Private rooms for University of Southampton students run from £95 to £275 a week with bills included. The buildings nearest the campus are at the Swaythling end of Portswood Road, a 10 to 20 minute walk from Highfield. The rest are in the city centre, 1.8 to 2.6 miles away, where the U1 bus takes 23 to 26 minutes from the Civic Centre to campus in the morning peak, on Unilink’s figures.
The University of Southampton’s own self-catered rooms for 2026-27 cost £139.09 to £284.48 a week, on contracts of 38, 41 or 51 weeks. A room in a university-owned residence in Southampton comes with a Unilink bus pass. A private room does not.
The University of Southampton guarantees an offer of a single room to new full-time undergraduates and postgraduates who apply by its deadline and ask for a contract of 38 weeks or longer. Undergraduates also have to hold Southampton as their firm or insurance choice. For 2026 entry the deadlines were 1 July for undergraduates and 1 August for postgraduates. The guarantee is for a room, not for a particular residence, room type or price. Returning students are not covered, and the university says only a limited number of rooms are available to them each year.
A private room is booked directly with the building’s provider and is open to students in any year, subject to each provider’s eligibility rules. You pick the building, the room type and the contract length yourself. That suits returning students and anyone who applied after the university’s deadline.
Some of the city centre buildings are also partner residences of the university. Those on its 2026-27 fees page include Canvas Capital House, Lucia Foster Welch and Southampton Crossings, each on a 41-week contract held by the building’s provider and not by the university. For 2026 entry it offered Lucia Foster Welch and Southampton Crossings to Clearing applicants only. The same buildings can be booked directly with their providers at the providers’ own prices and contract lengths, and the two routes can give different prices for the same building.
Rent in a university-owned residence in Southampton includes utility bills, wi-fi, contents insurance and the Unilink pass. Partner residences vary from one building to the next, and the university’s page for each one lists what its rent covers. A private room has bills included, and a bus pass is extra.
From the city centre, getting to Highfield means a bus or a bike. The U1 runs from the National Oceanography Centre through the centre to Highfield and on towards the airport, as often as every 6 to 8 minutes. The U2 starts at the south side of Southampton Central station and calls at the Civic Centre on its way to Avenue Campus and Highfield, every 7 to 15 minutes at peak times. The U6 links Central station, Highfield and the General Hospital about every 15 minutes at its most frequent. Allow for the walk to your stop and the wait on top of the time on the bus.
University of Southampton students buy their tickets in the Unilink app with a soton.ac.uk email address. Unilink’s prices are £358 for the 2026-27 academic year ticket, £415 for an annual ticket that runs for 365 days from the day you activate it, and £140 for 90 days. The academic year ticket ends on 30 June 2027 whenever you buy it, which means one bought in mid-September covers about 41 weeks. All three cover Unilink and Bluestar buses within Southampton, except the U1N night bus. A Southampton zone day ticket is £4.40 in the Unilink app.
Check where your course is taught before you choose an area, because not everything is at Highfield. Avenue Campus, where most humanities subjects are based, is between Highfield and the city centre. Boldrewood Innovation Campus, close to Highfield, has most engineering courses and the business school. Medicine students have most of their teaching at University Hospital Southampton in the north-west of the city, which the U6 serves. Ocean and earth science courses are at the Waterfront Campus, and there is a City Centre Campus on Guildhall Square.
Cycling from the top of the centre to Highfield takes 15 to 20 minutes, and Voi runs the city’s rental e-bikes and e-scooters.
All of the private buildings have bills included, which covers gas, electricity, water and internet. Contents insurance, laundry and gym use differ from building to building. A TV Licence, if you need one, costs £180 a year from TV Licensing. You need one to watch or record live television or to use BBC iPlayer.
An en-suite room gives you your own bedroom and bathroom in a flat where the kitchen is shared. In a room with a shared bathroom, the bathroom is shared with your flatmates as well. A studio has its own bathroom and kitchen. Lucia Foster Welch has shared-bathroom rooms only, and Southampton Crossings has en-suite rooms. Hampton Square, Hamwic Hall and Canvas Capital House have en-suites and studios, while The Walls, Stanley Studios and Vita Student Richmond House are mainly or wholly studios.
The University of Southampton has studio accommodation of its own at Glen Eyre, City Gateway, Wessex Lane and Highfield Hall, on 41 or 51-week contracts. Its other rooms are single bedrooms in shared flats, and Highfield Hall also has part-catered rooms.
