University Guide

It can be hard to choose the right university to go for so this guide is set up to help you decide. Although choosing universities because of their specialist subject matter and talent of the teachers is important if you believe two colleges are similar then other factors may influence your choice.

University League Tables 2017

The Times Newspaper undertakes a lot of research into the UK universities each year and produced the Good University Guide. Unfortunately, the data now resides behind a paywall, so we've collated data from other specialised resources.

All league tables follow a similar format and are the results from asking actual students that attend the universities their satisfaction with various aspects of their studies. The areas covered include:

  • Overall student satisfaction with the university.
  • Research quality from the Research Excellent Framework.
  • Student to staff ratio calculated from Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data.
  • Services, academic, and facilities spend per student.
  • UCAS entry standards.
  • The percentage of graduates achieving a first or 2.1 class honours degree.
  • Graduate prospects in obtaining relevant careers.

Complete University Guide League Tables

From the information above, each university is given an overall score out of 1,000 that produces the following league table. We've taken the top 20 universities in the UK with the score shown against each college.

Overall RankUniversity NameRating
1Cambridge University1,000
2Oxford University998
3St.Andrews962
4London School of Economics952
5Imperial College London925

See the full listings at the Complete University Guide here.

Time Higher Education Rankings

UK RankWorld RankUniversity NameStudentsScore Rating
11University of Oxford19,71895.0%
24University of Cambridge18,60593.6%
38Imperial College London15,23690.0%
415University College London28,60286.5%
525London School of Economics9,40180.2%

See all global universities included in these rankings here.

WhatUni Student Choice Awards

WhatUni also has rankings based upon reviews from actual students. Below are the top five ratings from their 2017 research. Rating points are out of 5.

Overall RankUniversity NameRatingJob ProspectsCourses
1Harper Adams University4.734.794.56
2Loughborough University4.614.464.20
3Bangor University4.594.304.45
4Swansea University4.584.284.39
5Edge Hill University4.574.274.39

See the full WhatUni list for 2017 here.

Harper Adams University

This university has won the coveted title for many years, so what makes it so great?

The support, social life and quality of the teaching staff are top of the reasons why students rave about it so much.

The single campus site supports degrees in the agri-food chain and rural sector and has its own commercial farm.

The 14 halls of residence are within 10 minutes walk of the main campus. Fees for full-time UK and EU undergraduate students are £9,000 per year and placement years are £1,800.