The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how best to represent the multiple dimensions of social, spatial and temporal processes which shape access to Higher Education in the UK. Full and contextualised understanding of these concepts is seen as acutely important to the stakeholders (pupils, universities, schools) of Higher Education. The agendas of widening participation, extending access and institutional marketing share common challenges to devise better ways of reaching potential students who are appropriately qualified and motivated to pursue and successfully complete the full range of institutional course offerings. One key motivation for this thesis has been the observation that few Higher Education institutions have communication strategies that are tailored towards reaching the full range of potential students who would benefit from their current subject and course offerings. University and college marketing initiatives are often unsystematic, even serendipitous, in the ways in which they identify schools and colleges for outreach and widening participation initiatives, and sometimes uncoordinated in how they present the full institutional profile of subjects of study in these activities. Thus, a core objective of this thesis is to set out some relevant aspects of the changing Higher Education policy-setting arena and to present a systematic framework for widening participation and extending access in an era of variable fees. In particular the thesis aims to illustrate how higher education data and publicly available sources might enable institutions to move from piecemeal analysis of their intakes to institution wide strategic and geographically linked market area analysis for existing and envisaged subject and course offerings.