St Andrews has cemented its lead as the best university in the country, pulling further away from Oxford and Cambridge in the latest Guardian University Guide.
The Fife university came top of the table for the first time in 2022, after knocking Oxford off the second spot in 2019. This year, the gap between first place and Oxford and Cambridge in second and third place respectively has widened, while St Andrews has claimed top spot in nine of the individual subject rankings, more than ever before.
Prof Dame Sally Mapstone, the St Andrews vice-chancellor, said: “I think everyone associated with St Andrews will be absolutely delighted. To be ranked top last year was very special, to do it two years in succession risks becoming habit-forming. It is a great compliment to our fantastic academic and professional services staff, the university’s longstanding commitment to a very special blend of research-led teaching, and the hard work of our remarkable students.”
She added that St Andrews position at the top confirmed its strength in offering students a good experience, since this is what the Guardian rankings captured.
St Andrews’ consistent success could replace the “Oxbridge” moniker as UK universities’ signifier of prestige with “Stoxbridge”. The Scottish institution is the third-oldest university in the UK after Oxford and Cambridge.
Matt Hiely-Rayner, who compiled the guide, said that “St Andrews has consolidated the lead it took last year and has even extended it”.
St Andrews’ improved position is because of higher grades from incoming students, a higher rate of students completing their courses, improved graduate prospects, and a slightly lower staff to student ratio.
Hiely-Rayner added that overall “it has been a relatively stable year, particularly near the top of the rankings. Universities moved around nine places on average, which is comparatively low and is partly due to the methodology remaining consistent.”
The London School of Economics came fourth again and Imperial took fifth place. The only changes to the top 10 were Bath claiming Durham’s sixth place and pushing Durham into seventh, and UCL taking Warwick’s eighth spot, moving Warwick down to ninth.
Oxbridge shone in the subject tables this year, with Oxford increasing its haul of first places to 11, more than any other university, including in economics, politics, geography, computer science, and earth and marine sciences. St Andrews gained top spot for languages and linguistics, business and management and psychology, while Cambridge gained top spot for veterinary science.
The two biggest risers in the rankings were further down the table: Portsmouth, at 33, and Soas, in 52nd place, both climbing 34 places.
The university that has shown the most consistent improvement over the past five years is the University of the Arts London. The institution has progressed from 45th four years ago to 26th, 19th and now 15th, its highest ever.
UAL’s vice-chancellor, James Purnell, credited its success to two factors currently maligned by the government: the creative arts and international students.
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He said that some of the recent headlines from ministers making negative comments about overseas students “were not helpful to the sector”.
“We always try to say, to the public and to government, this is an unbelievable asset for our students and for the UK,” he said.
He added that the government’s emphasis on Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) was a “classic false choice”.
“If we’re going to invent materials for the future it’s going to be at the intersection of science, technology, fashion and design. I can’t think of any problem that doesn’t need a mixture of those skills. We’d love to persuade politicians to shift away from what is a false choice to a recognition that creativity and innovation are ways of solving some of the most intractable problems we face,” he said.