To facilitate the change, St Martin's College applied for independent degree-awarding powers in March 2005, and was successful in July 2006, after nine months of scrutiny by the Quality Assurance Agency.

[10] Official university status, albeit without a royal charter, was granted by the Privy Council in January 2007.

Its other major campuses are at Ambleside, Lancaster (formerly St Martin's College) and it has classrooms and open workspace in the "Energus" facility in Blackwood Road, Lillyhall, Workington.

Newton Rigg has since been transferred to Askham Bryan College and the Tower Hamlets provision has moved to East India Dock Road.

[22] Ambleside continues to host courses in outdoor studies, forestry, conservation business, leadership and sustainability.

[23] From the start, the college planned to teach degrees as well as Certificates of Education and pioneered the four year BA Hons with qualified teacher status.

[25] The National School of Forestry was set up here in the 1960s and has a long history of educating forest managers, which continues to the present day.

[28] Previous vice-chancellors have included; At one stage the university had debts totalling £13,000,000 and in March 2010, it received a cash advance from HEFCE to enable it to pay staff.

[35] In 2022 the Manchester Employment Tribunal found the university to have unfairly dismissed and discriminated against a pregnant employee during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[37] The university has five specialist departmental areas that offer a range of flexible, multidisciplinary courses: The University of Cumbria provides education in Medical Imaging, Sports Development, Arts, Law, Education, Leadership and Economic Development, Conservation, Forestry, and the Uplands, and Mental Health and Wellbeing, among other subject areas.