UK Dental Schools & Dentistry Universities 2026: Rankings & Entry Requirements

There are 16 universities in the UK offering a primary dental degree (the BDS, or BChD at Leeds) that lets you register with the General Dental Council (GDC) and practise as a dentist. Fourteen take school leavers on the standard five-year course; two (Aberdeen and the University of Lancashire / UCLan) run graduate-entry routes only. Capacity is growing, with newer providers such as Teesside also developing dental places.

In the Complete University Guide Dentistry 2027 league table the top five are Glasgow, Dundee, Queen's University Belfast, Liverpool and Bristol. League tables weigh entry standards, student satisfaction, research quality and graduate prospects, and the gap between schools is small. Every school in this guide is GDC-recognised, so the "best" dental school is really the one that best fits your grades, preferred teaching style and location.

Dentistry is one of the most competitive degrees in the country, so there is no genuinely easy option. That said, most schools ask for AAA rather than A*AA, and newer or contextual routes can be more achievable: Plymouth makes an AAB widening-participation offer, and Leeds offers ABB through Access to Leeds. The lowest-UCAT and lower-GCSE schools change year to year, so apply strategically and consider a contextual or graduate-entry route if your grades are borderline.

On grades, the hardest are King's College London, Queen Mary (Barts) and Birmingham: King's and Barts ask for A*AA, and Birmingham wants grade 8 in GCSE Biology and Chemistry. Beyond grades, the schools with the highest applicant-to-place ratios and the highest UCAT cut-offs are the most competitive overall. Because every school is heavily oversubscribed, your UCAT score and interview usually decide the outcome as much as your A-levels.

Most UK dental schools ask for AAA at A-level, almost always including Chemistry and Biology. King's College London and Queen Mary (Barts) ask for A*AA, and Plymouth makes an A*AA to AAB offer with an AAB contextual route. You will also need strong GCSEs (many schools want grade 7/A or higher in the sciences, English and Maths), and most contextual offers drop one or two grades for eligible applicants.

Yes. Every UK dental school that takes undergraduates uses the UCAT (University Clinical Aptitude Test) as part of selection, and no UK dental school uses the BMAT (which has been discontinued). Each school sets its own UCAT cut-off or scoring method, and some, such as Manchester, also reject applicants who score in the lowest band of the Situational Judgement Test. A strong UCAT score is one of the biggest levers you have, because it often decides who gets an interview.

There are roughly 766 home places and around 43 international places across the established English dental schools each year, plus further places at the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish schools. King's College London has the largest single intake (around 141 home places), while others take 55 to 72. Numbers shift year to year and are capped by the government for home students.

Dentistry attracts roughly 9,000 to 12,000 applicants a year for around 1,200 to 1,300 places, so competition is intense, with several applicants for every place at most schools. Because you can only apply to four dental courses through UCAS, spreading your choices across schools with different UCAT cut-offs and offer levels matters a great deal.

Acceptance rates vary by school, but dentistry is broadly comparable to medicine, with many schools interviewing only a fraction of applicants and making offers to a smaller share again. A typical pattern is an offer rate somewhere between 10% and 25% of applicants, with the most competitive London schools at the lower end. Meeting the grades is necessary but not enough: your UCAT and interview usually decide it.

No. Neither the University of Oxford nor the University of Cambridge offers an undergraduate dentistry (BDS) degree. If you want to study dentistry you should apply to one of the recognised UK dental schools such as Glasgow, Dundee, King's College London, Birmingham or Manchester. Oxford and Cambridge do offer medicine, but not dentistry.

Two universities offer dentistry in London: King's College London (based at Guy's Hospital and the Eastman Dental Institute) and Queen Mary University of London (Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry). Both are highly competitive, ask for A*AA, and use the UCAT. King's is the largest dental school in the UK by intake.

The standard dentistry degree takes 5 years. Graduate-entry routes (such as Aberdeen and the University of Lancashire / UCLan) run in four years, and some schools offer a six-year course that includes a foundation or pre-dental year. After graduating you complete Dental Foundation Training (usually one year) before working independently in the NHS.

Home (UK) students pay up to £9,790 per year in tuition for 2026/27 (rising to £10,050 for 2027/28 entry), covered by a tuition-fee loan, so a five-year degree comes to roughly £49,000 to £50,000 in tuition. International students pay far more: typically £30,000 to £63,000 per year, and several schools charge a lower pre-clinical Year 1 rate and a much higher clinical-years rate. Scottish students studying in Scotland can have tuition funded by SAAS.

