Scotland’s Third Largest City

It is a place that is rich in culture, with a range of museums, art galleries, cinemas and concert venues. With more than 25,000 students, studying at RGU means you’ll be part of a lively, vibrant student-friendly city, with great shops, restaurants, international food stores, nightlife and live music.

The City features in the UK top ten of The Good Growth for Cities Index, (PwC, 2018). The index measures the performance of 42 of the UK's largest towns and cities against ten indicators including employment, health, income and skills, housing affordability and environmental factors.

Aberdeen also has the honour of being named the 2nd safest city in the entire United Kingdom in The Alternative UK University City League Table 2017 and the second most affordable city for students in the UK by Natwest in 2017. Aberdeen is one of the best places to be a student according to top student website Accommodation for Students.

Aberdeen is often referred to by its friendly locals as ‘The Granite City’, and ‘The Silver City with the Golden Sands’ because almost all of its buildings are made of the local grey stone, granite, and the city has  spectacular sandy coastlines to the east (not to mention some of the UK’s highest mountains to the west).

It is far milder here than one might expect for our northern location. The East coast is actually the sunniest area in Scotland, where sunshine hours average around 1,500 per year, ideal for the outdoor and active lifestyle which attracts huge numbers of people to the area throughout the year.

With the Grampian Mountains and Cairngorms National Park right on our doorstep, there are plentiful opportunities for mountain biking, mountain climbing, skiing, snowboarding and white water rafting within easy reach of the city.