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Sept. 15, 2025
The Guardian publishes Best UK Universities Rankings 2026
The Guardian has just published its official rankings of the best UK universities for 2026. This latest league table sees some non-movers (in fact, the top four have remained the same since last year) as well as some surprise climbers (the University of Essex has climbed a whopping 11 places).
The Guardian University Guide 2026 uses various metrics to rank the universities, including student satisfaction, graduate prospects, staff numbers, and university spending – the institutions are then given a score out of 100.
Although these assessments are predominantly made on the basis of the undergraduate courses, students, finances, etc, they can still be useful when assessing which university to choose for postgraduate studies, especially if you delve deeper into the best subject areas rankings for your topic of interest.
The Guardian Top 20 UK Universities
Here are the top 20 UK universities overall, according to The Guardian’s University Guide 2026 – with details of last year’s rankings for comparison.
|
2026 |
2025 |
University |
Overall Score |
|
1 |
1 |
University of Oxford |
100 |
|
2 |
2 |
University of St Andrews |
98.3 |
|
3 |
3 |
University of Cambridge |
94.7 |
|
4 |
4 |
London School of Economics – LSE |
93.8 |
|
5 |
6 |
Durham University |
85.4 |
|
6 |
5 |
Imperial College |
82.8 |
|
7 |
8 |
University of Warwick |
79 |
|
8 |
7 |
University of Bath |
75.9 |
|
9 |
13 |
University of the Arts London – UAL |
73.9 |
|
10 |
9 |
University College London – UCL |
73.4 |
|
11 |
10 |
Loughborough University |
73.1 |
|
12 |
23 |
University of Essex |
69.7 |
|
13 |
15 |
University of Edinburgh |
69.4 |
|
14 |
11 |
Lancaster University |
69 |
|
15 |
16 |
University of Bristol |
68.4 |
|
16 |
20 |
University of Sheffield |
68.2 |
|
17 |
18 |
University of Exeter |
67.5 |
|
18 |
12 |
University of Aberdeen |
65.7 |
|
19 |
17 |
University of Strathclyde |
64.8 |
|
20 |
22 |
University of Southampton |
64.6 |
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Content added on 15th September 2025.
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