The UK’s top 10 universities according to the Guardian University Guide 2025

It’s that time of year again. Thousands of students are heading off to uni for the first time, and thousands more are readying their applications, flicking through prospectuses, deciding which course in which school is right for them. If you’re currently stuck deciding where to go, or you just started somewhere and you want to know if you should get out while you still can, loads of different rankings of the UK’s universities have been announced recently.

Earlier this week the Daily Mail revealed that Imperial College London had topped its list, but today we have a competitor which disagrees. The Guardian, which, we feel we should say, has been doing this whole uni-ranking thing a lot longer, has now also released its 2025 league tables.

St Andrews, Oxford and Cambridge have been fighting for the top spot in a few different rankings in the past few years, but due to brilliant student satisfaction scores and good rates of graduate employment in a relevant field, Oxford just managed to nab back its Guardian from last year’s champion St Andrews, which is now in second. Cambridge, which had previously held the gold for quite a few years in a row, has been relegated to the murky depths of third.

The Guardian considers eight different criteria: percentage satisfied with teaching, percentage satisfied with feedback, staff to student ratios, spend per student, average entry requirements, career after 15 months, continuation of degree (eg. going into a relevant field), and then finally gives an overall score out of 100. Oxford was awarded a perfect 100 for 2025, which is pretty impressive.

RECOMMENDED: This London university has been crowned the best in the UK by the Daily Mail.

The rest of the top 10 isn’t exactly full of surprises, although Bath has really been climbing in the last decade and has now firmly cemented itself amongst the greats. Here are the best of the best from the Guardian’s 2025 ranking

The UK’s top ten universities, as rated by the Guardian

1. Oxford: 100
2. St Andrews: 98.6
3. Cambridge: 94.5
4. London School of Economics: 88.1
5. Imperial College, London: 82.6
6. Durham: 80.8
7. Bath: 79.5
8. Warwick: 75.2
9. University College London: 74.8
10. Loughborough: 74.6
    

If you want to have a look at the entire list to see where your institution ended up, you can check it out here. You can also filter it by subject to discover things such as the fact that the University of Central Lancashire came first for creative writing, despite coming 104th overall. 

Once again congrats to Oxford and condolences to St Andrews. You’ll get ’em next time. 

More higher education on Time Out  

One ranking not enough? Here’s what the Academic Ranking of World Universities thinks are the best UK unis, this is what QS named the best universities in the country for 2025 and here’s what real students ranked the UK’s best unis for student satisfaction. Plus, these are the UK uni courses with the highest-paid graduates. 

Stay in the loop: sign up to our free Time Out UK newsletter for the latest UK news and the best stuff happening across the country.