Looking for a university place in Clearing? The new edition of the Daily Mail University Guide, published today, can help you find the best university and course for you with its definitive university and subject rankings and comprehensive profiles of all the leading institutions. Clearing used to be the 'Last Chance Saloon' for applicants who had not got the A-level grades they were expecting and therefore left scrambling to find an institution that would take them. Not any more. Three-quarters of elite universities are hunting for students in Clearing and with students picking up their A-level results tomorrow, experts are predicting a ‘buyer’s market’. With places on 26,000 courses up for grabs – 3,500 of those courses at elite Russell Group universities including Bristol, Durham and King's College London – it is a bumper year for vacancies. And many universities are desperate as their finances have been squeezed by sharp falls in the numbers of lucrative overseas students, who are charged much higher fees than their UK counterparts. With 43% of universities facing a deficit in 2024-25, according to the Office for Students, they can't afford empty places earmarked for UK students – with courses and even departments at risk if there are significant shortfalls. Courteney Sheppard, head of operations at Ucas, said: ‘It’s a good year to be a student applying for undergraduate study. We’re seeing a record number of offers being made, as well as lots of choices available in Clearing.’ With so many universities and courses to choose from, the new edition of our University Guide is an essential companion for those looking over the coming days to secure a place to study this autumn. As well as this article showcasing the full rankings for 128 universities, Daily Mail+ subscribers can access the interactive Daily Mail University Guide, where there is a wealth of further information available as well as our exclusive University Finder tool. Here you can search all the UK’s leading universities and personalise the results according to the factors you value most – even including criteria such as location, accommodation cost and university size. With the expansion of Clearing to include so many more universities and courses, growing numbers of students are only beginning their search for a place once they have their A-level results. Others who achieve better-than-expected grades will use Clearing to ‘trade up’ - or 'Adjust' - to a more prestigious course. It means universities with lower entry requirements may struggle to fill courses if they lose too many students to their higher-ranking rivals, as happened last year, when several Russell Group universities admitted hundreds of additional UK students, including many who had not achieved their offer grades. Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), said: ‘This summer is shaping up to be a buyer’s market for school leavers aiming for university. Demand is flat, so universities are very keen to recruit – or else they’ll have to close courses or even whole departments, which is something they are desperate to avoid. ‘People who do worse than they expected in their exams are well-placed to find a new place through Clearing – including at traditional and prestigious universities. ‘There are places available whether you missed a grade or two or are having to reassess all your options.’ Use our University Finder to explore those options. You can personalise the university rankings by adjusting the weightings in our table to find the university best suited to you. And don't forget our rankings of 78 of the most popular subjects, based on the key factors that will shape your time at university. To get you started, all universities are listed in rank order below. 1. Imperial College London Our top-ranked university for the third successive year, Imperial saw a record number of applications for places on courses beginning in September 2024. Those applications came from across the world, with 47% of places awarded through Ucas going to international students. The university focuses on science, engineering, mathematics, medicine and business, billing itself as a world-leading university. Imperial's success is rooted in academic excellence and an unparalleled record in graduate destinations where high-quality jobs and high salaries are the norm. It also has a growing reputation for providing an excellent student experience following its significant recent focus on this after a string of poor scores (now largely corrected) in the annual National Student Survey (NSS). Where the Daily Mail led in being the only UK university ranking to place Imperial top, others have followed: global rankings produced by QS for the past two years have put Imperial as the top-ranked UK university for the first time, standing second in the world behind the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The university's strong social conscience is evidenced by a bursary scheme that is among the most generous in the UK and a contextual admissions scheme - revised for September 2025 admissions - that is expected to increase the proportion of students from under-represented backgrounds. 2. University of Oxford Oxford features at the top or close to the top of every domestic and international university ranking and attracts the very brightest of applicants. Nearly half of 2024's intake achieved A*A*A* at A-level, although it does not routinely ask for A*s across the board. It places more faith in its admissions procedures - which feature interviews and either subject-specific or general aptitude tests - than some of its rivals, with AAA at A-level being the typical offer. Oxford has taken huge strides to diversify its intake over the past decade. In 2024, 66.2% of new students were educated in state schools (although this was down from a peak of 68.6%), 13.6% came from areas with low rates of participation in higher education (17%), and 14.5% from disadvantaged backgrounds (16%). The proportion of black and mixed-ethnic heritage entrants and those who have received free school meals was up between 2020 and 2024. There are 32 undergraduate colleges spanning the ancient and modern, and traditional and relaxed, and not all subjects are available in each. They offer very different social and educational mixes too, so it pays to choose carefully. The deadline for application is earlier than other universities, on October 15. 