One of the current challenges in Higher Education is the development of students’ emotional competencies, and consequently, how these competencies can be trained. Moreover, this must be addressed within the UN framework of inclusive, equitable, quality education (United Nations Agenda 2030) (SDG 4). To address this challenge, the present study set the following objectives: (1) to analyze pre-service teachers’ level of interest in EI and their perceived level of general EI knowledge, (2) to examine their self-perception of certain variables of emotional knowledge, according to their degree program and year of studies, (3) to analyze the relationship between these emotional knowledge variables and perceived emotional intelligence (EI); and (4) to study the predictive capacity of the study variables on future teachers' emotional knowledge variables. The study sample contained a total of 434 university students from three degree programs at two universities in Spain, of which 82.70% were women, and the mean age was 20.91 years. Two instruments were used: an ad hoc questionnaire, which assessed perceived emotional knowledge according to three variables (General knowledge of EI, where level of training in EI is considered; Intrapersonal knowledge of EI; and Theoretical-practical knowledge related to teaching), and the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS-24), which assesses metaknowledge of emotional states across three variables (Attention, Clarity, and Repair). Results of the study suggest that there are differences in perceived EI knowledge according to students' year of studies and according to their degree, and indicate that students present high interest, while their perceived level of knowledge is low. In addition, emotional clarity is the EI variable that was identified as being important in the emotional knowledge of future teachers. This study shows evidence of the importance of social-emotional competencies in initial teacher training.