42 candidates (a significant drop from the 159 in 2024) are running this year for one of the eight student executive officer roles.
The Mancunion has completed interviews with 78 students on campus to find out what they think are the biggest issues impacting students at the moment.
Students overall told us that the cost-of-living crisis was the most worrying issue. Out of all the problems (on and off campus) discussed, people were majorly concerned about being able to afford basic everyday essentials like food and travel.
The two runner-ups identified by students were money (at 18.5%) and rent prices (with 17.4% of respondents). This comes as pricing for 2025-2026 University of Manchester accommodation is released, with rents on housing like Denmark Road increasing by a whopping 28.5%.
9.8% of those asked said that the quality of housing was the most important concern to the student body. The National Union of Students released a survey stating that 84% of student renters had issues with the quality of their housing.
Mental health and well-being came in at only 5.4% with financial or living concerns taking centre stage. 4.43% of those asked simply ‘didn’t know’.
Other key issues included: Workload, stress, communication between staff and students, apathy, and student careers.
Similarly, during a LeadMCR press day, we asked 21 candidates what they believe is the most important issue affecting students.
Cost-of-living was the answer given by the majority (28.6%) of executive officer candidates.
An equal number of candidates (9.5%) gave career development, feedback and affordability/financial barriers as their answers.
Both of the candidates going for Activities & Culture Officer (Aaina Mohapatra and incumbent Charlie Roberts) told us that cost-of-living was the key concern.
Union affairs incumbent Lexie Baynes said cost-of-living whilst her competitor, Emily Bennett, named tackling loneliness.
We spoke to one candidate for the Faculty of Science & Engineering, Amrit Dhillon, who believes being heard by the University is of paramount importance to students.
Postgraduate officer candidate Phumza Sokhetye thinks feedback needs to be tackled, as does Faculty of Biology, Medicine & Health (FBMH) candidate, Maliha Idow. The other FBMH candidates Adella Tobing and Rhi Patel mention affordability and financial barriers as their answers.
Wellbeing & Liberation officer candidates gave very different answers to each other. Kai Prince thinks that the lack of free time is the most important issue whilst Jess Watson argues cost-of-living is.
Incumbent City & Community Officer, Elliott Briffa, thinks the continued rise of rent prices is the biggest concern as do Faculty of Humanities hopefuls Athena Thomas and Ellie Eckersley.
Other City & Community candidates had different views. Michael Hrycek-Robinson thinks accessibility is a high priority for the student body and Nimrah Imran believes safety is the main concern.
Other Humanities officer candidates Evelyn Fong and Isadora Wood both discussed career development and the competitive job markets as concerning to them. Alec Severs believes the issue of the lack of student voice is important to consider and Jonah Willitts thinks that University support systems are heavily impacting students. Tazwar-Bin Saleh argues the difficulty of balancing academics is causing students the most worry.
So what does this say about the connection between officers and the student body?
Only 1.1% of students said campus security was the most important issue to them, whilst 4.8% of candidates answered with this. Quality of housing made up 9.8% of the answers given by those on campus yet was not brought up by any of the officer candidates. Rent was the biggest concern for 17.4% of students but only 4.8% of candidates said the same thing. Whilst affordability or financing was the answer of 9.5% of those running for student executive roles, 18.5% of students argued money/funding was really important in their view.
What did overlap massively was the cost of living being the biggest concern for students at the moment. 28.6% of candidates agreed with this, as did 22.8% of students.
