The Times Good University Guide ranking is here – and a really surprising uni beat Oxbridge

The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide – the oldest league table that your parents get the most oddly competitive about – is back for 2024. The winning university is a massive surprise because it’s literally never topped a major UK unis ranking before 2024.

The Times explains how it actually comes up with all these rankings here. Universities a scored on a variety of factors including graduate prospects, research quality and how happy the students said they were in the 2023 and 2024 National Student Survey.

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has jumped up three places in the league table to the number one spot. The Times gave it a perfect score of 1000. LSE has never topped the Times league table before. The Times also awarded LSE University of the Year 2025. Does it get a medal and a nice bunch of flowers?

The University of Sheffield was this year’s runner up for University of the Year 2025 award, even though it came in 14th place on the league tables.

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Oxbridge students will be pissed because the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge have been dethroned by both LSE and the University of St Andrews. The Times put Oxford above Cambridge in its ranking of UK unis. The main difference in their scores came from student-staff ratio – Oxford has 10.3 students for each staff member, while Cambridge has 11.6 – and The Times’s “People & Planet” category. The Times explains here that it rates “universities’ performance on environmental indicators”, including how much recycling the uni does, how much money the uni has tied up in fossil fuel investments, and how environmentally the food served in campus canteens is. The University of Cambridge has a People & Planet score of 46.7, while the University of Oxford has a way higher score of 49.4.

Shhh, nobody tell the Oxbridge students that St Andrews and LSE beat their unis. Their fragile egos can’t take it
(Credit: Francesca Gunner)

Although Russell Group unis are supposed to be the most prestigious unis in the UK or whatever, The Times put some of them pretty far down in its ranking. Queen Mary University of London came 39th and Cardiff University came 32nd. Newcastle University and the University of Nottingham tied for 30th place. Three of the top ten unis – the University of St Andrews, the University of Bath and Loughborough University – aren’t Russell Group unis at all.

The Times still thinks that St Andrews is the best university in Scotland. Although St Andrews has dropped from the top spot on the league tables, it still came miles higher than the University of Aberdeen, the University of Glasgow and the University of Edinburgh. The University of Aberdeen has risen four spots to 15th place, and so has beaten both Glasgow and Edinburgh, which came 16th and 17th. Ouch.

Imperial College London has fallen to a measly sixth place on The Times league table, even though the Daily Mail put it first in their UK unis ranking this year and it’s the best uni for snapping up a high-skilled grad job.

According to The Times, the worst university in the country is the Royal Agricultural University. This uni fell a very dramatic 27 places to the bottom of the league tables. It scored just 237 points. Only 68 per cent of students there get a 2:1 or a first. Despite being a uni dedicated to plants and animals, the Royal Agricultural University scored especially badly in the environmental category. The Times gave it a really low People & Planet score of 18.3

So, without further rambling, here actually is the full ranking of all 131 UK unis in The Times Good University Guide:

1. London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

2. University of St Andrews

3. University of Oxford

4. University of Cambridge

5. Durham University

6. Imperial College London

7. University College London (UCL)

8. University of Bath

9. University of Warwick

10. Loughborough University

11. University of Bristol

12. Lancaster University

13. University of Exeter

All these Exetaaaaaah students presumably weren’t put off by Exeter falling to 13th place
(Credit: Francesca Gunner)

14. University of Sheffield

15. University of Aberdeen

16. University of Glasgow

=17. University of Edinburgh

=17. University of York

19. University of Southampton

20. University of Strathclyde

21. University of Surrey

22. University of Birmingham

23. University of Liverpool

=24. King’s College London

=24. University of Reading

26. Queen’s University, Belfast

=27. University of Leicester

=27. University of Manchester

29. University of Leeds

=30. Newcastle University

=30. University of Nottingham

I would give the University of Nottingham bonus points for the number of swans on campus
(Credit: Pebble Barling)

32. Cardiff University

33. University of East Anglia (UEA)

34. Royal Holloway, University of London

35. Aston University

36. University of Dundee

37. Swansea University

38. University of Sussex

39. Queen Mary University of London

=40. University of Kent

=40. University of the Arts London

42. Nottingham Trent University

43. Northumbria University

44. Glasgow Caledonian University

45. Ulster University

=46. Manchester Metropolitan University

=46. University of Essex

48. Aberystwyth University

49. City, University of London

50. Oxford Brookes University

51. Heriot-Watt University

52. St Mary’s University, Twickenham

53. Harper Adams University

54. Coventry University

55. University of Portsmouth

56. University of Lincoln

=57. Keele University

=57. University of West London

59. Edinburgh Napier University

60. University of Hull

Why don’t all these uni rankings ever take into account how many pubs there are near campus? (Credit: Emily Baldock)

61. Robert Gordon University

62. University of Chichester

63. University of Stirling

64. Bangor University

65. SOAS University of London

=66. Cardiff Metropolitan University

=66. Liverpool John Moores University

68. University of the West of England

69. St George’s, University of London

70. University of Plymouth

71. University of Brighton

72. University of Salford

73. Falmouth University

74. Abertay University

75. Plymouth Marjon University

76. Bath Spa University

77. University of Derby

=78. Arts University Bournemouth

=78. University of Huddersfield

80. Goldsmiths, University of London

81. Norwich University of the Arts

82. Bournemouth University

83. University of Hertfordshire

=84. Edge Hill University

=84. Sheffield Hallam University

86. Bishop Grosseteste University

87. University for the Creative Arts

88. Leeds Beckett University

89. University of Chester

I reckon most students actually pick their unis based on the size of the bedrooms instead of the research quality or student-staff ratio, but The Times doesn’t seem to have a system for that

=90. Birmingham Newman University

=90. University of Gloucestershire

92. Leeds Arts University

93. York St John University

=94. Liverpool Hope University

=94. University of South Wales

96. University of Central Lancashire

97. Kingston University

98. Solent University

99. University of Worcester

100. London South Bank University

101. Staffordshire University

102. University of Greenwich

103. University of Winchester

104. Teesside University

=105. Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh

=105. University of Sunderland

=107. Birmingham City University

=107. Brunel University London

109. Canterbury Christ Church University

110. University of Wales Trinity St David

111. University of Bradford

112. Leeds Trinity University

113. De Montfort University

114. University of Buckingham

115. Wrexham University

116. Hartpury University

117. Middlesex University

118. University of Roehampton

119. University of Bolton

Maybe the vibey views of Westminster will compensate for going to such a low-ranked uni?

120. University of Westminster

121. University of the West of Scotland

122. Buckinghamshire New University

123. University of Wolverhampton

124. University of Suffolk

125. University of Northampton

126. University of East London

127. London Metropolitan University

128. University of Cumbria

129. University of Bedfordshire

130. Anglia Ruskin University

131. Royal Agricultural University

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