These are the best UK unis right now according to the Daily Mail’s new uni rankings
Number one is so rogue
The Daily Mail has published The Mail University Guide rankings for 2025, and some of the positions on the UK uni rankings are really surprising.
The Daily Mail apparently based its ranking on several factors including graduate salaries 15 months after leaving the unis, the unis’ incomes from research, and the opinions of 346,000 final-year students.
Oxbridge students may despair that the Daily Mail put Imperial College London ahead of both the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge for the second year in a row. The Daily Mail says it put Imperial first because “it takes widening access seriously, with one of the most progressive bursary programmes in the UK. It also makes reduced offers to students who qualify under its contextual admissions criteria, which have been beefed up this year.”
The Mail added: “Imperial’s graduates are in demand, with more going into highly skilled jobs than those from any other university, and commanding the highest salaries, too.”
Grads from Imperial earn an average of £37,823.46 15 months after they graduate.
Several Russell Group unis are surprisingly low down. The University of Exeter and the University of York are in joint 35th place, and Newcastle University is in 41st place.
So, here are the up-to-date UK uni rankings, according to the Daily Mail:
=50. Harper Adams University
=50. Bangor University
=48. University of Bradford
=48. Edinburgh Napier University
47. London South Bank University
46. Northumbria University
45. Royal Holloway, University of London
44. University of Essex
43. University of Hull
42. University of Reading
41. Newcastle University
40. Glasgow Caledonian University
39. Ulster University
38. Swansea University
37. Lancaster University
=35. University of York
=35. University of Exeter
34. Cardiff University
=32. University of Nottingham
=32. Heriot-Watt University
=30. University of Leicester
=30. University of Edinburgh
=28. University of East Anglia
=28. University of Manchester
27. City, University of London
=25. University of Leeds
=25. University of Liverpool
24. Aston University
23. Queen’s University, Belfast
22. University of Aberdeen
21. University of Glasgow
20. University of Southampton
=18. University of Surrey
=18. University of Bristol
=16. Queen Mary, University of London
=16. Durham University
15. University of Birmingham
14. Loughborough University
13. King’s College London
12. St George’s, University of London
=10. University of Sheffield
=10. University of Dundee
9. University of Bath
8. University of Strathclyde
7. University of St Andrews
6. University of Warwick
5. University College London (UCL)
4. London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
3. University of Cambridge
2. University of Oxford
1. Imperial College London
Related articles recommended by this author:
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- Bottoms up! These are the Russell Group unis with the most pubs in 2024
Feature image credit: Chessie Gunner