Manchester has been named the eighth best university in Europe!!

The University of Manchester is now the 27th best university in the world, according to QS 2020 rankings, rising two places from 29th last year.

Manchester is also the eighth best university in Europe, and sixth in the UK.

The QS World University Rankings rank the world’s top 1000 universities based on factors such as academic reputation, graduate employability prospects and faculty-to-student ratio.

The University of Manchester is 22nd in the world for employer reputation, which is based on responses from employers about the relationship between the university and graduate employment – so now you can convince your mum that three years of nights out was a good idea.

In terms of the other criteria that QS look at, Manchester is 33rd in the world for academic reputation, 46th for international student ratio, 172nd for faculty-to-student ratio and 211th for citations per faculty.

The UK has nine universities in the global top 50, improving by one since last year. In the the QS ranking, there are 84 UK universities overall as well as over 400 from across Europe.

Based on the world's top 100 universities, the UK is also the second strongest country globally in terms of higher education.

Overall, universities in the UK have experienced their third worst performance in the sixteen editions of the QS World University Rankings. Researchers suggest this may be down to increasing student numbers and class sizes, as well as decreasing recognition from employers.

The top three universities in the world are all American. Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been the best university in the world for eight years running, with Stanford University and Harvard University coming in second and third.

The University of Oxford has risen to fourth place this year, making it the UK's best university. The University of Cambridge has dropped to seventh, down one since 2019.