Its campus is situated 7 km north of downtown Victoria and is spread over 403 acres. In 2010, the university acquired the six-hectare Queenswood campus from the Sisters of St. Ann and converted it into a national laboratory. UVic also has an offsite study center at the Jeanne S. Simpson Field Studies Resource Center in Lake Cowichan. The Legacy Art Gallery on Yates Street and a proposed redevelopment on Broad Street make up the properties owned by the university in downtown Victoria. It operates nine academic faculties and schools including the Faculty of Law and Peter B. Gustavson School of Business.

UVic hosts many leading research institutes, including Ocean Networks Canada's deep-water seafloor research observatories VENUS and NEPTUNE, the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions, and two Environment Canada labs: the Canadian Center for Climate Modelling and Analysis and the Water and Climate Impacts Research Centre. The Ocean Climate Building housed at the Queenswood location is dedicated solely to ocean and climate research. The Institute of Integrated Energy Systems is a leading center for research on sustainable energy solutions and alternative energy sources. The University of Victoria is also home to Canada's first and only Indigenous Law degree program along with dedicated research centers for Indigenous and Environmental law.

Based in the capital city of British Columbia, the university has educated many prominent jurists and politicians including Jody Wilson-Raybould, Rona Ambrose, and Russell Brown. In recent years, the university counts amongst its alumni the founders of several leading technology companies, including Flickr, Slack, and Hootsuite. UVic alumni and faculty have also worked on Nobel Prize winning research teams. As of 2020, 7 Guggenheim Fellows, 2 Killiam Prize winners, 14 members of the Order of Canada, 11 Rhodes Scholars and 79 Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada have been affiliated with the university.