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If you’re a student, you’re unlikely to have loads of money to spare.
Spending a significant chunk of your disposable income on a phone contract certainly isn’t ideal, but luckily there’s an alternative.
Provided you can afford the cost of the device itself (consider opting for a budget or mid-range phone rather than a flagship), you can save a lot of money on your phone bill with a SIM-only deal. What’s more, being at university makes you eligible for special discounts from a whole host of phone retailers and networks.
There are currently some great SIM deals available, which offer a lot of data for not much money and often include additional perks.
If you’re a parent looking for a SIM-only plan for your child, see the best SIM-only plans for kids.
If you spend your time glued to your social media feed, you’ll want a SIM plan that can keep up. We recommend the following:
If you’re a big social media user, Voxi’s plans are hands-down the best option for you. Its Unlimited Social, Unlimited Music and Unlimited Video benefits allow access to a variety of services without eating into data allowances.
The Vodafone-owned service offers unlimited access to Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook Messenger, for as low as £10 per month, which will get you 30GB of data at the time of writing (double the amount that is ordinarily available).
Best plan right now: You can get 90GB of data for £15 per month, which also includes Voxi’s Unlimited Music and Video. This gets you unlimited access to the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music, in addition to the unlimited social media already included.
This offers even better value for the price, and it’s sure to help your data go further. These are all 30-day rolling contracts, so you can cancel at any time.
If you don’t mind locking in for 24 months, you can also get free Spotify, Amazon Prime or YouTube Premium with some Vodafone plans. Unlike Voxi, which requires you to already have subscriptions to the streaming services, Vodafone’s plans include that cost within the contract itself.
Best plan right now: Get 80GB of data plus YouTube Premium or Amazon Prime Video or Spotify for £28 per month for duration of 24-month contract
Elsewhere, O2‘s 12- and 24-month plans bundle Apple Music and either Disney+, Amazon Music Unlimited or Audible for up to six months.
Best plan right now: Get 150GB of data for £22.99 per month for 24 months. This comes with six months of Apple Music for free, plus another six month offer (Disney+, Amazon Prime, Amazon Music Unlimited, Audible, McAfee or Cafeyn).
On top of that, you can roam for free in the EU and even countries such as the US and Australia, up to 25GB per month.
Best student SIM-only deals with lots of data
If you want a more generous data plan instead, Three has some of the most competitive data deals.
Best plan right now: Right now, students (with an ac.uk email address) can get unlimited data on a 24-month contract for just £20 per month. The 12-month plan is only slightly more expensive at £21.60 per month, while the one-month version costs £24 per month.
Anyone can also get up to £80 in cash by referring a friend to Three.
Smarty, which uses the Three network is offering unlimited data for just £20 per month for anyone.This includes unrestricted mobile hotspot, if you’d like to use your mobile data as a Wi-Fi replacement.
Smarty’s other benefit, unlike Three, is you can cancel at any time – all are one-month rolling plans.
Another thing which sets Smarty apart from rivals is that its Data Discount Plans give you money towards your next month’s bill for any unused data at the end of the month.
Best cheap SIM plans for students
You may not really care about having a large data plan, especially if you spend more time using Wi-Fi. In fact, a few GB per month might be just enough to get you through when away from home. If this sounds like you, there are a few affordable SIM plans we’d recommend:
Tesco Mobile (O2) has a range of affordable SIM deals, starting at £7.50 per month for 2GB of data. Tesco’s SIM-only plans allow you to collect extra Clubcard Points too, where every 150 points add up to £1.50 vouchers to spend on groceries and more, so it’s perfect for students.
Best plan right now: Get 100GB data for £16 per month with a Clubcard (24-month contract), plus free £30 Clubcard voucher
Lebara Mobile (Vodafone) has some of the most affordable SIM plans around. 30-day plans start £5 per month for 5GB of data, or £4.50 per month if you’re willing to commit to a 24-month contract. You also get at least 100 international minutes to countries outside the EU, making it ideal for international students in the UK, while roaming is free in India and Europe.
Best plan right now: Get 20GB of data for £5 per month for three months, then £10 per month
Giffgaff (O2) offers various low-cost data plans. Its cheapest plan has 2GB of data for £6 on a monthly rolling contract.
But if you’re willing to commit to an 18-month contract, there’s even better value for money. You can currently get 500GB of data for £20 for the first six months of your contract, after which it’s 120GB.
1pMobile operates somewhat differently from other contract providers. The service runs on EE’s network and, as the name suggests, it only charges 1p for your usage per minute, per text or per MBs of data with 5G connectivity. Start with a £10 top-up for 25GB of data on a 30-day plan, and cancel anytime.
Best phone & contract discounts for university students
EE student discount
EE offers a 20% student discount along with a 500MB safety net each month. That’s half a GB of free data every month just to keep you from going over your data plan, and 20% off your monthly tariff, every month.
You can also get six months of Apple Music for free. This deal is available to new and existing customers. You’ll need a voucher code fromStudent Beans to get the offer.
If you’re an EE customer you’ll just need to log in, see your upgrade options, and enter your student discount code at check out. New customers can just pick a phone or SIM deal and use the student discount code you receive at the checkout.
O2 student discount
Like EE,O2’s student program gives you a 20% discount on your plan. The catch is that the discount only applies to the Airtime plan, which includes your calls, texts and data – not your Device Plan. The latter is the monthly cost of your device (O2’s monthly plans are a total combination of these two bills).
But the 20% discount also applies to accessories.
To get the O2 student discount, you’ll have to sign into Unidays or Totum to get your discount code. Then buy the phone specifically on the O2 Refresh tariff and add your discount code. If you forget to add your code, sign in to UNiDAYS, get a ‘stores code’ and text it to 61202.
You can find all the info on the student mobile phone deals on the O2 website, including how to redeem your discount in-store.
Vodafone student discounts
Vodafone’s student discount program gets you 10% off monthly airtime plans, tablet plans and SIM-only plans. However, you’ll need to make sure that you’re attending a participating university – see the full list.
After you buy aVodafone monthly plan, fill out the onlinediscount form to apply for the student discount.
Three student discounts
Three is straight to the point with itsstudent contract deals. You can get up to 20% off selected phones, laptops and tablets, or unlimited data for £20 per month (for 24 months). See Three’s student plans.
Looking for more general advice? See our guides to the best SIM-only deals and best UK phone networks.