3. University of Cambridge Cambridge remains one of the most-prized destinations in global higher education. It goes without saying that you need to be clever to get in - 57% of the intake in September 2024 gained A*A*A* at A-level. However, you need more than just good predicted grades to prove you will flourish here. A shake-up of admissions - achieved without any decline in academic standards - has made the whole business of getting a place fairer. The proportion of the intake who are privately educated has dropped sharply (now accounting for 29% of UK students), while one in seven come from the 40% of postcodes considered to be the most deprived. The university has set its sights on 'serving the UK as a whole', in the words of vice-chancellor Professor Deborah Prentice. Her comments allude to the fact that 50.7% of admissions come from London and the South East, while 2.4% are from the North East. The university's outreach work is trying to fix this by generating more applications from the regions. The 29 undergraduate colleges differ sharply, so do visit them before applying. Open days happen early, in the summer term of Year 12. The application deadline - October 15 - is also early. 4. London School of Economics and Political Science It takes a university with the global heft of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) - our University of the Year for Student Success - to be able to resist the downturn in international student enrolments due to the UK's student visa policy. Even LSE had expected a downturn in enrolments, but such fears proved unfounded as the school recorded an increase in tuition-fee income of more than £21million in 2023-24. With a record number of applications last year - amounting to more than 14 for every place - there is no other UK university that can be so selective over who it recruits. The intake is evenly split between UK and international students. A commitment to making the admissions process fair to all meant that one in four UK students offered a place in September 2024 received a contextual offer that cuts the entry requirements by one or two A-level grades. The school specialises in the social sciences, with business, maths and law students also on the books. Its largely pedestrianised precinct in central London is close to theatres, museums and retail distractions. Graduates are well-paid and hugely in demand and there it has more alumni who have gone on to run countries around the world than any other university. Wherever you look at the LSE, there is student success. 5. University College London University College London (UCL) is runner-up for our University of the Year award this year after another exceptional performance in our rankings. UCL has an extensive programme of celebrations planned for its bicentenary in 2026. And with good cause. Ranked fifth in the UK in our ranking and ninth in the world in the latest QS World University Rankings, a place at UCL is coveted the world over. International recruits make up the majority of the intake even after the near-30% increase in domestic admissions in 2024, which saw more than 1,000 additional UK undergraduates admitted. Now with two London campuses - the original Bloomsbury base in the heart of London's West End and the new UCL East in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park - it is not hard to see why a record near 80,000 applications were received last year, double the number in 2015. A key part of UCL's 2022-27 strategic plan will see the largest ever expansion of extra-curricular experiences. Academic excellence spans the arts, sciences, engineering, medicine and social sciences. Despite stiff competition for places, almost one in three students gained a place in 2024 via a contextual offer, generally pitched at one or two A-level grades below standard entry requirements. And £13m of financial support goes some way towards offsetting the exorbitant costs of studying in the capital. 6 (joint). University of Strathclyde Strathclyde, which wins our UK University of the Year award, is a model 21st-century university. It is among the UK's leading engineering and technological universities, turning out thousands of high-quality graduates each year in areas of national shortage, and has a strong social conscience. It was our Scottish University of the Year in 2023 and all the qualities that earned the university recognition then still apply today. It was established as a 'place of useful learning' more than 225 years ago and its course portfolio keeps that founding aspiration alive. The university's success is evident in the outstanding graduate employment prospects enjoyed by its students. Strathclyde's social commitment can be seen in the large numbers of students drawn from non-traditional backgrounds; it has the biggest proportion of students from the most deprived 20% of Scottish postcodes of any high-tariff, research-intensive Scottish university. Admissions in September 2024 were close to an all-time high. While the domestic intake is predominantly Scottish (95% or more), there is good financial support for so-called Rest of UK (RUK) students, as well as for those recruited from areas of deprivation and schools with low rates of progression to higher education in Scotland. Across all four faculties - engineering, humanities and social sciences, science and its Business School - industry and business routinely have input on course structure and programme delivery, with many of those companies offering placements to students. 