Wednesday 13-08-2025 - 13:38

We’re happy to share the Big SU Survey: SU Elections annual report for 2025

The Election Support Service helps SUs to conduct elections by:
- ensuring SU elections are free and fair
- collate and highlight good practice from across the sector
- give assurances to SUs' parent institutions that their obligations under the Education Act (1994) are met.

During 2024/25, the service acted as the Returning Officer for 153 elections, across the autumn 2024 and spring 2025 election periods. 62 SUs completed the survey this year, the findings of which are shared in the Big SU Survey: SU Elections Report. 

Key highlights from the report include:
- the average turnout at 17.4%, a 1% increase from last year 
- the increase in turnout was a trend in SUs of all different membership sizes
- 74% of all SUs that replied had increased their turnout from last year
- nomination periods have stopped getting longer each year, instead settling at 3-4 weeks being the most frequent length
- the survey collected candidate demographic data on candidates, ranging from 300-900 responses
- the most common complaints continues to be candidate behaviour & conduct

The Big SU Survey: SU Elections Report 2025 and previous reports since 2018/19 are available here.

Any questions, contact elections@nus.org.uk.