Interest in engineering education continues to rise. Once again this year, engineering programmes were a popular choice among those who submitted quota 1 applications.
By the application deadline at noon on Saturday 5 July, DTU had received a total of 8,462 applications for admission. This represents an increase of 2% compared to last year's application figures.
The increase is greatest in the diploma engineering programme, which 2,956 applicants have applied for.
Last year, there were 2,803 applicants, corresponding to an increase of 5%. The number of applicants who chose this programme as their first priority also increased by 3%. This continues the trend from the quota 2 deadline in March 2025, when 26% more applicants than last year applied for the Bachelor of Engineering programme.
DTU President Anders Bjarklev is pleased with the application figures, which give DTU a strong foundation for delivering Europe's best engineering programmes. For the past two years, DTU has been named the EU's best technical university by the EngiRank ranking.
"It is very pleasing that more people are applying to DTU, and with a strong and increasing number of applicants who have DTU as their first priority, it is frustrating that a political majority has, among other things, reduced the number of study places on DTU's bachelor's programmes by 92 places with the master's reform in 2025," says DTU President Anders Bjarklev.
He points out that the latest figures from Statistics Denmark and qualitative interviews with the engineering industry conducted by the analysis company IRIS Group show that in 2024 there will be a shortage of around 7,000 engineers and that in 2030 there will be a shortage of between 17,000 and 21,000 people with a technical higher education degree in Eastern Denmark.
"So, in the midst of this positive development, there is also disappointment that DTU is unable to admit everyone who has the ability and desire to study engineering. Denmark needs more engineers, and the demand is there," says Anders Bjarklev.
Record number of quota 1 applications
A total of 3,317 applicants have DTU's civil bachelor and diploma engineering programmes as their first priority, compared to 3,137 applicants in 2024, which is an increase of 6%. This is a new record, as DTU received more than 3,000 first-priority applications for the first time last year.
Once again this year, the English-language bachelor's programme in General Engineering is by far the most popular programme at DTU. A total of 1,005 applications have been received for the 200 places on the programme, 665 of which are first-choice applications.
The increase in quota 1 applications to DTU follows on from the impressive increases in quota 2, where DTU received significantly more applications by the deadline on 15 March. Overall, the number of quota 2 applications to DTU rose by 23% from last year. Of these, 30% more had applied to DTU as their first priority.
The trend was the same for both bachelor's and diploma engineering programmes, and the increase was significantly higher than the national average, where 4% more applicants applied for a programme under quota 2.