6 (joint). University of Warwick Sixty years after its establishment, Warwick claims to have achieved more than other universities have accomplished in two centuries. It is hard to disagree, with its consistent top-ten domestic ranking and graduates who are in demand - the sixth most sought-after by top graduate recruiters according to the respected High Fliers report. The university takes on the old guard while embracing the new. Work is about to begin on a £700million social science and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) research and teaching development and there are plans for more degree apprenticeships to be introduced, which will add to the 1,300 or so apprentices already on campus. Situated on a largely self-contained parkland campus on the edge of Coventry, the university commands some of the highest application numbers. It has weathered the difficulties in international student recruitment better than most. More than one quarter of its intake via Ucas came from overseas last September, when it was also shortlisted for our University of the Year title. Applications are running close to record levels, with more than seven for every place. Outreach programmes reach 300 secondary schools and sixth-form colleges across the Midlands to keep the application pipeline strong. 8. University of Bristol Bristol is our Research University of the Year 2026 in recognition of its outstanding research record and reputation. It earned more than £300million in competitively won research grants and contracts in 2023-24 - nearly £100million more than the previous year. Home to the Isambard-AI supercomputer, Bristol is building a formidable record in artificial intelligence. And the £500million Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus development, due to fully open in 2026, will allow Bristol to drive digital, business and social innovation, as well as aid the city centre's regeneration. More than half the intake comes from London and the South East. Bristol seeks to make a Russell Group university education as affordable as possible, offering a string of bursary awards to support disadvantaged students and encourage applications from under-represented groups. It was one of the first universities to embrace contextual admissions, which take account of applicants' educational and social background; an astonishing 44% of admissions in September 2024 qualified for a contextual offer up to two A-level grades below the standard entry requirements. Applications are booming, rising to a new record for September 2024 entry when more than 63,000 named Bristol as one of their five Ucas choices. Despite rising admissions - up 7.6% last year - competition for places is fierce, with the university's reputation for producing in-demand graduates to the fore. 9. University of Bath Bath celebrates its 60th birthday next year and is one of the great success stories of the 1960s generation of universities, shortlisted for our UK University of the Year 2026 award for its all-round strength and excellence. Those origins are betrayed by the acres of concrete on its hillside campus, which sit alongside plenty of modern academic and residential developments. Bath also boasts some of the best sports facilities in the UK - Team Bath is one of the big hitters in the university sports leagues - with many international-class athletes basing themselves here during their studies. Ever-present in the elite top ten of our ranking, the university is best known for science, engineering and business - and for its graduates getting well-paid and high-quality jobs. This success is hard-won, with two-thirds of students completing either a placement or study abroad year to make them more rounded graduates. It was our 2024 University of the Year for Graduate Jobs. For the second successive year, both applications and admissions have hit record levels. Applications for admission in September 2024 were up by 11% on the year before and by a whopping 40% on pre-pandemic levels, while admissions were up by more than 20% on 2019 levels. 10. University of St Andrews St Andrews, our Scottish University of the Year, is a plum university prize and there are close to ten applications for every place, making it one of the hardest universities to get into in the UK. More than a quarter of the undergraduates come from abroad - it's popular among Americans, in particular. Perched on the Fife coast, the university dominates the town, offering an alternative to Oxford and Cambridge for the brightest applicants. Traditions abound - notably the Raisin Monday foam fight - and the students' distinctive red gowns are a familiar sight on formal occasions. Academic excellence is also abundant, and it has one of the strongest performances of any university in our exclusive subject tables. And from September, a medical degree is back after an absence of more than 50 years. Until now, students could do three years of such a degree at St Andrews before spending their clinical practice years at a partner university. From next month, a full five-year medical degree will be offered onsite, run in partnership with NHS Fife. St Andrews's repeated success in the annual National Student Survey is proof that academically demanding, multi-faculty, larger institutions can do well. That ringing endorsement from its students and their onward success in the graduate jobs market underpins St Andrews's consistently excellent showing in our ranking. 