Cambridge University beaten by Imperial College London in new university world ranking

Cambridge University has been beaten by both Imperial College London and University of Oxford in a new university world ranking for 2024.

The QS World Ranking for 2025 has been published, with Cambridge University coming in fifth place.

The QS World Ranking ranks the top universities in the world, scoring them out of 100. This year Cambridge got a 96.7 score, dropping three places from 2024.

Cambridge has been beaten by two other English universities and two American ones – the 2025 top five are MIT (100), Imperial College London (98.5), University of Oxford (96.9), Harvard University (96.8) and the University of Cambridge (96.7).

Last year Cambridge came second in the world, with a near-perfect score of 99.2 – just 0.8 off MIT in first place with a perfect 100 score. This year they were 3.3 off MIT, dropping by 2.5.

Cambridge was beaten not only by their long-standing rival Oxford (with a score of 96.9 in third, but also Imperial College London which was awarded 98.5. Imperial rose from sixth best in 2024 to second place in the world.

Image credit: Author’s own screenshot via QS

MIT was once again awarded 100 and placed at the top of the list, which QS describes as “the largest ever”, adding that it features “1,500 universities across 105 higher education systems”.

The universities are judged on metrics including their academic and employer reputations, citations and the ratio of international to national students.

This year there were three new metrics which changed up scores: sustainability, employment outcomes and international research networks.

Based on these categories, MIT has been top of the ranking for an impressive 13 years, while Imperial has made a sudden jump of four places.

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