Sunday Times 2026 league table is out: Durham is now a top five uni in ALL major rankings

The Sunday Times 2026 university league table is officially out, and Durham is now named as a top five university in all the major rankings.

The Times and The Sunday Times has given Durham the title of university of the year, and ranked it third in the overall league table. The uni has been beaten only by the London School of Economics and the University of St Andrews.

According to The Times’ league table, Oxford and Cambridge have both fallen out of the top three universities in their ranking for the first time in 32 years.

Durham scored highly across the board, with especially strong student satisfaction rates. Graduates are also considered to have excellent job prospects, which saw the uni named joint runner-up for university of the year in regards to graduate employment. 

Teaching and research facilities were also praised, with Helen Davies, the editor of The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide, calling the title a “significant achievement”. 

Durham is now a top five university for all three major UK rankings. Whilst The Times’ guide places it in the top three, The Complete University Guide ranks it as fifth, as does The Guardian University Guide 2026.

QS World University Rankings 2026 also saw Durham ranking in the top 100 internationally, coming in at 64th.

Winning university of the year, The Times says, counters the “‘Oxbridge reject’ stereotype” that can be commonly associated with Durham.

Across the board, the university achieved a significantly high score of 906 out of a possible 1000.

In the Guardian’s guide the university also had 15 of its subject areas rank in the top five.

Theology and religious studies was given a perfect score of 100 out of 100.

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Durham was also chosen as the country’s top theology department by the Complete University Guide earlier this year.

The university was ranked second best in the country for English and biology, trailing only Oxford and Cambridge respectively in the two departments.

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