11. King's College London King's is one of UK higher education's citadels. Its academic standing and location at the heart of London gives it an international appeal that saw more than a third of the undergraduate intake recruited from overseas in 2024. It has one of the most socially inclusive and diverse student bodies of all Russell Group universities. Nearly 40% of the intake are the first in their immediate family to go to university and more than half are of Asian or black heritage. More than three-quarters of the domestic intake are recruited from London and the South East. A huge contingent of students is studying medicine, dentistry and healthcare courses across three teaching hospitals - Guy's, St Thomas' and King's College Hospital (KCH). The imminent opening of the Pears Maudsley Centre for Children and Young People at KCH is the latest medical bauble, bringing together researchers and clinicians to address the crisis in youngsters' mental health. Elsewhere, King's is famed for its social science, law, history, science and engineering provision. Applications are near a record high and domestic admissions in 2024 jumped by just under 1,000, more than offsetting the small drop in international admissions, to a level only beaten during the pandemic. 12. University of Dundee No university has come closer to going bust than Dundee during the ongoing financial crisis in higher education. A cash injection of £22million from the Scottish Funding Council in March 2025 kept the lights on after administrators warned that Dundee could run out of money by the end of June. The source of the problem is a £35million hole in the university's finances. Within weeks of its disclosure in late 2024, Dundee's then principal Professor Iain Gillespie resigned. The university is now looking at plans to shed around one in ten jobs, while 'reconfiguring academic units' and scaling back research. So how did this come to pass? An independent inquiry recently deemed it to be the result of failings in financial monitoring, management and governance. Should students still apply? Yes, but with the awareness that the coming months are going to be difficult. Dundee, which we named our Scottish University of the Year only 12 months ago, has forged an outstanding reputation - notably in the likes of medicine, life sciences and art and design - since gaining independence from the University of St Andrews in 1967. For that reputation to survive, the cuts will need to be both judicious and primarily in non-student-facing areas. 13. University of Sheffield Sheffield has made a return to the top 100 of the QS World University Rankings after a two-year absence and continues to be the top-ranked university in northern England in our guide. Sheffield was shortlisted for our University of the Year title last year. It has formidable strength in engineering, a highly regarded medical school and excellent provision for healthcare courses which have seen heavy recent investment in facilities. Sheffield students are popular with employers; its graduates are the 12th most-targeted by top employers according to the latest High Fliers report. A Russell Group member, Sheffield recruits widely from across the UK, with around one in six undergraduates recruited globally. The city is a popular choice with a strong student culture and easy access to the Peak District. Applications levelled out for admission in September 2024 after four consecutive rises but with around eight chasing every place, Sheffield can pick the brightest. A generous contextual admissions scheme that knocks as many as three grades off standard entry requirements ensures a broad social mix on campus. More than 8,500 bursary, scholarship and financial hardship awards made in 2023-24 help students keep their heads above water financially. 14. Durham University A sharp expansion in student numbers should make Durham a more attainable prospect for a wider cross-section of students. The number of undergraduates recruited in September 2024 leapt by 20% and further expansion is planned for September 2025. The university's new access and participation plan commits the university to diversifying its intake, too. Some of the traditional perceptions of the university remain true, however. Since Oxford and Cambridge moved to recruit more students from state schools, Durham has been the most popular destination for private school pupils, who now account for 37% of the intake. More than a third of undergraduates come from London and the South East. They travel for a distinctive university experience, centred on the 16 undergraduate colleges, which are social rather than academic groupings (unlike Oxbridge). The so-called Hill colleges are spread out to the south of the city centre, while the Bailey colleges are located in largely historic premises in the centre, with Durham Castle (home to University College) the jewel in the crown. There is all-round academic strength spanning the arts, sciences and social sciences. The university prides itself on its wider student experience in which 85% of students participate, be that in university and college sport, volunteering, theatre, music or student media. 15 (joint). Loughborough University If you are good at sport and aim to play at a high level at university, Loughborough has to be on your shortlist. If you want access to the best facilities on this side of the Atlantic and to rub shoulders with athletes who have represented their country or will go on to, then it ought to be at the top of that shortlist. At last summer's Olympics and Paralympics in Paris, Loughborough-based competitors or those with a close connection to the university scooped 11 gold, ten silver and 14 bronze medals. Had it been a country, it would have finished 16th in the medal table ahead of the likes of Brazil. And its student athletes have won the British Universities and College Sport (Bucs) men's and women's titles for 44 consecutive years. Facilities are so good that sports including athletics have their national headquarters onsite. Loughborough is strong academically, too. It has an outstanding reputation in art, design and engineering and performs well in our subject rankings across the board. Academic life is centred on the 523-acre campus where 6,000 students live. The university ranks in the top ten nationally for the proportion of graduates who land high-skilled jobs. So, there are brains to go with the brawn. 