A private room in these buildings is let for a fixed term of 42 to 51 weeks, and the contract runs for the whole of that term. From 1 May 2026, most assured tenancies in England’s private rented sector became periodic rather than fixed term. Purpose-built student accommodation is treated differently where the provider belongs to the ANUK/Unipol national code. Under the Student Accommodation (Miscellaneous Provisions) (England) Regulations 2026, those tenancies are not assured tenancies, which is why the provider can still let the room for a fixed term that follows the academic year.
Compare the total for the contract as well as the weekly rent. On the university’s 2026-27 rates, a standard en-suite at Glen Eyre is £214.20 a week on either 41 or 51 weeks, which comes to £8,782.20 or £10,924.20. A university room is paid for in instalments at the start of each term, nothing is due until you accept an offer, and you cannot switch to a shorter contract afterwards.
Some private providers do not take a full deposit. They may ask for an advance rent payment instead, and the amount and the refund rules are in the provider’s payment terms.
A provider may also ask for a UK-based guarantor, someone who agrees to cover the rent if you do not pay it. If you cannot name one, the alternatives are paying more of the rent upfront or using a paid guarantor service, and which of those a building accepts is up to its provider. The Mystudenthalls.com guide to guarantors for student accommodation goes through each option.
On the Highfield campus, the students’ union, SUSU, runs its own cinema. The Jubilee Sports Centre has a gym and a pool, the Hartley Library is open 24 hours, and Turner Sims puts on jazz, classical, folk and world music concerts. If you live in the centre and stay on campus late, SUSU’s free Safety Bus leaves from outside Building 42 on the hour every evening in term time, from 8pm to midnight and until 1am on Thursdays, and drops you at your door.
From Hampton Square and Stanley Studios, Portswood is the nearest place for shops, cafes, bars and restaurants. Living in the centre puts Westquay, the bars and restaurants around Bedford Place and the marina at Ocean Village within a walk, with Highfield a bus ride away.
To look across the whole city, compare student accommodation in Southampton. Students at the city’s other university can see what is close to Solent University.
Hampton Square and Stanley Studios. Every other building is in the city centre, around two miles or more from campus.
New full-time students are, if they apply by the university’s deadline and meet its conditions, which include a contract of 38 weeks or longer and, for undergraduates, a firm or insurance choice. The offer can be for any residence, including one that is not in the university’s advertised list, which means the guarantee does not fix where you will live or what you will pay.
The university’s 2026-27 rates run from £139.09 a week for a shared-bathroom room at Wessex Lane to £284.48 for a one-bed flat for couples, with part-catered rooms at Highfield Hall from £223.30 to £270.06. Private rooms run from £95 to £275 a week. Contract lengths differ between the two, which changes the total for the year.
Yes. Private buildings take students in any year, and booking one does not depend on the university’s application dates.
Through the University of Southampton’s accommodation portal. For 2026 entry it opened on 20 April 2026, new students listed between five and seven preferences, and undergraduate offers went out in August after results. The university sets the dates each year.
They can apply, but they are outside the guarantee. The university has a limited number of rooms for returning students and gives priority to those with medical or disability needs and those who need a room for a placement or study abroad. Private buildings are open to returning students.
New full-time postgraduates are covered by the guarantee if they apply by the postgraduate deadline, and the university says most postgraduates need a 51-week contract. Among the private buildings, The Walls and Stanley Studios let their studios on 51 weeks.
The university offers rooms to international students in line with its eligibility rules, and exchange and study abroad students can get single-semester contracts. For a private room, find out early what the provider wants from a guarantor, because it may insist on one who is based in the UK.
Not if you live off Portswood Road and are taught at Highfield. From the city centre, or for a course based at another campus, you will want one, and unless you are in a university-owned residence you buy it yourself. Bought in mid-September, the academic year ticket works out at about £9 a week.
Full-time students can be exempt. A flat where every adult is a full-time student has no bill, while a flat shared with one adult who is not a student still gets a bill, with a 25% discount. Southampton City Council asks students in private accommodation to register and then apply for the exemption.
Winchester School of Art is in Winchester, and the university’s Erasmus Park residence is close to it. If you live in Southampton, the U7 between the university and the school runs only a few times a day, and Bluestar 1 is the frequent bus to Winchester. Unilink’s Winchester School of Art ticket covers both and costs the same as its standard student tickets.
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