Colchester Campus

The Colchester Campus is the largest of the Colchester Institute sites and is just a short walk from the town centre. There are few colleges that offer students fine dining, the chance to have their hair or nails done, or browse the on-site art gallery and attend some fantastic music concerts, all on one campus – but students at the Colchester Campus can enjoy all of this and more.

The campus boasts a wide range of refectories, a brand new fitness gym, a bookable sports hall, a library and Learning Resources Centre and a large number of first rate classrooms with interactive presentational facilities.

The campus enjoyed a multi-million pound re-development in 2009 focussing mainly on Music and Performing Arts, Engineering, and Construction. In September 2012 our new Higher Education Centre, a dedicated space for our degree students was opened and this later became the University Centre Colchester building. In September 2016 our £10m South Wing STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) centre was launched with further new facilities for Digital Media, Science, the Construction trades alongside planning, design and engineering. The building also houses a superb library.

Facilities are constantly being renewed and refreshed, with the Colchester campus seeing a brand-new forty-station commercial hair salon, beauty salon and Early Years Centre open in 2022. A large construction workshop expansion project to support growing demand for all construction trades was completed in early 2023. Colchester campus has continued to expand the construction workshop facilities and will launch a Net Zero Centre in September 2024.

This activity follows the opening of the flagship £5m Health and Social Care facility in 2020, complete with immersive technologies and replica clinical and care settings. This development saw a fifth floor added to the existing South Wing building, providing an additional 2,000 square meters of innovative teaching facilities, including realistic working environments.

In 2021 the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) partnered with Colchester Institute to provide exclusive career-ready training to learners. The partnership enables the College to provide real-world skills training for direct progression into the NHS.

With over £30 million invested over the past ten years, Colchester Institute is committed to supporting individuals to launch or develop their careers and local businesses to access the skills and talent they need to thrive.