Durham remains the sixth best uni in the UK

TheCompleteUniversityGuide.co.uk rankings have been released for 2019, confirming Durham's place as 6th best university in the UK for the third year in a row.

Durham is ranked behind Cambridge, Oxford, LSE, Imperial and St Andrews – all of whom have secured the top 5 spots since Durham dropped down from 5th to 6th place in 2017.

Complete University Guide's Main Table includes 131 institutions and is based on ten key measures: Student Satisfaction, Research Quality, Research Intensity, Entry Standards, Student: Staff Ratio; Spending on Academic Services; Spending on Student Facilities; Good Honours Degrees; Graduate Prospects and Completion.

This year Durham scored highly in all 10 of these areas, although notably was only ranked 24th for student satisfaction, with a score of 4.13.

Durham has also been placed in the Top Ten in over 31 subject categories, including being ranked 1st for English and Music; 2nd for History, Archaeology and French; and 3rd for Chemistry, Physics, Geography and Theology.

Despite this, Durham has still managed to drop down the rankings in recent years, with subjects such Education – ranked 1st in 2018, now placing Durham 6th best.

31 Durham subjects ranked within the UK Top Ten

Whilst this year's revised UCAS Tariff has not had a pronounced effect on the Main Table rankings, the subject tables have seen a small impact. Scottish Universities have seen an average increase of 7.7 places on the Entry Standards measure, which Complete University Guide say has caused more Scottish universities to appear in the Top Tens.

TheCompleteUniversityGuide.co.uk has also recognised a rise in 'Good Honours' (first class or upper second-class honours degree) being awarded to graduates, with all top 24 universities awarding such honours to over 80% of graduates . Durham, ranked 12th for graduate prospects, is amongst the top 24 universities that have all awarded good honours to over 80% of graduates.

Dr Bernard Kingston, Chairman of TheCompleteUniversityGuide.co.uk, said of the increased proportion of good honours has increased "steadily but inexorably…at almost all universities."

"Either students are working harder, or they are being better taught, or something else is happening. But is one of the criteria over which universities have a significant degree of control."