The UK does applications differently, and the fee part confuses everyone at first. Instead of paying each university separately, you mostly go through UCAS. One application, one fee, up to five choices. It is simpler than the US model, and for multi-school applicants it is usually cheaper.
That single UCAS fee covers all five choices no matter which universities they are. Oxford, a small art school, a big red-brick university: same fee. This flips the strategy. In the US you might cut a school to save its fee. In the UK, your fifth choice is effectively free once you have paid for the first four. So use all five. Leaving slots empty is leaving value on the table.
Wrinkles, though. Medicine, dentistry, and veterinary courses have earlier deadlines plus admissions tests with their own fees. Conservatoires run through a separate system entirely. And postgraduate applications usually skip UCAS, with each university setting its own fee or waiving it.
For postgrads, the UK is a genuine mixed bag, which makes the research worth doing. If you are asking which UK universities charge no application fee at the master's level, the answer varies by department, not by brand name. Some departments charge nothing. Some charge the standard fee. The spread is wide, so comparing pays off more here than almost anywhere else. A college application fee database search tool is genuinely useful for postgrad UK applications, since you are comparing individual university fees instead of one UCAS payment.
Keep perspective, too. The UCAS fee is small next to the real UK costs: the visa, the healthcare surcharge, London rent. Do not optimize the ten-pound problem and ignore the ten-thousand-pound one.
One more note for master's applicants: UCAS mostly covers undergraduates. You deal with each university directly, which means separate fees and separate waiver policies. More admin, but also more chances to find a waived fee. Keep it organized in a free applicant progress tracker app. Five UCAS choices plus a handful of direct postgrad applications is exactly the kind of list that gets messy on paper.
Compare UK application fees at applicationexperts.fyi. And get a 1-2 year profile roadmap.