As thousands of students make their way to UK university campuses to start a new academic year, thousands more are beginning to flick through uni prospectuses, book open day visits and craft their personal statements for entry in 2026. They’ll also be looking at a whole bunch of different league tables, like the Daily Mail guide, the QS World University Ranking and Uni Compare. If those weren’t enough, another ranking has been added to the mix.
The Guardian’s ranking has assessed things like student satisfaction, student to staff ratios and career prospects of 123 universities to compile its ranking for 2026. And there are no huge surprises.
Oxford University was crowned the best university in the UK for the second year in the row. The historic institution scored a perfect 100 out of 1000 from the paper. Its received 94 out of 100 for students’ satisfaction with the university’s quality of teaching (the highest score of all the ranked institutions) and found that 92 percent of grads move onto graduate level jobs or further study within 15 months. It also had the best student to staff ratio (9.1) and ranked number one in 16 subjects, including medicine, criminology, languages, philosophy, physics and economics.
The only area that Oxford didn’t do so well in was in student satisfaction, with the quality of feedback earning a score of 76 out of 100 (Leeds Trinity topped this category with a score of 92.6).
Second place went to Scotland’s St Andrews University. Widely known for its royal alumni, St Andrews was awarded an overall score of 98.3 out of 100, with 90 percent of grads in a career or further education after 15 months; a teaching satisfaction score of 92.8 and a feedback satisfaction score of 81.7. It came first for subjects including international relations, history, history of art and maths.
Completing the podium (just like last year) was the University of Cambridge. The Guardian gave Cambridge an overall score of 94.7 and ranked it first in nine subjects including anthropology and archaeology, chemical engineering, education, biology and veterinary science. The London School of Economics followed in fourth place – read more about how it did here.
The top 10 universities in the UK for 2026, according to the Guardian
- Oxford
- St Andrews
- Cambridge
- London School of Economics
- Durham
- Imperial College
- Warwick
- Bath
- University of the Arts London
- UCL
Find the full guide here.
ICYMI: The UK’s first ‘super university’ will be created in 2026.
Plus: The 10 best non-selective state schools in Britain in 2025, based on GCSE results.
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