Low engagement and high burnout have serious implications for university students’ mental health and wellbeing. Strengths use and deficits correction are two proactive behaviours found to predict engagement and burnout, but these had not been explored in UK university students. This study investigated the role of strengths use and deficits correction in engagement and burnout by using the Strengths Use and Deficits Correction scale (SUDCO; Van Woerkom et al., 2016), a proactive behaviour measure not previously used in a UK student population. A convenience sample of 133 UK university students from all levels of study, undergraduate and postgraduate, completed a self-report questionnaire, either online or in person. The results demonstrated that the SUDCO scale had high internal consistency for UK university students. In addition, this study found that engagement was independently predicted by strengths use and deficits correction behaviours, whereas burnout was independently predicted by strengths use only. The implications of these findings are that strengths use and deficits correction are important predictors of engagement and burnout in university students. As a result, universities should provide opportunities for students to use their strengths and improve their deficits in interventions designed to increase engagement and decrease burnout.