July Degree Congregations

You should hire your academic dress with Ede & Ravenscroft. You need to place your order with Ede & Ravenscroft using their online order form. The form is now open. The deadline to order is Friday 26 June 2025. If you experience any problems with your order, please contact them at customer_services@academic-services.co.uk or 01223 734759. If you missed the deadline, please speak to Ede & Ravenscroft on the day of your ceremony to see if you can place an order on the day. 

You will be able to collect the robes you have ordered in the Bramall Music Building on the day of your ceremony. Robe collection will be based on the first floor of the building and will open at 08:00. You will need to return your robes by the end of the day. We will email you a week before your ceremony with all the information on where to return your robes.

Degree Congregations are formal events and graduands and their guests are encouraged to dress for such an occasion. Please be aware that when being presented for your degree you will climb a set of steps up to the Great Hall stage, so please bear this in mind when choosing your footwear.

Students who attend a Degree Congregation in the Great Hall will be able to collect their certificate on campus on the day. The collection point will be located next to robe return and details will be emailed to you a week before the ceremony.

Students graduating in their absence will be emailed in late June 2025 to express how you wish to receive your certificate, with an option to collect this from campus on the day of your ceremony. Students who did not book to collect from campus will be asked to confirm the delivery address for their documents and if you would like these sent by standard post, or if you wish to pay for us to send this by courier for you.  The email will have a deadline to complete the address confirmation by 23:59 (GMT) on 31 July 2025. Please do not come to campus to collect your documents if you have not had confirmation of your collection booking as the documents will not be available and please note these cannot be collected by anyone other than the student. Documents will be posted in August 2025. 

You will also be able to view, download and share an electronic copy of your degree certificate and transcript online via our Secure Documents website three working days after your Degree Congregation has taken place. Current and potential employers can also register with us, allowing them to directly verify your qualifications with us while you wait for the physical copies of your documents to arrive.

Ede and Ravenscroft offer a range of photography packages, which can be booked online using the same form as for hiring academic dress. Portrait photography will take place in the Nuffield Building. The studios will be open from 08:00 until 20:00 on days with 4 ceremonies (last ceremony 5.30pm), and 08:00 to 19:00 hours on days with 3 ceremonies (last ceremony 3pm).

We have a dedicated Accessibility & Support at Graduations webpage that contains additional information about the day. If you are a graduand and have any access requirements that you would like to discuss with a member of the team, particularly with regard to your being presented for your degree in the Great Hall, please email gradhelp@contacts.bham.ac.uk and we will be happy to talk you through the options available to you. Please also get in touch with us if you require a ticket for a registered carer. 

If you are driving to the celebrations, parking for blue badge holders is available on campus and is identifiable via the campus mobility map. Some disabled parking may require you to enter restricted campus areas. If this is the case, please press the buzzer to speak to security, who will be able to open the appropriate gate for you. Please ensure that you display your blue badge clearly. 

The campus mobility map also shows level access routes to the Great Hall. You should enter via the Bramall Building (reference R12 on the campus mobility map).

Your graduand ticket and two guest tickets will be available to collect from the ticket desk on the ground floor of the Bramall Music Building on the day of your ceremony. The ticket desk will open at 8.00am and close when the last ceremony has started each day. You need to check in at the ticket desk and collect your paper tickets before proceeding upstairs to collect your robes. To ensure that you have plenty of time to do this ahead of your ceremony, please arrive at the ticket desk two hours before your ceremony is due to start. Don't forget that the doors to the Great Hall close 15 minutes before the ceremony start time, so you need to already be in your seat before then. To help reduce waiting times and make the queues more manageable, we ask that only graduands join the queue for tickets in the Bramall Music Building where possible please.

You must collect your ticket in order to gain access to the Great Hall. Graduands with blue tickets should enter the Great Hall through the left-hand doors. Graduands with red tickets should enter through the doors on the right. Guests enter through the middle doors. You will be asked to show your ticket to the staff on the doors. Guests should then proceed to the front of the Hall to find an available seat - guest seating is not numbered. Graduands will need to check in at the desk inside the Great Hall before taking their numbered seat. This is crucial as otherwise you will not be presented for your degree in the correct order and you risk your name being crossed out of the list!  

In the interests of safety, we limit the number of guests who can join you in the Great Hall to two. Please note that this number includes children of any age as it relates to the capacity limit of the building and not to the availability of seats. No extra tickets will be available for the Degree Congregations (unless for a carer) but we may operate a queue outside the Great Hall prior to the ceremony, subject to capacity. Please see the section 'will any extra tickets be available' for further information.

You are welcome to bring additional guests to campus with you but please note that admission will also be limited to two tickets for your School reception too. Additional guests that can't enter the Great Hall can watch the ceremony from our viewing room which will be signposted on campus on the day. No tickets are needed for the viewing room, for which seats are not reserved in advance. The ceremony will also be webcast so that anyone unable to join you on campus can watch online. The recordings will then continue to be available on the University's YouTube channel, should anyone miss them live.

Extra guest tickets for the Great Hall are not available in advance of the Degree Congregations, unless needed for a registered carer. Subject to guest numbers, a limited number of spare seats may become available in the Great Hall on the day. Where this is the case, we will operate a queue outside of the Great Hall and allocate seats on a first-come, first-served basis before the ceremony starts.  We do not guarantee that extra guests you bring to campus with you will be able to enter the Great Hall. 

Yes, the Degree Congregations will be webcast live so that anyone unable to join you on campus can watch online. The recordings will then continue to be available on the University's YouTube channel, should anyone miss them live.