The University of Westminster has secured £2,496,000 in funding from the Office for Students (OfS) to create a new Immersive Experience Lab on its Marylebone Campus, designed specifically to tackle critical skills shortages already affecting employers in London and across the UK. The Lab will provide students with hands-on, industry-aligned learning that builds practical and strategic skills in high-growth sectors, including digital technology, finance, construction, manufacturing, professional and business services, and the creative industries.
The Department for Education and Skills England have recently highlighted significant gaps not only in advanced technical skills, such as AI, cybersecurity, sustainable construction and fintech, but also in competencies like systems thinking, ethical leadership, strategic decision-making and resilience. The Immersive Experience Lab directly addresses these needs, ensuring that graduates enter the workforce better prepared for a rapidly evolving, AI-influenced economy.
The Lab will be fully operational for the 2026–27 academic year and is expected to benefit more than 2,000 students annually across all levels of study. Building on Westminster’s high-impact teaching methods and the technology ecosystem and innovative pedagogy of the University’s award-winning Creative & Advanced Technologies Lab (previously FabLab), the new facility will equip students with both real-world learning and broader work readiness skills increasingly demanded by industry as well as championed by the University’s Zone29 career readiness offering.
Located across two adjacent ground-floor spaces, the new Lab features a unique 10x10m Omega-shaped LED panel and ceiling visible from Marylebone Road, as well as three transformable immersive pods facing into the central campus atrium. The Lab features more than 50 channels of immersive audio distributed throughout the space and is the first of its kind to utilise acoustically transparent LED panels. It will provide a highly visible state-of-the-art installation to showcase emerging technologies to students, colleagues and external visitors.
The Immersive Experience Lab is the first immersive space of its kind to focus exclusively on business education, offering numerous opportunities for innovation in teaching and research. It provides, for example, hands-on training in the use of the latest Internet of Things and Digital Twin technologies, addressing essential skills to combat climate change. Students will work in a space equipped with IoT sensors that react in real-time to environmental changes, with dashboard data presented seamlessly throughout the space. It will help students calculate real-time carbon impacts, design sustainable energy systems and develop the digital literacy and climate-focused expertise urgently needed across the sector.
For other students, it will function as an immersive trading environment, creating the opportunity to visualise live financial data, model market volatility, analyse risk and explore the ethical implications of AI-driven financial tools, building strong analytical and decision-making skills for the modern financial workplace.
Through advanced AR and VR environments, students will also develop digital creativity and innovation skills, from designing interactive marketing campaigns in simulated consumer settings to collaborating on complex virtual projects that mirror real-world workflows in leading technology companies.
The Office for Students previously granted the University £5.8m towards Zone29, the University’s new home for careers and enterprise, due to open in Spring 2026. Zone29 provides students and graduates with access to work-related programmes, opportunities and experiences, and it will connect students from all backgrounds to industry professionals to build the confidence and networks they need to succeed.
Jordan Scammell, Head of Development and Fundraising at the University of Westminster, said: “We are extremely grateful to the Office for Students for this major grant. Informed by detailed industry evidence, our proposal set out a clear vision for how the Immersive Experience Lab will respond directly to employers’ needs. This funding will enable us to create a transformative, skills-focused environment that opens up pathways into highly skilled jobs for our students while providing industry with the diverse, future-ready talent it urgently requires.”
Dr David Scott, Director of the Creative and Advanced Technologies Lab, said: “The Immersive Experience Lab represents a fundamental shift in how we teach. It allows us to move from 'learning about' to 'learning within’. Whether it is a Real Estate student walking through a building they are learning to value, or a marketing student testing a campaign in a virtual stadium, this technology enables us to bridge the gap between theory and practice in a compelling way. It ensures our graduates don’t just know the theory - they have 'lived' the experience before they enter the workplace.”
Director of Resources and Finance at OfS Nolan Smith said: “This was a very competitive funding round, and the projects we are supporting will make a tangible difference to current and future students. As well as expanding opportunities for students in strategically important subject areas, these projects will offer a boost to local and regional economies and promote national growth.”
The development of the new space directly contributes to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 4: Quality Education, 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth and 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure. Since 2019, the University of Westminster has used the SDGs holistically to frame strategic decisions to help students and colleagues fulfil their potential and contribute to a more sustainable, equitable and healthier society.
Find out about Zone29, the University of Westminster’s new home of careers and enterprise.
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