The Q3 2025 benchmarking report for UK student home providers has just been published. Learn how the top 11 UK student home providers perform across the digital space.
The latest Q3 2025 benchmarking report for UK student home providers has just been published. It covers the largest 11 UK student home providers, including iQ Student Accommodation, Chapter, Host, Collegiate AC, Vita Student, Nido, Unite Students, Scape, CRM Students, This is Fresh, and Yugo.
The research gives an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice online, and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for other student home providers to win brand exposure locally, increase their organic visibility, and drive online enquiries. The report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from your online strategy and identifies the barriers that may be reducing your site’s ability to optimise digital performance.
To see a preview and contents page of the Q3 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics, we evaluated these top 11 student home providers on, check out our quick-look table below:
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's best and poorest-performing UK student home providers or request a copy of the report for the full review.
The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each site based on 50+ metrics and indicators of successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.
Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing & Facebook - but have a poor or sub-optimal conversion improvement strategy. Without an optimised, sophisticated conversion strategy that maximises the conversion rate, the return on investment is unsustainable or will under-perform. Scaling spend on paid media is not achievable unless the conversion rate delivers optimal performance in the sector. Some in the space have paid media spend levels from 30k+ per month but dedicate minimal resources and budgets to conversion testing. Given the cost per clicks on ad networks will continue to rise, we recommend spending at least 10% of your paid media budget on ongoing conversion optimisation testing schedules to ensure your paid media ROI maintains long term viability, competitive advantage, and sustainability.
Pay-Per-Click marketing is constantly evolving, with more and more advertisers being forced to hand over a lot of control to Google's algorithms as the push for automation grows ever stronger. There are still key elements of control that we have though, the main one of these being budget which is ultimately something the algorithms can't take from you. That's why being smart with your budget and ad coverage is essential to achieving strong results and bettering what your competitors have to offer.
For Q3 2025, the average monthly budget wastage across these UK student home providers was £975, with some of the top players in the market spending a considerable amount on areas and audiences unlikely to deliver a return. We can see this in more detail when looking at the average monthly cost per cost-per-click (CPC) amongst advertisers, with the average of this metric being £25 . This highlights how competitive the market is and how important it is to control your budgets effectively.
There are varying monthly ad budgets across the competitors in the report. While this gap highlights the competitive advantage that larger budgets can provide, it's not just about spending more; it’s about spending smarter. By focusing on driving efficiency in campaign management, targeting, and budget allocation, businesses with smaller budgets can still effectively compete with larger players. Investing in data-driven strategies and refining ad performance can help close the gap and maximise the return on every pound spent, enabling growth even in a competitive landscape. Relative to their spend, Unite Students reported the lowest monthly cost-per-click (CPC) at £5, and Host has the highest at £62.
The report highlights the importance of budget efficiency by comparing monthly ad spend with estimated CPC in relation to your competitors, see who has the highest and lowest CPC. To maximise the effectiveness of your budget, it’s essential to focus on driving CPC down while maintaining or improving campaign performance. In this report, Scape has the lowest estimate monthly ad spend at £307, and This is Fresh has the highest at £34,100.
By optimising targeting, refining ad copy, and leveraging data to identify high-converting opportunities, you can ensure every click delivers maximum value. This approach not only stretches your budget further but also boosts your return on ad spend (ROAS), enabling you to achieve stronger results without simply increasing expenditure.
Savvy digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance. For student home providers, they'll want to ensure key pages, such as locations and fee information, are clearly signposted and easy to access.
In our previous audit, This is Fresh was the online learning provider with the most 404 errors, reporting a total of 38. This quarter, This is Fresh has decreased their 404 errors to 29, no longer making them the brand to watch. Currently, CRM Students flagged the most 404 errors this quarter (73). These errors are often caused by dead links, which can affect a website’s ranking and can potentially lead to decreased visitor numbers of user retention.
When 62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load makes a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. For student accommodation providers, they'll want to ensure they're delivering an exceptional experience for a mobile-first generation.
In our last report, both Yugo and iQ Student Accommodation reported the slowest mobile site speed (28). This quarter, Yugo has decreased their mobile site speed to 27, and iQ Student Accommodation has increased their site speed to 41. This quarter, the mobile site speed ranged between 60 and 7, with Unite Students seeing the slowest speed.
Domain authority is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of SEO performance, and helps create a reliable overall guage of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. For student home providers, they could be looking at collaborating with local publications, or bloggers with a large following of students.
A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it’s generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. In our previous audit, Chapter reported the lowest DA score (32). This quarter, Chapter remains the provider to watch, and they’ve since reduced their DA score to 30. Online learning providers should regularly implement SEO optimisations, as this will help build a strong online profile, which, in turn, will have a positive impact on their DA and enable them to track what adjustments improved their DA.
A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for key, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. Private student housing providers may see a fall in interest in their accommodation due to the cost of living crisis. With students potentially opting for lower-end accommodation to make their maintenance loans go further, student home providers will want to ensure they're staying on top of their share of organic traffic, and highlighting any potential benefits of opting for their housing.
Six brands reported a decline in organic traffic on desktop, with CRM Students seeing the biggest decline (-48%). On mobile, 4 brands reported a decline in organic traffic, with Yugo seeing the biggest decline (-78%). All providers should have a blog containing resourceful information, which will help encourage organic traffic.
Google Universal Search Results is an evolving opportunity to make your pages visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. Universal search results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, and a site can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. 'Reviews' and 'Image Pack' are both important universal search opportunities for student home providers, as prospective students will want to hear what current tenants have to say about their experience and see what the accommodation looks like.
Unite Students has taken the top spot for Universal Search appearances (3,700), and iQ Student Accommodation is now in second place (3,033). ‘Images’ received the highest results overall.
Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for brand new search terms as they enter Google’s index. For student home providers, longtail keywords are an opportunity to rank for specific search terms that indicate high levels of interest in private student accommodation, such as "private en suite student room available September".
Unite Students continues to secure the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (942) and positions 4–10 (1,194). On the other hand, Nido received the fewest longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (2), and Yugo received the fewest appearances for positions 4–10 (6).
With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) hitting over 44 million users in 2023, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. Facebook’s UK digital advertising revenue has been estimated to have breached 2.6b GB pounds in 2019. Facebook adverts can be used by student home providers to target users looking at universities in particular cities and increase visibility in key locations.
We’ve included screenshots of iQ Student Accommodation’s sponsored Facebook posts. This UK online learning provider included a CTA with each post, though they could make improvements to their tone of voice so their content reads uniquely to the brand.
When it comes to social media and on-site content strategies, it is important to release content that has a longer shelf life. An article is considered 'Evergreen' if it has maintained its relevancy to an audience for longer. It's great for your brand engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Student home providers can think outside the box with content campaigns and should consider creating content on general student life (and advice), pre-university shopping lists, and information on their local areas.
Vita Student secured the most Facebook Likes (204,700), and Unite Students secured the most Instagram followers (17,600). Twitter was the most popular social media platform of all providers. iQ Student Accommodation received the highest total engagement rate (1,247) and the highest average engagement (62).
20% of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. When websites are not designed to meet these needs, brands lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. With private halls of residence often meeting additional needs for students more than landlord-owned properties, we would expect student home providers to have excellent levels of accessibility on their sites.
In our last audit, iQ Student Accommodation received the most accessibility alerts (66). This quarter, iQ Student Accommodation has reduced their accessibility alerts to 54, no longer making them the provider to watch. Currently, CRM Students received the most accessibility alerts (59), with Vita Student close behind (57).
To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Rory Tarplee.