Latest UK University Rankings Released

The Guardian newspaper today released its 2012 UK university league tables, placing Cambridge in top spot for the first time in six years.

Cambridge (pictured above) pipped Oxford to first place, with St. Andrews, LSE and UCL making up the rest of the top five. The big movers of the table were Middlesex which climbed 37 places to 75th since last year, and Birmingham City University which fell from 66th to 90th.

The Guardian’s table is based on data only for full-time undergraduate students, and the universities are ranked according to how much they spend per student, their student/staff ratio, the employability of their graduates, what grades applicants need, a value-added score and student satisfaction.

Below you can see the top 30 in the league table.

Tuition Fees

These latest rankings have inevitably been matched up against the increased prices of tuition fees which are gradually being revealed by the universities. Interestingly, the results show that lower ranked universities are almost as likely to charge the maximum £9,000 in 2012 as those higher up the rankings. For example, London Metropolitan University, Salford, Liverpool John Moores, Manchester Metropolitan and the University of East London all plan to charge up to £9,000 for some of their courses, and all are ranked in the bottom 20 universities.

However, despite this, all of the top 20 universities are planning on charging £9,000 apart from LSE which has not yet released its plans.

Subject Tables

As well as the overall university rankings, subject tables were also released today which rank UK universities by specific course. Whilst inevitably Oxford and Cambridge rank among the best for most subjects, a number of other universities show their strengths in particular areas.

A few notable examples include UCL topping the table for English, Bristol for Music, Loughborough for Sports Science and Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Drama.

Visit the Guardian website to see the full subject tables, as well as the complete university rankings table. You can also find profiles of the top universities in the UK in our university directory.

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