Investment in Universities in Wales comes from a diverse range of sources. The turnover of the Higher Education sector in Wales was £1.1bn in 2008/09.

Major investment streams include:

• Investment from students, businesses and other organisations through undergraduate and postgraduate fee income, from home, EU and international students.
• Investment from the Welsh Assembly Government through the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (on average constituting 40% of total income for universities across Wales).
• Income from business and public agencies for contract research and collaborative research.
• Investment from the UK Government which comes via competitive grants from the UK Research Councils, the Government Office for Science (GO Science) and joint university/business projects sponsored by the Technology Strategy Board.
• EU investment streams include the Framework Programme and Cohesion Funding.
• Contracts with NHS Wales to train and professionally develop health professionals.
• Alumni fundraising and income from bequests for specific projects, scholarships and schemes. HEFCW began to support alumni fundraising in 2009, and details of this support can be found on the HEFCW website.

Universities operate a financial year of 1st August to 31st July because of the structure of the academic year, rather than the conventional April to March financial year.