The Inspire HE Rankings is a new yearly rankings system by People Insight, designed to celebrate and champion universities that prioritise creating an engaging and motivational employee experience.  

The inaugural rankings highlight universities leading the way in employee listening and engagement strategies. The following universities are among the first to be recognised: 

• Loughborough University 

• Manchester Metropolitan University 

• Cardiff Metropolitan University 

• Imperial College London 

• Abertay University 

• The University of Southampton 

• Royal Academy of Music 

People Insight named these institutions due to their strong commitment to creating a positive working environment by using employee feedback to drive meaningful change. The scores are calculated by comparing results to sector benchmarks.  

Loughborough University has worked in partnership with People Insight over the last three years to run its annual Staff Experience Survey. The most recent survey, conducted in November-December 2024, found that overall scores across the nine themes of the survey showed improvements or maintained our position compared to the 2023 survey. The themes of ‘wellbeing’ and ‘reward and recognition’ show the largest increases. When benchmarking the University’s performance against 67 other UK universities, Loughborough exceeds the higher education benchmark in eight out of nine themes.  

As a result of the feedback from past surveys, the University has made several changes, including:  

• Implementing the roles of Academic Line Managers across the Schools 

• Increasing the annual leave entitlement for staff in Grades 1-5 

• Trialling 1-1 Health MOTs, with plans to deploy more broadly 

• Introducing new staff benefits such as an Annual Leave Purchase Scheme and an Electric Vehicle car scheme.  

Matt Hammonds, Director of Human Resources at Loughborough commented: “It’s fantastic to see our University recognised in this way for our staff survey results. Since I joined Loughborough last summer, I’ve seen such a passion across the organisation to deliver a fantastic student experience and a great place to work. As we develop our work on People and Culture we hope to continue to be recognised as one of the best employers in the Higher Education sector.” 

Jane Tidswell, HE Director at People Insight, said: "We know that working in higher education can be both rewarding and motivating with the combination of personal growth, intellectual engagement and the ability to contribute to the greater good. However, we are very aware that the sector is going through significant challenges at the moment. We created the Inspire HE rankings to recognise and celebrate Universities that, despite challenges in the sector, are leading the way with their employee experience work and proposition.  

“We see so much great practice from across the sector that we wanted to be able to recognise this, share great practice to inspire others and together make the sector a great place to work by creating a culture of continuous improvement and collaboration. In doing this, we hope to inspire and motivate others to continue driving progress and excellence."