Gen Z and students
5 min read
Where Do UK Students Spend Their Time?
Where UK students spend their time, from halls and shared kitchens to campus, societies and phones, and when in the year they are most open to new brands.
UK students spend most of their time in and around where they live: their bedroom, the shared kitchen and the communal spaces of their hall or house. Campus, social life and their phones fill the rest of the day. For brands, accommodation in the first weeks of term offers the most attention with the least competition.
Key points
Accommodation is the centre of student life, especially for first-year students in halls.
Campus spaces vary. Unions and fairs suit brands; lectures and libraries do not.
Flatmates, societies and group chats spread recommendations faster than any advert.
Online, students are easy to reach but hard to hold. Attention is the scarce part.
Timing matters. The start of term and January are when routines are set.
Accommodation: the centre of student life
Ask where students spend their time and many planners will say social media or campus. The more grounded answer is home. For first-year students that usually means university or private halls; for older students, shared houses. Either way, it is where they sleep, eat, study and socialise.
The bedroom
A student’s room is where they start and end the day, study, watch, scroll and make many of their first independent buying decisions: which toiletries, which snacks, which subscriptions. It is private and personal, and few brands compete for attention there.
Useful things stay in use. Santander’s End of Campaign Report found that 96% of students were still carrying its 2025 Welcome Bag tote weeks later (n=50,000).
Shared kitchens and communal spaces
The shared kitchen is where flatmates become friends, and where products are noticed, borrowed and discussed. Lounges, entrances and laundry rooms work in a similar way: repeated, everyday exposure that builds familiarity.
Move-in and the first weeks
Students arrive with almost everything still to decide: which supermarket, which banking app, which brands on the shelf. This is when habits form, and it is the moment the Welcome Bag is built for. In Dig In’s 2024 Golden Ticket survey, 88.7% of students said the Welcome Bag improved their welcome to university (n=48,991).
Campus spaces
Not all campus spaces are equal for brands.
Lecture theatres and seminar rooms: students are present but focused elsewhere. Brand engagement is passive at best.
Libraries: deadline mode. Students are not looking for new brands.
Student unions: the most commercial space on campus, with food, drink, events and societies. Freshers fairs draw heavy footfall in the first weeks.
Cafés and dining halls: steady daily traffic, useful for ambient presence and partnerships with campus caterers.
Sports facilities: a health-conscious, engaged audience for nutrition, sportswear and drinks brands.
Social life and peer influence
University is one of the most social periods of anyone’s life, and it shapes what students buy.
Flatmates and friends
Flatmates are often the strongest influence on a first-year student’s purchases. When one person tries something and likes it, the rest of the flat can follow within days. That recommendation cannot be bought, but it can be started by putting a good product in every room at once. There is more in our guide to peer influence in university marketing.
Societies and clubs
Sports teams, cultural groups and hobby societies share recommendations constantly, in person and in group chats. Brands with a real role in a society’s year earn a level of trust that paid media rarely achieves.
Freshers and student nights
Freshers events and student nights are high-energy and social. They suit food, drink and lifestyle brands, though not every category. Alcohol brands must only reach students aged 18 or over.
Where students spend time online
TikTok: the main discovery platform for many students, used for entertainment, tutorials and product research.
Instagram: important for lifestyle, fashion, beauty and food.
YouTube: longer content, reviews and background viewing.
WhatsApp: where real conversations happen between flatmates, course mates and societies. Trusted, and closed to advertising.
The challenge online is attention rather than reach. Impressions are cheap, but students switch constantly between apps and have learned to scroll past paid content. Digital still matters for awareness and follow-up; it rarely works as well on its own.
Visibility versus attention
Visibility is easy to buy. A banner, a sponsored post or a campus screen shows that a brand appeared in front of a student. Attention happens when the setting, the timing and the content line up.
Compare a student half-watching a sponsored video at 11pm with the same student opening a Welcome Bag on their first day in halls and handling a product for the first time. Both count as impressions. The second is the one they are likely to remember. A smaller number of high-attention touchpoints in physical settings often does more than a large volume of digital impressions.
How the student year changes
September and October: move-in and Freshers. Routines are being set and students are most open to new brands.
November and December: habits settle, and deadlines and budgets tighten.
January: Refreshers. Students return and reset, which gives brands a second start. See Refreshers.
Spring: exams, and house-hunting for the next year.
What this means for brands
Timing matters as much as targeting. Reach students in the first weeks of term, while they are deciding.
Accommodation is undervalued. The competition for a student’s shelf is far lower than the competition for their feed.
Build in a social layer. Give students something worth mentioning to their flatmates.
Presence on a platform is not the same as a connection. Ask where in the student day you are earning attention, as well as buying visibility.
Questions brands ask
Where do university students spend most of their time?
In and around their accommodation: their room, the shared kitchen and communal spaces. Campus, social activities and their phones take up the rest.
What is the best place on campus to market to students?
The student union and Freshers fairs, which are busy, social and used to brand activity. For product trial, halls of residence offer more attention than any campus space.
When is the best time of year to reach students?
Move-in and the first weeks of term in September, when routines are set. January, when students return, is the second-best window.
Working with Dig In
Dig In delivers products into student accommodation through the Welcome Bag and Live Activations, reaching 500,000 students each September across 160+ universities and 1,000+ halls. To reach students where they actually spend their time, talk to the team.
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