Russell Group universities are actually very good. We should stop dismissing them.

All unis do research but they are also there to teach! RG doesn't guarantee a good uni - far from it!
Google uni x research and you will see. Non-RG usually focus on some areas e.g EV, new tech and often it’s cutting dge stuff. Edge Hill, for example, has a brilliant Maths intervention programme for Early years https://www.edgehill.ac.uk/departments/academic/education/every-child-counts/
RG unis are just a club – often teaching is low priority. Please do some research on how they came about!

Your last statement shows that you don’t know much about the history of universities (in the UK or the world).
For every pound a RG university spends on research they get 20p of the cash from tuition fees. That’s the structure of “full economic costing” of research grants and contracts in the UK. The more research a university does the more cash redirected from teaching to subsidise the research.
In some cases that will enrich the teaching environment. In most cases it doesn’t.
A university having a strong research reputation says nothing about the quality or content of their teaching.
That misconception that good research = teaching quality is why you’ll get pushback on TSR. Birmingham were known at one point for having zero hours of teaching by academic staff in the first year of some of their degrees (all teaching was done by PhD students and temp staff contracted in to teach on zero hours contracts - in most cases with zero teaching qualifications). It became standard practice at a large number of RG universities for about a decade until the government introduced the TEF and scared some changes into them.
So yes - in many cases a teaching focused university, particularly one like Aston with an established placement year programme (proven to improve employment prospects post-degree), would be a better choice than a RG university.
There’s some RGs that do prioritise teaching - but they’re the exception not the norm.

Well funny you should ask. I've taught students who've gone to Brookes beat Imperial and Oxbridge grads to top jobs. It isn't where you go it's your ability to do the job. Non-RG grads have projects to show, up-to-date knowledge, often newer facilities [3D printing included 12 years ago].
Look at Formula Student, for example, top UK unis Brookes and Bath!
https://imeche.org/events/formula-student/previous-events

Another pointed question where it’s really about pick your side, when it isn’t really a good debate. The Russell Group as consistently pointed out is a lobby group for research funding, by & large they have the most significant research contributions in the UK.
Of course for choosing an undergraduate university this will generally not be overly significant interest to most students. Generally most “prestigious” universities are more often then not the RG universities but it is not an exclusive list and im sure Bath/St Andrews/Loughborough have already been pointed out.
It is true that reputation can matter in future opportunities, although its importance is generally over-egged & frankly the careers where it can be significant (i.e. trying to break into GS/Mckinsey/Jane St/similar professional services firms) the list of universities which really provide a competitive advantage is far smaller than the RG members.
Having attended both a non-RG univerity & a RG university there is certainly a benefit to going to universities with excellent facilities, significant annual facilities investment & employer research connections, these do open up opportunities for industry connected dissertations, internships and networking opportunities; and this is a big benefit (although these opportunities tend to go to a relatively moderate percentage of the more proactive students) and again these opportunities are not exclusive to RG universities although I would say the RG disproportionately has these access points.
By in large the RG are strong universities with excellent reputations but RG affiliation is not the reason to choose the university. What you see on a macro level is also very different to choosing for a specific applicant with specific set of requirements.

'Of course for choosing an undergraduate university this will generally not be overly significant interest to most students.'
But, maybe it should be?
I wouldn't say the Russell Group is an exclusive list of the best universities, but it almost is. The correlation is strong enough.

'Of course for choosing an undergraduate university this will generally not be overly significant interest to most students.'
But, maybe it should be?
I wouldn't say the Russell Group is an exclusive list of the best universities, but it almost is. The correlation is strong enough.

I've noticed people on TSR are often quick to criticise RG universities, specifically those which aren't typically thought of as being in the UK top 10 (so basically all of the Redbricks plus Glasgow, Southampton, Queen Mary, Cardiff and QUB).
The main criticisms are that there's an awful lot of marketing involved, that they are a 'self-selecting' club and that some are stronger than others. These are all true, but that doesn't mean these universities are no good. Two things can be true at the same time.
The truth is, even the 'worst' Russell Group universities are pretty decent. Even the 'lowest' ranked ones are pretty high on global league tables (all of them usually sit within the top 200 and can actually claim to being part of the global top 1%, unlike supposed rivals like Reading, Sussex, Lancaster etc. which make similar claims), are extremely well-endowed and unlikely to face any sort of financial trouble in the future (which is extremely relevant in current times).
Yes there are other good universities, but it's only really a couple of exceptions (St Andrews and Bath) which are on a par with this group. If pressed, most people would probably rather attend an RG uni than some non-descript plateglass or an ex-poly.

