence of racial harassment or on harassment on the basis of gender reassignment would be particularly valuable in the current climate. This decision seems to be a political choice – sexual harassment and violence is a focus that both right- and left-wing voices can agree should be addressed as a matter of urgency, while it is more politically challenging (and therefore, important) to talk about racial harassment.
The data also omits stalking and domestic abuse, which young people – including students – are more likely than other age groups to be subjected to, according to the Crime Survey of England and Wales. My own research found that 26 per cent of respondents in a study of gender-based violence at a university in England in 2020 had been subjected to psychological or physical violence from a partner.
It does appear that despite the narrow focus on sexual harassment and violence from the OfS, many HEIs are taking a broader approach in their work, addressing domestic abuse and stalking, as well as technology-facilitated sexual abuse.
Another gap in the data analysis report from the OfS is around international students. Last year’s pilot study of this survey included some important findings on their experiences. International students were less likely to have experienced sexual misconduct in general than UK-domiciled students, but more likely to have been involved in an intimate relationship with a member of staff at their university (2 per cent of international students in contrast with 1 per cent of UK students).
They were also slightly more likely to state that a staff member had attempted to pressured them into a relationship. Their experiences of accessing support from their university were also poorer. These findings are important in relation to any new policies HEIs may be introducing on staff-student relationships: as international students appear to be more likely to be targeted, then communications around such policies need to be tailored to this group.
We also know that the same groups who are more likely to be subjected to sexual violence/harassment are also more likely to experience more harassment/violence, i.e. a higher number of incidents. The new data from OfS do not report on how many incidents were experienced. Sexual harassment can be harmful as a one-off experience, but if someone is experiencing repeated harassment or unwanted sexual contact from one or more others in their university environment (and both staff and student perpetrators are likely to be carry out repeated behaviours), then this can have a very heavy impact on those targeted.
The global context
Too often, policy and debate in England on gender-based violence in higher education fails to learn from the global context. Government-led initiatives in Ireland and Australia show good practice that England could learn from.
Ireland ran a national researcher-led survey of staff as well as students in 2021, due to be repeated in 2026, producing detailed data that is being used to inform national and cross-institutional interventions. Australia has carried out two national surveys – in 2017 and 2021 – and informed by the results has just passed legislation for a mandatory National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence.
The data published by OfS is much more limited than these studies from other contexts in its focus on third year undergraduate students only. It will be imperative to make sure that HEIs, OfS, government or other actors do not rely solely on this data – and future iterations of the survey – as a tool to direct policy, interventions or practice.
Nevertheless, in the absence of more comprehensive studies, it adds another piece to the puzzle in understanding sexual harassment and violence in English HE.
