Uppingham Opens Its First Asian Campus, Outside Hanoi

Uppingham School opened its first campus in Asia this August, welcoming founding pupils to a purpose-built 4.7-hectare site in Ecopark, Hung Yen province, about 25 minutes east of central Hanoi. The school operates as a full K-12 institution offering iGCSE and A Levels, built in partnership with Vietnamese developer Viet Capital Education, according to The PIE News.

The campus, designed to accommodate up to 2,000 pupils at capacity, features a sports complex, performing arts centre, football pitch, advanced science laboratories, and a modern library. It is the second Uppingham campus internationally, following Uppingham Cairo, which opened in Egypt in 2024, and the first anywhere in Asia.

A 442-year-old brand enters Southeast Asia

Uppingham, founded in 1584 in Rutland and associated in educational history with Edward Thring's development of the boarding house system in the nineteenth century, is entering Vietnam at a moment of significant market expansion. The number of international schools in Vietnam grew by 24 per cent between 2020 and early 2025, with student enrolment rising at a similar rate. The primary driver is local demand: affluent Vietnamese families seeking British or internationally recognised curricula as a pathway to universities abroad.

The choice of Ecopark is deliberate. The township caters to upper-middle-income and wealthy Vietnamese households, and the school is not conceived as an expatriate-facing offering. Its likely intake is drawn from the professional and entrepreneurial class in and around Hanoi, in the same segment that has driven enrolment growth at Hanoi British School and the United Nations International School of Hanoi. Uppingham's association with full boarding at its founding campus may also appeal to families seeking a more structured residential environment than most international day schools offer.

Fees and the competitive landscape

Formal tuition fees have not yet been published. Comparable British curriculum schools at secondary level in Hanoi currently price in a range of roughly USD 15,000 to USD 25,000 per year; given the brand's positioning, Uppingham is expected to sit in the upper portion of that band. A Levels and iGCSE form the academic backbone, with university counselling anticipated to emphasise UK destinations alongside international options.

The Uppingham opening is the latest in a series of high-profile British independent school arrivals in Vietnam. Rugby School Vietnam is due to open its Hanoi campus in September, and Fairmont International School launched earlier this year. As VnExpress International reported when the Viet Capital partnership was first announced, the project represents a significant vote of confidence in the Vietnamese market from a school that has maintained the same founding campus in England for more than four centuries.