Each institution is awarded either a gold, silver, bronze or provisional TEF award.

The grading is mainly based on three sets of information:

• students' views of teaching
• assessment and academic support from the National Student Survey
• drop-out rates and rates of employment

It is notable that none of these metrics directly measures the quality of teaching, although the NSS does give an insight into students' perceptions of teaching.

Each institution's performance on these measures is then benchmarked against the demographic characteristics of its students.