Yes, but international places are very limited, often just a handful per school, which makes the international route even more competitive than the home route. International applicants sit the UCAT, meet the same academic standards, prove English language ability (usually IELTS 7.0 or equivalent) and budget for fees of roughly £30,000 to £63,000 per year. A UK dental degree is well respected worldwide, though you should always check the licensing rules in the country where you plan to practise.

Yes. Aberdeen (A201) and the University of Lancashire / UCLan (A202) run dedicated four-year graduate-entry BDS courses, and King's offers a graduate/professional-entry route. Many other schools also accept graduates onto the standard five-year course. See our graduate-entry dentistry guide for the full list of routes, entry requirements and which admissions tests each one uses.

Yes. UK dental training is expanding to address dentist shortages. Newer providers include the University of Lancashire (UCLan) and Aberdeen on the graduate-entry side, and Teesside University now appears in the national dentistry league table as places grow. Always confirm a new course's GDC recognition before you apply, as some are still completing accreditation.

Be strategic. First, check you meet each school's A-level and GCSE requirements. Second, and most importantly, compare your UCAT score against each school's cut-off or scoring method, because this is where most applicants are filtered out. Then pick four schools where your grades and UCAT give you a realistic chance of an interview, ideally mixing higher and lower cut-offs rather than four equally competitive choices.

Dental school combines lecture and lab-based science in the early years with hands-on clinical practice from quite early on, treating real patients under supervision: fillings, extractions, root canal treatment and more. Assessment mixes written exams, multiple-choice papers, practical clinical assessments and communication tasks. Cohorts are small (often 60 to 150 students), so it is a close-knit, vocational degree rather than a large lecture-hall one.

Newly qualified dentists in Dental Foundation Training earn a set training salary (around £37,000 to £40,000). Associate dentists typically earn £50,000 to £90,000 or more depending on NHS and private mix, and practice owners and specialists can earn well into six figures. Earnings depend heavily on whether you work in the NHS, privately, or a blend of both.

Both are five-year undergraduate degrees that require the UCAT and lead to a clinical career, but dentistry focuses on the teeth, mouth, jaws and surrounding tissues, while medicine covers the whole body. Dentistry gives you hands-on clinical skills and patient contact earlier, and most dentists work in primary care practice. If you are still deciding, our deciding-on-dentistry guide compares the two in detail.

It is hard, but there are routes. Contextual and widening-participation offers (such as Plymouth's AAB and Leeds' ABB via Access to Leeds) lower the bar for eligible students, and foundation, pre-dental and graduate-entry years let you qualify with a different starting profile. A strong UCAT can also offset a slightly weaker academic record at some schools. See our guide to getting into dentistry with low grades for the current options.

16 universities offer an undergraduate dentistry degree in the UK: Glasgow, Dundee, Queen's University Belfast, Liverpool, Bristol, Sheffield, Manchester, King's College London, Leeds, Birmingham, Cardiff, Newcastle, Plymouth, Queen Mary (Barts), the University of Lancashire (UCLan) and Aberdeen. UCLan and Aberdeen run graduate-entry routes only. You can apply to up to four of these dentistry universities through UCAS, and newer providers such as Teesside are adding further places.

You can study dentistry at universities across all four UK nations. In England that means London (King's College London and Queen Mary / Barts), plus Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Plymouth and Preston. In Scotland it is Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen; in Wales, Cardiff; and in Northern Ireland, Queen's Belfast. Use the ranking table above to compare entry requirements and find the right dental school near you.

Several UK dentistry universities are among the best in the world. In the QS World University Rankings by Subject for Dentistry, King's College London is consistently ranked one of the very top dental schools globally, often inside the world top 20, with the University of Manchester, University of Bristol, Queen Mary (Barts), University of Sheffield and University of Birmingham also featuring in the world rankings. So while this guide focuses on the UK league table, a dental degree from a UK university is internationally well regarded.

Most UK dental schools award the BDS (Bachelor of Dental Surgery); Leeds awards the equivalent BChD. The standard course is a 5-year undergraduate BDS, with four-year graduate-entry BDS courses at UCLan and Aberdeen, and six-year courses that include a foundation or pre-dental year at some universities. Every one of these dentistry courses is GDC-recognised and qualifies you to register and practise as a dentist.

Yes. These terms all describe the same thing: a university department, sometimes called a school of dentistry, dental institute or dental college, that teaches the dentistry degree. In the UK they sit within larger universities, for example the Faculty of Dentistry at King's College London (home of the Eastman Dental Institute) or the School of Dentistry at the University of Birmingham. Whatever it is called, you apply to the university through UCAS.