Durham climbs up to sixth place in The Guardian’s university rankings for 2025

The uni moved up one place from last year’s ranking

3 months ago

The Guardian’s ranked Durham University as sixth in 2025’s University Guide, up one place from the 2024 ranking.

Ranked above Durham are Oxford, St Andrews, Cambridge, LSE and Imperial in that respective order.

From last years’ table, Durham has swapped places with the University of Bath and there remains a marginal 1.3 Guardian score gap between the two, while Durham is just a 1.8 Guardian score gap behind Imperial in fifth. There is, however, a 19.2 Guardian score gap between Durham and first-placed Oxford.

The Guardian’s “Value Added”‘ score compares student’s entry qualifications with their degree result to measure the effectiveness of their teaching and general academic achievement. Durham scored 6.2/10, higher than both Oxford and Cambridge yet lower than St Andrews, Imperial and LSE.

The Guardian ranking found that 91 per cent of Durham graduates are in full-time graduate employment or other schemes of Higher Educational study within 15 months of their graduation date. Meanwhile, 87.9 per cent of Durham’s final year students, in the NSS, said they were satisfied with the standard and quality of teaching at Durham.

Durham also scored well for first year continuation, with 97.5 per cent of students progressing through to their second year of study. At 99 and 98 per cent respectively, Cambridge and Oxford are the only universities in the country to beat Durham in this regard.