2026 Q1 Review: Online learning developments in UK higher education

Quarterly Reviews

9 Apr

The first quarter of 2026 has seen a number of interesting developments, all of which have taken place within a higher education sector that seems to have dark clouds perpetually hanging over it. It has been difficult to find much good news for UK higher education (HE) as a whole in recent times, and this quarter’s reporting continues to be set against the backdrop of significant financial stress and ongoing challenges regarding the value of a university education. This debate has been further fuelled by continuing stories about the perceived fairness of student loan repayment schemes and the burden and level of debt placed on those completing degrees.

This quarter also saw the release of the UK government’s international education strategy. I think it is fair to say that, in aggregate, this strategy is more focused on exporting UK education overseas than on international students coming to the UK. The document did include the aim to “sustainably recruit high-quality international higher education students from a diverse range of countries”, but the word sustainably is doing all the work there.

There seemed to be little in the strategy that supported universities effectively filling their boots with more international students paying marked-up fees. Instead, it is transnational education (TNE) that is more heavily focused upon, reinforcing the trend of more UK universities developing TNE provision, which appears to be the current most popular diversification play.

Disappointingly there was little mention of online education in the strategy, except the almost obligatory name check of the University of London. This only served to reinforce my sense that government and policy people within TNE know as much about online TNE in general, and in relation to UK university activity, as I do about crypto staking protocols, and are about as interested in it as they are in anything that cannot be photographed with a visiting delegation.

Nevertheless, online TNE is definitely an area I will be following even more closely over the next year. But now onto some of the key online education developments in the last quarter.

Online MBA ranking and strong UK university performance

This quarter saw the release of the Financial Times (FT) Online MBA rankings, and broadly speaking there was good news for UK higher education. UK universities continue to be the most widely represented alongside those in the US in the 2026 rankings, with seven UK universities listed in the top 20.

Online MBAs from Imperial Business School and Warwick Business School continue to hold second and third place respectively, and online MBAs from Durham University Business School, Birmingham Business School, the University of Bradford School of Management and Aston Business School also feature. However, the big story among UK institutions was Bayes Business School taking fourth place following its first year of participation in the ranking.

I have fairly mixed views on rankings, but they confer status and can be useful when it comes to marketing and recruitment, which will mean there are several happy UK universities off the back of the 2026 rankings.

Latest HESA release covering UK and international online student data

This quarter saw something of a return to the normal publishing schedule for data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). While there is still a significant time lag, HESA released both UK and TNE student data for the 2024/25 academic year in January. Both releases contained data on online student enrolments for UK-domiciled and international students, and if you want to explore this further, there are dedicated posts on the site with my analysis.

New UK university OPM partnership and signs of more exits

This quarter has seen partnerships announced between UK universities and online programme management (OPM) companies for the last couple of years, and this quarter is no different. In February, Goldsmiths, University of London announced that it would be partnering with Risepoint to deliver a range of mostly online master’s degrees, starting with a suite of five spanning Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Psychology and Children’s Literature.

This marks the first new UK university partnership for the company since the takeover of Wiley Educational Services by US OPM company Academic Partnerships and the subsequent rebranding of both as Risepoint. It comes on the back of clear investment in the pursuit and support of UK university partnerships, and I would anticipate further partnerships being established in the future.

In addition to this announcement, in March another OPM company that has been through an acquisition and rebranding, Boundless Learning (formerly Pearson Online Learning Services), announced the launch of three new online master’s degrees with its long-term partner, King’s College London. This partnership will involve the company providing specific student acquisition services to support the marketing and recruitment of students to these programmes, rather than a wider set of services.

While new partnerships are almost always announced, those that are no more rarely come with press releases for obvious reasons. However, this quarter has provided a trail of evidence that points to several partnerships coming to an end. These are partnerships between US OPM company 2U and the University of Surrey, Lancaster University and University of Birmingham that were announced in 2024 and 2025. None of the partnered programmes that were in-market continue to be offered, or offered in partnership, which in the absence of official confirmation is a tell-tale sign that these arrangements have ended or are in the process of doing so.

These specific partnerships were somewhat remarkable given that they were announced and negotiated during a very public period of financial difficulty, upheaval and change for 2U. If it is the case that these short-lived partnerships are no more, it becomes easier to build a convincing argument that 2U’s overall track record in UK higher education is a poor one. This is further reinforced when combined with the damning Ofsted report on its online bootcamp provision in 2024.

If you were being generous, you might say that securing these three partnerships in time of widely publicised upheaval was an achievement. But an OPM that is great at business development, but has little to show in terms of successful long-term partnerships strikes me as being akin to a football team that scores three but concedes six.

Blackboard re-emerges and Canvas Ignite AI launches

On the subject of company turbulence, this quarter saw virtual learning environment (VLE) company Blackboard become simply Blackboard once again. This follows its previous parent company, Anthology, being forced to undertake a financial Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring process, which resulted in the sale of parts of the business and the re-emergence of Blackboard as an independent company.

Interestingly, the company will be led by returning founder Matthew Pittinsky and, as you would expect, there has been some additional reshuffling. The change should be a liberating one for the company, which has had the lingering cloud of debt issues hanging over it for some time. This has hampered what have been significant efforts to revitalise the brand and the company during the Anthology period, not least in respect of AI product developments.

