How many dental schools are in the UK?
20 — 14 in England, 4 in Scotland, 1 in Wales and 1 in Northern Ireland. 18 offer the undergraduate BDS degree — 16 are teaching it today, as Portsmouth and UEA take their first cohorts in 2027 — and 2 (UCL Eastman and Edinburgh) are postgraduate-only institutes. All 20 are listed below and plotted on the map.
🗺 View dental schools on the interactive map
The full list of UK dental schools
| School | City | Programmes | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Birmingham School of Dentistry | Birmingham | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | — |
| Bristol Dental School | Bristol | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | — |
| Cardiff University School of Dentistry | Cardiff | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | — |
| Dundee School of Dentistry | Dundee | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | — |
| Glasgow Dental School | Glasgow | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | — |
| Aberdeen Institute of Dentistry | Aberdeen | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | BDS is graduate-oriented entry |
| Queen's University Belfast — School of Dentistry | Belfast | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | — |
| King's College London — Faculty of Dentistry | London (Guy's campus) | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | Largest UK dental school; UG at Guy's, clinical sites incl. Denmark Hill |
| QMUL — Barts & The London School of Medicine and Dentistry | London (Whitechapel) | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | — |
| University of Leeds School of Dentistry | Leeds | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | — |
| University of Liverpool School of Dentistry | Liverpool | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | — |
| University of Manchester Dental School | Manchester | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | — |
| Newcastle University School of Dental Sciences | Newcastle upon Tyne | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | — |
| Peninsula Dental School (University of Plymouth) | Plymouth | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | — |
| University of Sheffield School of Clinical Dentistry | Sheffield | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | — |
| UCLan School of Medicine and Dentistry | Preston | BDS undergraduate + postgraduate | — |
| UCL Eastman Dental Institute | London (Bloomsbury) | Postgraduate only | Postgraduate only (MClinDent, MSc, specialty programmes) |
| Edinburgh Dental Institute (University of Edinburgh) | Edinburgh | Postgraduate only | Postgraduate only |
| University of Portsmouth Dental School | Portsmouth | BDS undergraduate | New school (opened June 2026) — first in the South East. 25 BDS places/yr, first cohort Sept 2027; applications open late 2026. Builds on the existing Dental Academy (DCP training since 2004) |
| University of East Anglia (UEA) Dental School | Norwich | BDS undergraduate | New school (announced June 2026) — first in the East of England. 25 BDS places/yr, first cohort Sept 2027 |
Why it is 20 schools but only 16 teaching the BDS today
20 is the count as of the 2026 intake — 18 offering the undergraduate BDS and 2 (UCL Eastman and Edinburgh) offering postgraduate programmes only. The 2 newest schools, Portsmouth and UEA, take their first BDS cohorts in September 2027, so 16 schools run undergraduate programmes today. Counts published before those two were approved will say 18.
Dental schools by nation and city
England has 14 (3 of them in London: King's, QMUL and the UCL Eastman), Scotland has 4 (Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow), plus Cardiff in Wales and Queen's Belfast in Northern Ireland. Every school is plotted on the interactive map alongside DFT schemes, DCT posts and specialty training, so you can see the training landscape around each campus.
After dental school
Graduates go into Dental Foundation Training (72 schemes), then optionally Dental Core Training and specialty training. See what each stage pays on the pay page and when each round opens on the timelines page.