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What is the Advice Service?
Students’ Union UCL’s Advice Service is a free service, available to all students studying at UCL. We're also available to prospective students who hold an offer for a UCL programme of study, students on interruption of studies with matters relating to their studies, or recent graduates where there is an ongoing matter.
You can access support and advice in-person, or via email, telephone, and video/voice chat on Microsoft Teams. The service offers confidential and independent advice and support.
What can we help you with?
The trained and experienced team can provide advice about:
- Academic issues – including extenuating circumstances, academic misconduct, and complaints.
- Housing – including contract checks, disputes with landlords and finding housing.
- Employment – including unpaid wages and understanding part-time employment contracts.
- Money and Debt – including money management, income maximisation and hardship funds.
The service also oversees a range of financial assistance funds. These include the Sarah Douglas Hardship Fund, Activities Participation Fund, and the Gender Expression Fund.
The service also provides free period products, condoms and pregnancy tests.
What we helped with last year
In the 2024-25 academic year, the Advice Service received 2646 enquiries. Of these our trained and experienced Advisors went on to help in 1315 individual cases. The remaining 1331 enquiries were responded to by our team of student staff, providing vital information and signposting.
Our level of enquiries increased by 17%, compared to 2023-24
The top five broader issues we helped with were:
- Activities Participation Fund (30%, 803 cases and enquiries)
- Academic (29%, 767 cases and enquiries)
- Sarah Douglas Hardship Fund (17%, 437 cases and enquiries)
- Housing (14%, 373 cases and enquiries)
- General Enquiries (4%, 102 cases and enquiries)
Our advice website and resources were viewed over 93,000 times during the year. We have a range of guides on issues you may face as a UCL student, from finding a house to avoiding academic misconduct.
Financial
We awarded over £280,000 in financial support grants during the academic year. There were a total of 728 individual awards made, from the Students’ Union’s own hardship funds – the Sarah Douglas Hardship fund (including emergency grants), Activities Participation Fund, and the Gender Expression fund.
We also helped 96 students with money advice, for example around budgeting and money management and looking for funding options.
Housing
Finding housing is a particular challenge. The Students’ Unions Priorities for Wellbeing report 2024 highlighted this as an issue for UCL students, where you cited concerns including the competitive nature of the housing market and being outbid by others looking at the same accommodation.
There is also a national context of unaffordable rents and issues with housing, including disrepair. The National Student Accommodation Survey 2025 reported that 59% of students struggle to keep up with rent payments at least some of the time. 61% said rent costs impacted their health to some extent and 41% that it impacted their studies. 69% of students in this survey reported at least one issue with their rented housing, with damp, electrical faults and problems with heating/hot water being the most common.
The Advice Service provides direct support and signposting to help with the Housing issues that you might face. For example, our Advisors spend time explaining any housing rights and suggesting the actions you can take to enforce these and secure better living conditions.
We helped 373 students with housing advice, with the most common issues including looking for accommodation, wanting to leave a contract, problems with landlords and letting agents, and problems with repairs.
Worryingly, 26 cases concerned students who were at-risk of, or who had experienced, actual homelessness.
Academic
Unfortunately there are a variety of issues that may occur connected to your studies, whether this is experiencing a shortfall in course delivery, studying with the impact of illness or disability or being accused of academic or non-academic misconduct. However, your advice service is here to help.
We can support in a number of ways, including providing some advice on applying through UCLs Extenuating Circumstances procedure, to guiding you through Academic Misconduct or Student Disciplinary proceedings. We provide an independent source of support if you want to submit a Complaint or Academic Appeal.
Our Advisors can attend UCL meetings and formal panels to support you. For example, in the Academic Misconduct procedure, there may be a panel to consider the allegation.
Our advisors attended 20 informal UCL meetings and 30 UCL panel/hearings in 2024-25.
We helped 767 students with academic advice, with the most common issues including making an appeal, applying for Extenuating Circumstances, making a complaint or raising a dispute informally, and allegations of misuse of AI.
Feedback about our service
Here is a selection of feedback from students we helped in 2024-25:
“I am truly grateful for this opportunity and for your support during this difficult time. I want to assure you that I will use this money carefully to pay my rent and manage my monthly expenses responsibly. Thank you so much for your help”
From a student supported with a hardship grant
I sought assistance regarding an issue with my previous landlord. Her guidance was invaluable, leading me through the process and advising me on the necessary steps to secure the full refund of my deposit. Thanks to her expertise, I was able to resolve the matter successfully.
From a student we helped with housing advice
I'm deeply grateful for your time, your patience, and your kind support over the past days. Knowing you were there made a huge difference — not just practically, but emotionally as well. Thank you again for everything youve done. This experience has been incredibly intense, but your support made me feel less alone, and I wont forget that.”
From a student we helped with academic advice
Need support?
The Students' Union Advice Service is free, confidential, independent and available both in person and online.
Our financial support is designed to be additional to UCL’s core hardship support. We aim to support students who, for whatever reason, cannot access UCL support but are in financial need - preventing you from continuing or completing your studies, or from taking part in student activities.
Although we don't provide mental health support at the Students' Union, we have information about services that can help you, both at UCL and externally.
UCL Support
Please remember, the university also has support services that are ready to help you. You should reach out if you need help:
- Student Support and Wellbeing Services team are on hand to help you throughout your time at UCL. Whether through counselling or at a drop-in session or appointment, UCL's professional staff can provide you with advice and support on a wide range of mental health and wellbeing subjects to help you get the most out of student life.
- Students can contact Student Advisers for support with study matters, mental health, and wellbeing.
- Student Funding Advisors can help with money management and funding questions.
- You also have access to the UCL 24/7 Student Support Line for out of hours support, providing 24/7 support to students in the UK.