The university has roots in 1860 when the Lady Byron School was founded, later Ealing College of Higher Education.

18 years later, after several mergers, acquisitions and campus moves, it was renamed to its current name.

In the 1960’s the St Mary’s Road site was known as Ealing Technical College, offering CNAA degrees in law (and others).

In 2009, the university decided to divest itself of its further education courses, together with its Kings Road site that it had inherited from the Reading College and School of Arts and Design.

[6] In July 2009, the university was awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize for outstanding achievement and excellence in hospitality education.

Vice-chancellor Peter John stated that the changes reflected the university's development since 1992 and a new focus on its Brentford and Ealing campuses.

There are two campus sites in western Greater London, located at St Mary's Road, Ealing and Paragon House in Brentford.

In 2017 The University of West London launched it's overseas branch campus in Ras Al Khaimah , United Arab Emirates.

[20] In the NSS 2016, there were 100 per cent overall satisfaction rates for nine courses across the University's eight schools, ranging from Midwifery to Business Studies and Music Technology to Hospitality Management.

The union aims to bring students academic advice and advocacy support, events, ways to take up new activities, and sports, and a place to socialise.

The site won the 'Major Housing Project of the Year' category at the 2007 Building Awards, and is in Brentford, approximately two miles away from the Ealing campus.

[25] In the mid-1990s, its high-profile vice-chancellor, Mike Fitzgerald, ushered through a networked "New Learning Environment" for undergraduate students, involving a shift to online delivery and assessment.

The NLE was discontinued in this form, and Fitzgerald resigned in 1998 following a negative Quality Assurance Agency report stating there were "significant management failures" in the delivery of this model.

Several alumni at the University of West London are world-famous artists, musicians, Oscar nominees and winners: