Monday 26-01-2026 - 10:53

Each year, we host the Big SU Survey: SU Elections to collect data across SUs on how their elections went - to collect insights, good practice and key data such as turnout. An important part of the survey and accompanying annual report is the data on candidate demograpics. Collecting this data is important to understand which students are or are not engaging with the elections process - having this key data is the first step in being able to address barriers to groups of students who are under-represented in the elections process.

Following feedback from DROs, we’re sharing the exact wording and categories used in the candidate demographic set of questions. We're hoping that sharing these in advance of the survey, will help those SUs who would find it useful, to better align your own data collection with ours - making completing the annual survey quicker and easier.

The questions cover key demographic data such as:

• Age
• Gender
• Sexual orientation
• Ethnicity
• Religion, faith or belief
• Disability status

You can access the questions and answer categories here

Any questions on the survey or the data, feel free to reach out to us at elections@nus.org.uk