However, a persistent question remains for the company, which is whether it can reverse a long-standing trend of UK universities switching away from it or choosing competitors instead. If you are interested in further analysis of the VLE market in UK higher education, I published my annual VLE market review this past quarter.

One other development of note this quarter was the announcement of the launch of Ignite AI by Instructure, the makers of the Canvas VLE used by many UK universities. The launch of these new agentic AI capabilities is initially limited to the US and Latin America, and comes at an interesting time when there has been some hysteria caused by Einstein AI, which is essentially a tool that enabled someone to use it to log in to their VLE and complete an array of tasks and set work.

While some reporting has essentially conflated the two developments in that way some journalists do to make sure people actually read their articles, this is a development that was first announced last summer at CanvasCon. It is perhaps one of the most interesting AI-centred product developments and, although it is clearly in its infancy, it will be one to watch as it develops and is rolled out more widely.

Online education developments across UK universities this quarter

This quarter has seen a range of activity related to online education across UK universities. One significant development was the launch of SOAS Online, which was framed as the revitalisation of a portfolio of online programmes offered by SOAS, University of London.

For context, this is a university that has offered a range of online master’s degrees for many years but has seen its number of online distance learning students decline over the last few years. Looking at the revitalised portfolio, it is difficult to identify a high level of distinctiveness in how the programmes are delivered, although many provide the opportunity to undertake study tours and some enable synchronous attendance at lectures and seminars, either in person or online.

A revitalised portfolio represents a clear investment in online provision, but in a more competitive landscape it will be interesting to observe whether product development is accompanied by effective go-to-market strategies and marketing and recruitment support that lead to reversing the decline in online student numbers.

There have also been a number of interesting developments at the Open University. Firstly, the university’s new Vice-Chancellor, David Phoenix, announced that it would be abandoning plans to move to the centre of Milton Keynes and begin offering undergraduate courses in person. Instead, it will renovate its existing base and look to support a block release model at Walton Hall. In explaining the change, he was quoted as saying:

“What we don’t want to do is replicate what everybody else is doing. We want to design facilities for what education might look like in the next 20 years. And I honestly think in the next 20 years there will be less need for people to go and spend three years within a campus-based environment”

In addition to this, the university also launched its AI Hub in partnership with Microsoft. This is essentially a catalogue of free AI courses hosted on OpenLearn, designed to build confidence and skills in artificial intelligence.

This quarter has also seen a number of interesting online degree launches. The University of Nottingham, which I think it is fair to say has been on something of a journey in terms of its investment in and development of online education, launched an online MSc Business Consulting and Analytics programme.

The University of Nottingham Online was launched a couple of years ago and was presented as a more distinctive move into competency-based online education based on shorter offerings. However, it would appear that the university is no longer invested in a distinct online education operating arm or that particular course strategy, and this new degree launch represents a move into the more common ground of online master’s programmes.

Another interesting online degree launch was announced by the University of Huddersfield, which in recent years has invested in growing its online provision. In January, it announced the launch of an online master’s degree in Housing Leadership. What makes this interesting is that it is an area that is largely unserved by online programmes but aligns with where many successful online degrees tend to sit, namely as a valuable credential that can be used to differentiate, progress and build credibility within a career. Notably, this degree is also accredited by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH).

Online short course developments and product strategies

There were also a couple of interesting developments in the online short course arena, which do not exclusively encompass higher education but, given the growing sector interest in shorter forms of provision offered under the umbrella of lifelong learning, are worthy of reflection.

Firstly, the University of Cambridge’s Professional and Continuing Education (PACE) unit launched a new Cybersecurity Strategy and Leadership Accelerator course with partner company FourthRev. These are an interesting product type in that they involve a significant time commitment of six months and 10-12 hours of weekly study, provide one-to-one coaching and include a one-day immersion that can be attended in person or virtually. Given the interest in shorter forms of provision and the somewhat limited level of divergence in how courses are delivered, this launch and the career accelerator suite offered by FourthRev and its partners provide an interesting example of how shorter forms of provision might be designed and delivered.

On a similar theme, it was also interesting to observe the announcement of a partnership between two UK-based online education providers, Learning with Experts and BBC Maestro. This partnership will result in four new online courses and appears to be driven mainly by a combination of the limitations of BBC Maestro and the capabilities of Learning with Experts. As BBC Maestro is principally a personality/expert-led online course platform that provides unsupported, self-paced, asynchronous-only courses, it lacks the capability to support learner and instructor interaction.

What both of these developments highlight to UK universities is the range of different online short course propositions and positioning that exists, and they further reinforce a point I have made repeatedly, which is that universities developing shorter course provision face competition not only from each other but from a wider landscape of online provision, which in many cases is far more operationally mature and sophisticated.

Reflections on this quarter’s developments

This quarter reflects a number of trends currently shaping the online education landscape in UK higher education. The developments highlighted here illustrate the mixed fortunes of UK universities, with some expanding their provision from a strong base, others making missteps into online education, sometimes independently and sometimes with a partner, and others seeking to revitalise provision that may have been neglected, leading to declining online student numbers.

Alongside this is an environment that features a range of different companies, some on the rise, some regrouping and some on a downward trajectory. All of these themes are likely to continue throughout the year ahead and should make for some interesting quarterly reviews in 2026.

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