University of Birmingham drops five places in Times Higher Education ranking for 2026

The University of Birmingham (UoB) has dropped five places in The Times Higher Education’s 2026 ranking.

Coming in at 98th, it marks the second year the university has placed within the top 100 of higher education institutes worldwide.

Aston University also dropped from its prior ranking between 351st and 400th position, now sitting between 400 and 500.

The other Birmingham uni to make the list in The Times Higher Education 2026 Rankings was Birmingham City University (BCU). It placed between 801-1000th, with a score between 35.5 and 38.9.

Despite dropping five places, UoB still managed to beat the University of Warwick, which placed 122nd on the list. A massive win considering the Complete University Guide ranked them higher than us a few months ago. I guess the rivalry continues.

via Korng Sok on Unsplash

So, how are the rankings decided?

The ranking is determined by five performance measures: Teaching, research environment, research quality, industry, and international outlook. Each of these areas is marked via a percentage; an average is then worked out to provide an overall score for each university.

Whilst UoB ranked highly in terms of its research quality, industry, and international outlook, it seems its teaching and research environment let it down. Similarly, Aston and BCU score poorly with teaching, research environment, and industry, but excel in international outlook and perform well in research quality.

Unsurprisingly, Oxford took the top spot globally with a score of 98.2 (show-offs), but Cambridge was robbed of second place by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Instead, the university tied in third with another American university, Princeton.

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The ranking also shared some key statistics surrounding each university, such as the number of full-time students, the number of students per staff, international students, and each uni’s female-to-male ratio.

UoB has 56 women for every 44 men, whilst Aston has 47 women to 53 men. BCU has the most notable gender divide, with 62 women per 38 men.

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Featured images via Korng Sok and Shoeib Abolhassani on Unsplash, and Graham Taylor on Creative Commons.