UK University Rankings

When considering spending your time and money on a postgraduate qualification it is important to know you’re spending money on something that’s worth it. You may have read our blog articles and found a few Universities that you like, but want to see where an institution ranks before applying to it.

We’ve included a comparison table below with a list of universities in UK to show two of the most popular UK University Ranking tables, The Times Good University Guide and The Guardian University Guide so you can find out what the best universities in the UK are.

What do the University Rankings Measure?

• Student Satisfaction
• Staff Student Ratio
• Expenditure / Spend per student
• Entry requirements (undergraduate level)
• Research Quality
• Students career prospects
• Number of International Students

The exact methodology used to determine the importance of each metric isn’t clear. There are also many factors that league tables do not acknowledge. It is partly for this reason, along with doubts about their methodologies and the difference in position of an institution across different rankings that has drawn a lot of criticism to this approach to comparing institutions.

Why do University Rankings Matter?

Generally, the higher the position of your chosen institution on the table below the better this will look in the eye of your future employer. We strongly recommend that at postgraduate level you should put a greater weighting on the performance of a particular department/school rather than an institution. Find out more about postgraduate faculties. For example, whilst we know that Oxford and Cambridge offer a world class education,  there are universities more distinguished in fields such as Sports Science or Creative Arts.

What next?

Once you’ve seen the overall league table we suggest you take a look at our A-Z of institutions page where you can click straight through to an institution’s profile. subject directories to get a better idea of institutions that perform well in your chosen field and then find postgraduate courses in this area with our course search facility. Make sure you try to attend a University open day before applying, in order to get a better feel for an institution.

Rankings based on The Guardian University Guide 2013
and The Times Good University Guide 2013 ranking tables.