Universities are flagships for the UK’s higher education system, recognised for the quality of teaching and learning they deliver. However, in recent years these institutions have faced an increasingly complex combination of financial pressures, operational constraints, and growing regulatory and compliance demands.
The latest figures from the Office for Students illustrate the scale and complexity of these challenges, with nearly half of higher education institutions expected to face financial deficits in 2025/26. While student numbers increased by just over 3% in 2025, this fell far short of forecasted growth, resulting in a loss of fees and added pressure on universities to do more with less.
In response, institutions are exploring new ways of working. One approach gaining ground is the shared services model, where certain administrative functions such as IT, HR or the processing of student data are managed collectively across two or more universities.
Pete Moss, Business Development Director, Ellucian, examines the challenges and opportunities of taking a shared services approach in higher education and the technology that can support this.
The Business Case for Shared Services and Systems
Universities across the UK each have their own distinct cultures, academic priorities, and ways of working. These qualities have traditionally helped them attract students. However, many of the core administrative processes they undertake, such as enrolment, course registrations, and assessment tracking, are broadly similar. Managing these independently can create complexity, with small specialist teams maintaining bespoke systems, making it harder to operate efficiently and cost-effectively at scale.
Universities are increasingly exploring how these common processes could be managed in a shared services model, which can help spread the financial and operational costs of going it alone.
Using a single, shared student information system across multiple institutions, for example, allows enrolments, course data, and student progress to be handled more consistently and streamline time-consuming back-office operations, such as data entry, course scheduling and reporting. This approach can cut costs and free staff to focus on higher-value activities that directly support students.
A shared services approach could strengthen institutions’ operational resilience and support broader sector priorities, such as digital transformation and collaboration to deliver lifelong learning.
With reliable technical foundations in place, institutions can respond more effectively to financial, regulatory, and student-led changes, and dedicate more resources to initiatives that enhance their students’ experience.
Higher Education Shared Services in Action
There are some great examples of successful shared services models in higher education, including UCAS in the UK, which is essentially a collaborative for managing student admissions across the sector.
Further afield, the Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education, a collaboration of institutions serving 85,000 students, has chosen to move all 14 institutions to the Ellucian Student solution as part of a strategy to enable every student to take a course or a program at any of its campuses.
As a network of 23 university campuses across six community college districts, the California State University also selected our solution to track student enrolment across the group, spot trends and harness AI to help learners identify and follow their personal career pathways.
These highlight how shared services and systems can help the higher education sector to streamline operations and deliver a consistent student experience.
Key Benefits of a Shared Services Approach
When universities standardise core administrative systems, opportunities emerge to simplify processes, make better use of staff resources, and improve the student journey.
Coordinating platforms and workflows in a shared services model can help to ensure routine tasks are carried out consistently, enabling staff to spend more time on activities that directly support students’ learning, engagement, and success.
Improved Efficiency
With standardised processes in place, tasks such as processing enrolments, updating course registrations, and tracking assessment results can be completed more efficiently.
By reducing manual intervention and errors, course applications can be confirmed more quickly and grades recorded accurately. Staff are then able to concentrate on mentoring, providing career guidance, and enhancing the overall student experience.
Economies of Scale
Managing student information and related administrative functions across multiple universities allows institutions to share costs associated with systems maintenance, software licences, and technical infrastructure.
Standardised workflows also make staff training and operational procedures more efficient, reducing duplication of effort across campuses and helping universities focus resources on activities that directly benefit students.
Reliable and Insightful Data
Recording student and course information consistently across an institution gives staff access to a single source of data which they can use to identify trends in enrolment, course choices, learning engagement, and progress that can be acted upon. These insights support curriculum planning, operational decisions, and targeted interventions, helping universities respond effectively to changing students’ needs and expectations.
A Foundation for Innovation
Pooling administrative expertise across institutions increases capacity across the group to introduce new practices more efficiently.
Innovations such as automated reporting for international students or AI tools that help learners track their progress towards specific career goals can be implemented centrally. This allows them to be rolled out across all participating universities more quickly than if each institution managed these changes independently.
A Seamless Student Experience
Students interact with universities at multiple points throughout their studies, from enrolling in courses to checking timetables, tracking assessment grades, and accessing support services.
Standardised workflows and consistent practices make these interactions smoother and more predictable, allowing universities to eliminate complex systems and deliver a reliable, high-quality service that supports student success.
Discover how Ellucian solutions support interoperable, cloud-based systems that scale innovation across the sector.
