Campus tours

Student-led tours are ideal for visitors to the city who want to find out more about student life and our campuses.

Our campus tours offer potential undergraduate and postgraduate students an opportunity to visit us and learn about the experience of our students while studying at the University of Edinburgh. They give a broad overview of the University of Edinburgh and will give you an insight into what life is like as a student here.

Tours of our two largest campuses, Central and King's Buildings, are run centrally. Some of our schools also offer tours of their campuses. For other parts of the University we recommend attending an Open Day.

Centrally run campus tours

These campus tours can be booked through the form linked on this page.

Central Campus: This tour offers the best general introduction to the University as most of our students will interact with this campus in some way, academically or socially. It is home to many of our central services and facilities such as students' union buildings and includes historic buildings such as our graduation hall which are relevant to all of our students.

King’s Buildings: Our second biggest campus is home to some of our science and engineering subjects. Our booking form will recommend these tours, if relevant, when a subject is selected. At present we are unable to offer student led tours of King's Buildings, only our self-guided tour is available.

Tours of other campuses

The details of these tours, including the days they take place, can be found on the school's pages.

Edinburgh College of Art: Tours of the facilities for Art, Design, Architecture and Landscape Architecture.

Edinburgh College of Art events

Easter Bush: Tours of our veterinary teaching facilities run by the Royal (Dick) School for Veterinary Studies.

Visits to Easter Bush

Where possible, we run our Central Campus and King's Buildings tours on Mondays and Fridays from October to the first week of December. After the winter break we start again in late January and run to the end of July. Our tours do not run on days where large events, like our Open Days and Offer Holder days, are taking place.

We are unable to offer student-led tours of our King's Buildings campus at present. This campus is home to the following schools:

School of Biological Sciences
School of Chemistry
School of Engineering
School of GeoSciences (also has facilities at Drummond Street close to our Central Campus)
School of Mathematics
School of Physics and Astronomy

Note that our Biomedical Sciences are based within Edinburgh Medical School so are not on our King's Buildings campus.

If you want to visit the campus we offer self-guided tours and our Undergraduate Open Days on Saturdays 26 September and 24 October.

Student led tours: Our tours take place in groups, led by a paid Student Ambassador, who will share their experience of studying at the University.

Timings and route: A campus tour typically lasts between 45 minutes and 1 hour and involves walking for about a mile. Our standard route is entirely outdoor and includes slopes, steps, and uneven surfaces like cobblestones. When booking you can include any additional access needs you have and we will contact you to discuss adjustments.

What we cannot include in our tours: We are unable to provide a student from the subject you are looking to study and the tour will not visit schools or departmental buildings. We are also unable to offer meetings with subject areas or potential supervisors. It is not possible to offer visits to student accommodation as this is in use throughout the year. If you would like to view our accommodation in-person we recommend attending an on-campus open day.

Prospective students: The content of our tour is aimed at prospective students but anyone who would like to learn a little more about the University of Edinburgh is welcome to book. Our tours are free to attend, but you must book your space in advance.

Additional guests: Family or friends are welcome to accompany prospective students on a tour though we kindly request only one additional guest accompanies each prospective student. This is to ensure as many students are able to attend our tours as possible.

Children 15 and under: We understand that some parents and carers may be unable to attend our tours without additional space being made available for those they are responsible for. To ensure our tours are accessible to people in this circumstance additional children aged 15 and under will be welcome to join the tour on the day and do not need a booked space to attend with an accompanying adult. This does not include group bookings from schools, for these sorts of bookings please see the section below.

If you would like to book for a group of propective students, like a school group, please get in touch by email.

futurestudents@ed.ac.uk

Outside of our scheduled tours and Open Days we welcome you to explore the University at your own pace using our self-guided tours. Download our self-guided tours now and have them ready for your visit:

Self-guided tours

Book a campus tour

Our campus tour booking form will recommend campuses to you based on the subjects you are interested in and, if you wish to attend a tour after the latest date we have tours available, will allow you sign up to be emailed as soon as more tours are bookable.

Campus tour booking form

Cancellation disclaimer: While we make every effort to avoid cancelling our tours, there may be rare occasions when it becomes necessary due to unforeseen circumstances. Please note that we are unable to accept liability for any costs incurred by visitors, such as travel and accommodation expenses. We recommend considering travel insurance or opting for flexible tickets to mitigate any potential losses.

You can also find out more about the University and what being a student here is like from the comfort of your own home.

Chat to our students

Unibuddy gives you the opportunity to text chat to our current students about their experience. You will be able to choose to connect with a range of students, from different countries, studying across different subject areas and levels of study.

Chat to our students with Unibuddy

Online information sessions and events

Join a live online information session to ask questions and find out about studying with us.

Undergraduate

Postgraduate

Open Days

The University hosts undergraduate Open Days every year which will include an opportunity to find out more about specific subjects, to speak to academic, admissions and support service staff; and to visit university accommodation.

Undergraduate Open Days

Postgraduate

Postgraduate specific events continue to be hosted virtually. If you will be travelling to Edinburgh and wish to visit your potential supervisor or programme team please email them directly to ask if this can be arranged.

Postgraduate enquiries

We encourage climate-conscious travel for our staff, students and visitors and would ask that you consider low-carbon travel options where possible. Our Travelling to the University web pages provide specific details about how to travel to the city of Edinburgh and our campuses.

Travelling to the University

Our tours are mainly outdoors and, as Scotland can experience adverse weather, this can compromise the running of our tours. The MET Office (meteorological service for the UK) issue warnings when severe weather is expected.

If there is a red or amber weather warning on the day our tours take place these tours will be cancelled.

If there is a yellow weather warning our tours usually go ahead, but only after a dynamic risk assessment has been carried out by our team.

Tours can be cancelled at short notice, based on our risk assessment, without a red or amber warning. We will endeavour to notify you at the earliest possible opportunity, but please be aware that you could be informed on arrival that the tour will not be going ahead.

Our tours take place outdoors so please dress appropriately for the weather if you are attending a campus tour.

Edinburgh weather forecast

MET Office weather warnings