The College of Oxford has secured the highest place within the Instances Larger Schooling World College Rankings 2026 for an unprecedented tenth consecutive 12 months, main a powerful efficiency by UK establishments.
The distinguished checklist additionally noticed the College of Cambridge rise to joint third place from fifth in 2025, whereas Imperial School London climbed one spot to eighth.
In whole, 11 UK universities featured throughout the international prime 10.
Compiled yearly since 2004, the rankings analyse practically 19 million analysis papers, 1.5 million survey votes, and information from over 30,000 universities.
Components embody educating and analysis status, energy, and varied revenue streams. Of the two,191 establishments ranked globally, 109 had been from the UK.
13 improved their positions, 64 maintained their 2025 standing, and 28 noticed a drop.
That is the primary 12 months since 2016 that the UK has had fewer than 50 universities that made the highest 500, although it’s only slightly below this with 49.
THE mentioned the UK is joint fourth for many represented nation within the rankings behind the United States, India and Japan.
The UK did properly on its educating status and enchancment in analysis excellence, THE mentioned, however noticed a fall in scores for analysis energy, and the student-staff ratio grew from 16.8 to twenty.5 college students per instructor.
These ratio figures “predate the most recent developments within the UK greater training funding disaster, however the ratio is just prone to worsen as jobs cuts proceed and establishments’ sources swindle”, THE mentioned.
The College of Leeds noticed its greatest 12 months ever because it climbed from 123rd to 118th, whereas the College of Liverpool jumped from joint a hundred and sixtieth to 143rd.
Metropolis St George’s, College of London, which merged final 12 months, is within the prime three new mergers to hitch the rankings, and made the 351-400 vary.
On the opposite facet of issues, each the London College of Economics (LSE) and Political Science and the College of Warwick noticed their worst performances in these rankings. The previous dropped out of the highest 50 to return 52nd, and the latter fell from 106th to joint 122nd.
The Instances and The Sunday Instances Good College Information 2026 ranked London College of Economics and Political Science first within the nation for the second 12 months in a row in September.
A spokesperson for LSE mentioned universities prefer it which specialize in social sciences are deprived by the methodology of some rankings in the event that they favour “broader establishments with science, engineering and drugs schools”.
Phil Baty, THE’s chief international affairs officer, mentioned: “This 12 months’s rankings spotlight a dramatic and accelerating development – the shift within the stability of energy in analysis and better training excellence from the long-established, dominant establishments of the West to rising stars of the East.
“The US and far of western Europe have suffered important misplaced floor on this planet rankings, whereas East Asian nations, led by China, proceed to thrive and surge up the desk.
“This clear development is ready to persist as analysis funding and worldwide expertise attraction proceed to be stymied within the West.”
Aside from the three UK establishments, the remainder of THE’s international prime 10 is made up totally of US universities, with the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise taking second and Princeton College coming joint third with Cambridge. The US additionally dominates a lot of the highest 30.
Elsewhere on this planet, Eire’s top-ranked college – Trinity School Dublin – has seen its rating fall from 139th to 173rd, its worst efficiency.
A spokesperson for Trinity School Dublin mentioned the college stays the top-ranked Irish college on this rating and others and “fluctuations are to be anticipated” given the checklist of universities lined by the rating is rising yearly.
“It’s vital to notice that methodologies differ and within the current 2026 QS World College Rating, Trinity improved its place to rank seventy fifth on this planet,” they added.
Universities in China took twelfth and thirteenth, the Nationwide College of Singapore got here in seventeenth, and the College of Tokyo rose up two locations to twenty sixth.
