the university of manchester is a public university in manchester, england. in 2007-08, it had over 40,000 students studying 500 academic programmes, and more than 10,000 staff and an annual income of £637 million. it is the largest single-campus university in the united kingdom. the university was formed in 2004 by joining together the victoria university of manchester (founded 1851) and umist (founded 1824) and since then some of the buildings have been demolished and new ones built instead.