World University Rankings

The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2026, features over 2191 institutions across 115 countries and territories and assesses research-intensive universities across all their core missions: teaching (29.5%), research environment (29%), research quality (30%), international outlook (7.5%), and industry (4%) (Times Higher Education, 2025a).

The Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings 2026 features over 1500 universities across more than 100 locations. Its results are based on five lenses: Research and Discovery (50%), Employability and Outcomes (20%), Learning Experience (10%), Global Engagement (15%), and Sustainability (5%) (QS Top Universities, 2025a).

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2025 ranks more than 2500 universities annually, and the best 1000 are published. ARWU uses six objective indicators to rank world universities: Alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, Highly Cited Researchers selected by Clarivate, papers published in Nature and Science, papers indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index (Web of Science), and per capita performance of an institution (ShanghaiRanking, 2025).

The US News & World Report: 2025-2026 Best Global Universities Rankings ranks over 2250 institutions across 105 countries. Its results are based on 13 indicators such as global research reputation (12.5%), regional research reputation (12.5%), number of publications that are among the 10% most cited (12.5%), percentage of total publications that are among the 10% most cited (10%), publications (10%), normalised citation impact (10%) and more (Morse and Wellington, 2025).

The four most famous international university league tables 

THE World University Rankings 2026: Best universities for overall in the UK

1 Oxford

3 Cambridge

8 Imperial College London

22 UCL

29 Edinburgh

38 King’s College London

52 LSE

56 Manchester

80 Bristol

84 Glasgow

98 Birmingham

108 Sheffield

118 Leeds

122 Warwick

129 Southampton

134 Queen Mary University of London

143 Liverpool

144 Newcastle

145 Nottingham

154 York

162 St Andrews

170 Exeter

175 Durham

184 Lancaster

192 Leicester

198 Queen’s University Belfast

201-250 Cardiff

201-250 Aberdeen

201-250 Reading

201-250 Surrey

201-250 Sussex

251-300 Bath

251-300 East Anglia

Source: Times Higher Education (2025b).