Newcastle climbs up in new Complete University Guide rankings

The Complete University Guide’s new league table of the finest higher learning facilities in the UK has seen Newcastle move up one place to 25th.

The top five (Cambridge, Oxford, LSE, Imperial College London and St Andrews) remain unchanged from last year’s results.

Northumbria remain mere city rivals rather than genuine competitors, as they were only able to move up one place to 59^th.

Durham dropped one place to 6th while Teeside and Sunderland continue to languish in 107th and 102nd place respectively. The news comes just a few days after Newcastle was named as ‘University of the Year’ at the Educate North Awards.

At the ceremony in the Hilton Hotel in Manchester, Newcastle swept the board with three awards including ‘Students Union of the Year’ and ‘Employer Engagement of the Year’ for the Business School.

Newcastle was recognised for its outstanding performance in the areas of business finance, teaching, research, student experience, innovation and economic impact. Despite the positive news, Newcastle remains a long way off challenging the top five in the rankings, especially in terms of finance.

In external research funding alone, Newcastle received £124.8m in 2014/2015 while Oxford University received a staggering £522.9m worth of funding: a gap of just under £400m per year.

In response to the results a Newcastle uni spokesperson said: “This reflects Newcastle University’s outstanding quality in teaching and research along with our focus on high levels of student satisfaction.

“Students have access to some of the best facilities and student services in the UK. Learning is supported by an award-winning library service and 24-hour computing clusters. The Library has over 500,000 e-books – one of the largest e-book collections in the country and the National Student Survey found that 91% of our students were happy with their time at Newcastle.

“This continued focus on world-changing research, investment in new facilities and strong, strategic partnerships reflect the value we place on staying true to regional roots while addressing the challenge of increasing global competition.”

For the first time this year, TheCompleteUniversityGuide.co.uk has introduced a new table for creative and performance arts, with 14 institutions that do not appear in the Main Table.

In separate listings for 70 subjects, Cambridge appears in the top ten in all 44 subjects it offers, topping the table in 38. Only Oxford comes close, with 34 top ten places out of the 35 it offers, topping the table in four subjects.

There are also new subject tables this year for Creative Writing, Forensic Science and Occupational Therapy.