A university room costs from £113.40 a week self-catered and from £194.50 with full board, on a contract of 40 or 38 weeks. The private buildings have en-suite rooms in shared flats and studios, on standard contracts of 41 to 51 weeks. The nearest of them is a 5 to 10 minute walk from Exton Park and the furthest is 20 to 25 minutes away.
The university guarantees a room to every applicant who holds it as their Firm choice and applies by its priority deadline, which was 8 May for 2026 entry. That room can be in one of its own residences or in partnership accommodation. You apply through the university’s online accommodation portal, where you pick a preference such as quiet, single-sex or alcohol-free and rank room types instead of choosing a named building. Accepting an offer means paying a £250 deposit, which comes off your final rent instalment.
Most of the university’s rooms are on or beside Exton Park. Self-catered rooms start at £113.40 a week with a shared bathroom at John Douglas Court, on the edge of the site, and a studio flat in Grosvenor House, in the middle of it, is £188.30. Full board, which means breakfast, lunch and dinner in term time, starts at £194.50. University-owned rooms include utility bills and contents insurance.
You do not need the university’s application process to book private student accommodation near the University of Chester. You deal with the building’s provider, choose the room yourself, and can do it at any stage of your course, subject to each provider’s eligibility rules. Tramways and The Towpath are private buildings that also appear among the accommodation on the university’s website, and a first year applying through the university may be referred to one of them. The university says payments, terms and processes are different for partner accommodation. Its pages show them at starting prices well above the provider’s own, and do not say which room type or contract length those prices are for, so ask what the price covers if you are referred.
A university contract runs for 40 weeks self-catered or 38 weeks with full board, and full-board students move out over the Christmas break. Standard contracts in the private buildings run from 41 to 51 weeks, and some buildings also let rooms for part of the year. Over a year, the longer contract can cost more even at a lower weekly rent. An en-suite room at Tramways at £119 a week on its 46 week contract comes to £5,474. A room with a shared bathroom at Powys Court, the university’s city-centre residence, is £129.85 a week and comes to £5,194 over 40 weeks.
For an area-by-area view of the city, see student accommodation in Chester.
Which building suits you depends on the site where your course is taught.
Nursing and social work at University Centre Warrington, health and nursing at University Centre Birkenhead and land-based courses at University Centre Reaseheath, near Nantwich, are all taught outside Chester. Warrington and Birkenhead each have a direct train from Chester station.
Every private building has bills included, so the rent covers energy, water and internet. You pay for a TV Licence yourself, if you need one for live television or BBC iPlayer.
An en-suite room is a bedroom with its own shower room in a flat of up to six, with a shared kitchen. Tramways and The Towpath have these, and studios as well. A studio adds a kitchen of your own, and Northgate Point & Studios is studios only. The university has the same two types, plus rooms with a shared bathroom, a type the private buildings do not have.
From 1 May 2026, most assured tenancies in England’s private rented sector became periodic rather than fixed term. Purpose-built student accommodation is outside that change where the provider belongs to a government-approved code of practice, and a new contract there can still run for a fixed term. Each of the private buildings is on the register of the ANUK/Unipol National Code, the approved code for buildings of this kind. A university room is let on a licence agreement for the residential year.
The Tenant Fees Act caps what a private provider can take up front. On annual rent below £50,000, a tenancy deposit can be no more than five weeks’ rent and a holding deposit no more than one week’s. The provider of Tramways and The Towpath takes no deposit, and no longer asks for an advance rent payment on its Chester buildings.
Guarantor rules differ between providers. Some want a guarantor who lives in the UK, and where that is a problem a paid guarantor service is one route, if the provider accepts it. There is more in our guide to guarantors for student accommodation.
Council tax has an exemption for full-time students. A flat occupied only by full-time students gets no bill, while a household that includes someone who is not a student may still get one, with a discount available. Cheshire West and Chester Council deals with it, and our council tax guide for students explains what to do if a bill arrives.
Most of what the university runs for students is at Exton Park. Chester Students’ Union and its bar are there, beside the pool and the floodlit pitches. The Seaborne Library has computer labs open 24 hours and a two-floor study area called The Hub.
The other sites have their own places to work and eat. Queen’s Park has a business library and a top-floor brasserie with views over Chester, with The Meadows and the riverside walks close by. At Wheeler the common room looks over the river, and Law students can collect books sent over from the Seaborne Library. The Creative Campus has a gallery and an outdoor amphitheatre. Any student can use any of the libraries, and there is cycle storage at every site.
Through the university’s accommodation portal. You register with your seven-digit Student ID, which is not your UCAS ID, along with your surname and date of birth. Rooms are not given out first come, first served, and applying early does not put you ahead as long as you meet the deadline.
If the University of Chester is your Firm choice and you apply by its priority deadline, yes, although the room may be in a partner building. If it is your Insurance choice, your room is confirmed only after those applications have been dealt with. Clearing applicants can apply as well and have less choice of room.
Yes. Nothing obliges you to take a university room. Decide before you accept. If you later move out but stay on your course, you still owe the full year’s rent and lose the £250 deposit.
Yes. Each takes bookings on its provider’s website from students in any year, and you do not need a referral from the university.
Yes. The university’s allocation is written for first-year undergraduates, and the private buildings take returning students, so second and third years book those directly with the provider.
Only from the university. Full board is three meals a day in term time, served at Exton Park, on the 38 week contract. Its meal schemes let you eat in the university’s dining rooms while living privately, and are paid for in three instalments.
The university spreads rent for EU and international students over nine monthly instalments, and advises having somewhere to live arranged by the time you travel. Private providers set their own payment plans and guarantor rules, and those differ from the university’s.
Yes. Trains from Chester reach Warrington Bank Quay in 27 minutes on average, with one every 30 minutes, and University Centre Warrington is up to 10 minutes on foot from the station. Hamilton Square, a 5 minute walk from University Centre Birkenhead, is about 40 minutes from Chester on a direct Merseyrail train. Liverpool city centre is the next stop, and has student accommodation in Liverpool of its own.
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