UK University Rankings 2021: Everything You Need to Know
As always, the new UK university rankings have generated a lot of interest. As the only truly independent and not-for-profit rankings, as well as the most comprehensive, The Complete University Guide is the most widely used UK ranking. In this blog I have outlined the latest UK university rankings 2021, gone over the changes and what they mean, alongside admissions trends and what else to look out for. Let’s have a look at what their latest rankings can tell us.
UK University Rankings 2021
Here is how the current state of university rankings looks for the top 20:
| Rank | University |
|---|---|
| 1 | University of Oxford |
| 2 | University of Cambridge |
| 3 | London School of Economics |
| 4 | University of St. Andrews |
| 5 | Imperial College London |
| 6 | Durham University |
| 7 | Loughborough University |
| 8 | UCL (University College London) |
| 9 | University of Warwick |
| 10 | University of Bath |
| 11 | Lancaster University |
| 12 | University of Edinburgh |
| 13 | University of Manchester |
| 13 | University of Exeter |
| 15 | University of Southampton |
| 16 | University of Glasgow |
| 17 | University of Bristol |
| 18 | University of York |
| 19 | University of Birmingham |
| 20 | University of Leeds |
Who’s on top?
The biggest news with the UK university rankings 2021 is that Oxford has overtaken Cambridge to take the prized no. 1 spot. As always, it is very close between the two universities, with Oxford taking the top spot mainly due to greater spending on academic services and a slightly better staff-to-student ratio. Behind Oxbridge, we have the same three universities as we have had for the past five years: LSE, St. Andrews and Imperial College.
How else have the top universities changed?
No big shocks in other cases within the UK university rankings 2021, with UCL, Durham, Bath and Loughborough retaining their places in the top 10. However, Warwick has moved into the top 10, in 9th place, thanks to the strength of its research and graduate job prospects.
Elsewhere, Edinburgh (12th), Manchester (13th) and Glasgow (16th) have all moved up, with Glasgow being especially highly ranked for the average academic ability of undergraduate students—4th overall! The University of York has also made a welcome return to the top 20 (18th) as it continues climbing the rankings.
King’s College London and the University of Nottingham will be less happy however, both having fallen out of the top 20, into 21st and 24th respectively.
Any other big changes?
Among the top schools within the UK university rankings 2021, the biggest climbers were Heriot Watt, up six places to 23rd; Cardiff, up five places to 25th; and Essex, up an amazing 14 places to 27th. The continued rise of Heriot Watt is especially impressive, as it begins to get closer and closer to its big brother and neighbor, the University of Edinburgh.
Going in the opposite direction are Royal Holloway, down eight places to 32nd, and Newcastle, down 14 places to 37th.
What trends can we see?
Rankings are notoriously hard to interpret, as they only show a snapshot of specific limited metrics, not all of which are really relevant to the experience of undergraduate students. However, there are two key factors that have been the main drivers between the big winners and losers in this year’s rankings. The first is recruitment, with the very best universities continuing to recruit talented professors and lecturers throughout the pandemic, and lowering their staff to student ratio. The second is student satisfaction, an increasingly powerful and important metric that has been influential in seeing newer and smaller universities rise up the rankings. With the exception of Edinburgh—which actually has a fairly poor student satisfaction score—all of this year’s improving institutions in the UK university rankings 2021 have increasing scores for these two metrics.
Which other universities should we look out for?
A special mention should go to the University of Strathclyde, which has been climbing the rankings year after year. This year, the Glasgow-based university is up five places to 30th, ranking highly for the academic ability of undergraduates and career prospects. However, Strathclyde’s truly impressive achievement is hidden in the subject ranking tables, where it is in the top 10 for 23 subjects.That’s a huge number, with only seven other universities having more top 10 subjects (Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Durham, UCL and Manchester). For Strathclyde, this is not merely scraping into 9th or 10th place either, as the university is ranked 1st for Accounting, Speech Therapy and Forensic Science, 2nd for Social Policy, Pharmacology, Bioengineering and Media, and third and Marketing and Biomedical Sciences. Most other Engineering and Business subjects are also highly placed within the UK university rankings 2021. With Strathclyde graduates forging very strong careers, it will not be long until Strathclyde’s reputation is on a par with the UK’s older universities.
Hopefully, now you have more of a clear understanding of the UK university rankings 2021. These rankings provide an overall picture, while subject-based rankings vary depending on the field. If you have your eyes on a school in the UK but aren’t sure whether it’s for you, you can check out our blog on US vs. UK universities. Happy researching!