I am one of those people who kick the Russel Group universities and I stand by my argument. The thing we need to nail down is when you say "good" what do you mean?
Most Russel Group universities are in cities and therefore provide a "good" student experience. Is that what we mean?
Most Russel Group universities pump out students who get top marks. Is that a sign of the university being good or is a reflection of the kind of students they only allow to study there?
Most Russel Group universities spend a lot on research which is often a key indicator in the league tables but does that have anything to do with the undergraduate experience?
Most Russel Group universities have high rates of employability but again, is that because they are proactive in providing excellent careers advice or are the kind of grads they produce able to get jobs for themselves?
What students should really be interested in is quality of teaching and graduate outcomes but these are rarely discussed. Ranking and status seem to be top of most under grads minds which is ridiculous given the fact that employers generally do not take any notice or rank or status. And when you boil down teaching, pastoral, student support and all the things that actually matter, Russel Group universities traditionally score very poorly. By contrast, many of the newer universities are pouring resources into student support and teaching and rightly so.
By all means go to a Russel Group uni, but go because that is the right university for you or provides the course that interests you or because you met one of your tutors who really inspired you. But don't go because you perceive it will give you better opportunities simply because of the colour of your tie.

As noted above, the RG unis are research-intensive which generally means high research income therefore better facilities and teaching by world-leading researchers. Their funding model is generally more stable, and if you look at recent specialist articles it is RG unis eg. Southampton, bucking the trend by expanding rather than entering into financial viability reviews, ie. redundancies and closing / merging departments.
If you want to look at league tables then look at the QS World Rankings, not the usual CUG/THES etc which are based partly on v subjective scoring.
However, as hotpud says above, choose the right uni for you for all the relevant factors for you, not the one that think you should aim for from the rankings.

I suppose what I’m talking about is whether or not these universities have ‘gravitas’ (which I know is difficult to measure and not an exact science). Everyone on here seems to be talking about how well these universities ‘function’, i.e. do their students receive a high quality of service whilst studying there? I’m detecting a slight mumsnet/dadsnet tinge in some of these comments, with more focus on whether or not their undergraduate offspring will receive good welfare, support and ‘teaching’. I’m not saying this is unimportant (personally I had a rubbish time as an undergraduate), but my instinct would be to tough out a potentially lousy student experience if it means having a good university on your CV (of course, these things are not necessarily mutually exclusive).
When you look at the list of Russell Group institutions, I think it’s fair to say that all of them fit the bill when it comes to having gravitas. It’s just obvious by their names – University of <insert city name/region here>. They are the leading institutions of the areas they are situated in – almost exclusively in big and/or famous cities which most people in the UK are probably aware of. Most people at least know about Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, etc. I doubt the same could be said about Keele.
That might sound like a very basic argument, but location is a severely overlooked factor here. I think we get a bit too wrapped up in performance metrics and other specifics which most people don’t really care about, whilst taking much more obvious and frankly interesting factors, such as location and historic/cultural significance, for granted.

Out of curiosity, do you really believe employers on the whole discriminate by university? Does the name of a university really make you more employable over experience, skills, knowledge, online portfolio and all the other things you can do to demonstrate you can do a particular job? I think not and those few employers who do should be avoided like the plague as they clearly value vanity over ability.

Ill poke my nose in on this one.
The answer is, within the UK generally no, for the overwhelming majority of employers local & national they don’t care. And most large graduate schemes filter candidates through hireview/online testing/behavioural assessments to filter candidate's.
However there is a tiny fraction of the graduate employment market such as management consultancy/elite financial services/boutique professional services firms/consultancies where they will discriminate based on university, however they are far more selective then simply Russell Group. The preference is really a small handful of universities (half dozen or so), they typically will consider people who haven’t come from the chosen half dozen but often particularly the boutiques don't openly advertise online so it requires really diligent graduates combined with truly exceptional CVs.

Ill poke my nose in on this one.

The answer is, within the UK generally no, for the overwhelming majority of employers local & national they don’t care. And most large graduate schemes filter candidates through hireview/online testing/behavioural assessments to filter candidate's.

However there is a tiny fraction of the graduate employment market such as management consultancy/elite financial services/boutique professional services firms/consultancies where they will discriminate based on university, however they are far more selective then simply Russell Group. The preference is really a small handful of universities (half dozen or so), they typically will consider people who haven’t come from the chosen half dozen but often particularly the boutiques don't openly advertise online so it requires really diligent graduates combined with truly exceptional CVs.