We list 5 phD Scholarships Open to Nigerian Students in the United Kingdom, with the deadline, study level and eligibility of each one taken from the award's own terms. 5 of them are fully funded. Awards with a known closing date are listed soonest first.
Written from the 5 awards on this page — every figure below is counted from what the awards themselves state. 5 min read.
This page collects 5 PhD scholarships in the United Kingdom that are open to Nigerian students. Every one of the five is labelled fully funded by the award itself. The providers behind them are the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London and the University of Leeds. Oxford appears twice.
Three of the five also carry a master's route, so if you are weighing a master's first and a doctorate later, some of these awards can be entered at either level. The remaining two are doctoral only.
Funding labels matter more than the word "scholarship" on a page. Of the five awards here, 4 name tuition in their own text, 3 name living costs, 1 names travel, and 1 names research or training costs. These are the benefits the awards state in writing. Read each award's own page before you plan around a figure, because what is named and what is finally granted can differ by department and by year.
None of the five leaves its funding unstated, so you are not guessing about whether money is attached. You are only checking which costs are covered.
Yes, on the evidence in this list. All 5 awards are open to Nigerian applicants. Of those, 1 names Nigeria or the region in its eligibility wording, and 4 carry no nationality restriction at all. That second group is the larger one, and it is where most Nigerian applicants will find room.
Nothing here is restricted in a way that shuts Nigerians out. What varies is how the award describes who may apply, so read the eligibility paragraph rather than the headline.
The requirements stated across these five awards are few, and they are the usual ones for UK doctoral study:
Two points are worth holding on to. First, an English test is not demanded by every award on this page, so check whether your award waives it — a prior degree taught in English is often the basis for a waiver, but only the award's own text can tell you. Second, where a research proposal is required, it is usually read alongside your supervisor's interest, not in isolation.
The award that asks for an admission offer first is the clearest signal of sequencing: you cannot win the money before you hold the place. Where that is the case, the programme application is the real deadline, and the scholarship follows it.
Of the five awards, 1 carries a stated date and 4 are undated on this page. The busiest month across the list is April, with one award falling there.
Do not read "undated" as "open indefinitely". It means the date is not fixed on the listing, and for UK doctoral funding that usually means the deadline tracks the course deadline or the funding round of the department. Two of the awards here — the Clarendon Fund at Oxford and the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Scholarships — tie their timing to the relevant December or January course deadline. The Gates Cambridge Scholarship and the Imperial College London President's PhD Scholarship show their dates on their own pages.
The Leeds Doctoral Scholarships closed on 1 April 2026. If you are reading this after that date, treat it as a model of how early these rounds can land rather than as a live opportunity.
Two of the five state an award count. Imperial names 50 and Leeds names 6. The other three do not publish a number on this page, so no figure can be given for them.
The route into this level is a master's degree. The qualifications that fit are an M.Sc, M.A, MBA or M.Phil. If you are coming from a Nigerian university, that means your postgraduate transcript, your project or thesis, and your referee letters are the documents doing the persuading.
Funded doctoral places and research scholarships are often tied to a supervisor or a research group. That has a practical consequence for how you apply: the programme application and the scholarship application frequently share one deadline, so you cannot treat them as two separate tasks with two separate calendars. Approach the supervisor early, then let the funding deadline set your pace.
Durations stated across the awards here run to 2 years for a master's or 3 years for a PhD in one case, 3.5 years in another, and 3.5 years full-time, pro-rata part-time in a third. Plan your funding and your leave from work against the duration your chosen award states, not against a general assumption.
The United Kingdom is the first-ranked destination for Nigerian students internationally, with 71,756 Nigerian students recorded there in 2023, according to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. That is the largest Nigerian student population in any single country.
A large existing community is useful in unglamorous ways. It means people who have already run the transcript, courier and visa sequence you are about to run, and departments that have read Nigerian transcripts before. It does not lower the bar on the research proposal, and it does not change any deadline.
Start with the award whose structure fits you, not the one with the biggest name. If your work is research-led and you already have a supervisor in mind, the Imperial College London President's PhD Scholarship and the Leeds Doctoral Scholarships are doctoral-only and worth reading first. If you want the option of entering at master's level and continuing, the Clarendon Fund, Gates Cambridge and the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies awards all carry both routes.
Then work backwards from the deadline. Confirm whether your award needs an English test, because that booking alone can take weeks. Draft the research proposal if it is asked for. Request your letters of recommendation early enough that your referees are not writing under pressure. Order your transcripts and budget for courier costs before the month you actually need them.
Finally, read each award's own page in full. This page tells you what is on the list, who may apply and what the awards state they cover. The award page tells you the terms you will actually be held to.
Studying in the UK is a dream for many international students, offering world-class education, global exposure, and prestigious degrees. But the cost can be a major barrier. Thankfully, numerous scholarships are available specifically for Nigerian students that can fund tuition, living expenses, and even travel. In this post, we’ll explore the Top UK scholarships for international students in 2025–2026, including eligibility, benefits, deadlines, and how to apply.
*UNESCO Institute for Statistics, inbound internationally mobile students from Nigeria, 2023.
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