Newcastle is one of the leading universities for sport in the UK and is consistently ranked within the top 12 out of 152 higher education institutions in the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) rankings. More than 50 student-led sports clubs are supported through a team of professional staff and a network of indoor and outdoor sports facilities based over four sites

The university has many student organisations. Newcastle University Students' Union (known as the Union Society until a 2012 rebranding) includes student-run sports clubs and societies.

Unlike the majority of other students' unions in the UK, Newcastle University Students' Union (NUSU) owns the building where it is housed. The Union building was built in 1924 following a generous gift from an anonymous donor, who is now believed to have been Sir Cecil Cochrane, a major benefactor to the University. It is built in the neo-Jacobean style and was designed by the local architect Robert Burns Dick whose firm designed the Laing Art Gallery, the towers of the Tyne Bridge and The Spanish City in Whitley Bay. It was opened on 22 October 1925 by the Rt. Hon. Lord Eustace Percy, who later served as Rector of King's College from 1937 to 1952. It is a Grade II listed building. In 2010 the university donated £8 million towards a redevelopment project for the Union Building. This work won the Education Interior Design category of the National Mixology Interior Design Awards 2011.

The Students' Union is run by six sabbatical officers and fifteen part-time unpaid officer positions. The Students' Union also employs around 300 people in ancillary roles including bar staff and entertainment organisers. Artists that have performed at Students' Union include Maxïmo Park, Snow Patrol, Kosheen, The Fratellis, Coldplay, Low, Mercury Rev, Goldie Lookin' Chain, Chicane, The Hoosiers and Damien Rice.

The Courier is a weekly student newspaper. Established in 1948, the current weekly readership is around 12,000, most of whom are students at the university. It is published every week during term time, usually on a Monday unless a major news event warrants a delay.The Courier has won The Guardian's Student Publication of the Year award twice in a row, in 2012 and 2013. In 2008, The Courier design editor Kerry Hyndman came runner up in the Guardian Student media award for Design for her work on the newspaper's entertainment pull-out, Pulp.As part of a re-design of the paper in 2009/2010 Pulp, originally a separate publication was replaced by a lifestyle section in the main body of The Courier.

Newcastle Student Radio is a student radio station based in the university. The station aims to cater for a wide range of musical tastes, anything from Metal and Punk to R&B and swing music.

Student accommodation

Leazes Terrace, a Grade I listed building, designed byThomas Oliver and built by Richard Grainger, in 1829–34; now student accommodation.

Newcastle University has many catered and non-catered halls of residence available to first-year students, located around the city of Newcastle.Popular Newcastle areas for private student houses and flats off campus include Jesmond, Heaton, Sandyford, Shieldfield and Spital Tongues.

In 2008 a survey conducted by an independent website ranked Newcastle as the number one student city in the UK, with a score of 63% across the categories of going out, shops, transport, community and facilities. In another 2008 survey, by MSN Travel, Newcastle was named as the number one university.