15 (joint). Queen Mary University of London Of all the elite Russell Group universities, Queen Mary both walks the walk and talks the talk when it comes to social inclusion, creating a diverse student body while demanding high entry grades. About three-quarters of the intake are drawn from ethnic minorities and more than 40% are the first in their close family to go to university. One in five gain a place with a contextual offer that reduces the standard ask by between one and three A-level grades. Already-wide eligibility criteria was broadened further this year to include students with a disability and those on free school meals. A popular Ucas choice, applications are at a record high. Most students are based on an attractive canal-side campus in Mile End that has seen heavy recent investment, with further outposts in Whitechapel, West Smithfield and Lincoln's Inn Fields. More than 90% of students are recruited from within the capital or the home counties and East Anglia. Courses for which the university is best known span business, social sciences, engineering, law, medicine and healthcare more broadly. Unusually for a Russell Group university there are around 700 degree apprentice learners enrolled, and it has plans to expand further with medicine, tech and legal options. Ofsted recently rated Queen Mary's apprenticeship provision as outstanding. 15 (joint). University of Southampton An ongoing £600million campus investment plan at Southampton is helping drive a surge in applications, which have never been higher than in the past two years. Even an 8% increase in the number of admissions in September 2024, causing them to reach their highest level since 2015, still left stiff competition with almost eight applications per place. Southampton is one of the 24-strong Russell Group of research-intensive universities which also tend to command the highest entry requirements. A contextual offers scheme that knocks two A-level grades off standard entry requirements helps to widen access. An extensive web of careers support ensures that opportunities for graduates to land high-skilled jobs and earn high salaries - one of the university's strongest performance outcomes - extend to students from all backgrounds, too. Mental health and wellbeing support is also among the best. The university is based on several sites across Southampton, with the main Highfield campus being the mothership and the focus of much of the ongoing developments that include a new STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) teaching building and a clinical skills hub. Engineering is the biggest subject area here and one in which the university enjoys considerable success in our subject rankings. Investment is also being put into its city centre campus site and the outlying Winchester campus, home to the Winchester School of Art. 18. University of Leeds Leeds is a powerhouse of the British higher-education system and a popular destination. There were more than 68,000 applications for a place in September 2024, when the university boosted its undergraduate intake by 680 (to 8,480), in part to offset an anticipated fall in the number of overseas postgraduates. The university's appeal is not hard to fathom. A member of the elite Russell Group, its graduates are well-paid and in demand with employers. It occupies an attractive city centre campus in a student-centric northern city that knows how to enjoy itself. After a run of poor scores in the annual National Student Survey, the 2025 results showed signs of recovery and helped Leeds to a top 20 finish in our overall institutional ranking for the first time. The university is taking steps to better engage its students by consulting them on which campus upgrades to action first. A strong social conscience is evidenced by the fact that about one in five students gains a place with a contextual offer in recognition of educational, economic or social disadvantage. Diversity is extended further by five foundation-year programmes, which give access to full degree courses with very un-Russell Group A-level grade requirements, starting as low as CDD. 19. University of Manchester A modest improvement in student scores for teaching excellence and student experience in this year's National Student Survey (NSS) have helped lift Manchester into the top 20 of our overall ranking. For many years, the university ranked almost as high in the QS World University Rankings as it did in domestic equivalents. This apparent anomaly arose from the fact that global rankings do not take account of student satisfaction, as measured by the NSS, in which Manchester has previously performed poorly in all sections. Not that poor performance in the NSS has hindered applications, as Manchester has been for many years the most-applied-to university in the UK. However, seven consecutive years of increases came to a stop in 2024, with a 1% drop, and some 9,985 students were admitted out of 92,500 applications. Higher education on this scale creates what Manchester itself calls a 'mini metropolis' for which it is currently trying to cater with a series of 'cosy campus' upgrades, rolled out in seven locations. This includes the foyer of the main Alan Gilbert Learning Commons and the University Place Entrance Drum. Free facilities being added include hot water for tea, coffee and meals; microwave ovens; hand washing and washing-up facilities; and places for students to study or socialise. And the legendary Manchester social scene is, of course, the university's secret weapon. It's a formidable combination. 20 (joint). University of Birmingham Birmingham recruited an additional 1,500 undergraduates in September 2024 compared to the previous year, expanding its intake across a variety of courses and accepting more students who had missed their offer grades than usual. Although there are some 37,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students, size does not make things impersonal here - course leaders on some degree programmes telephoned those who had gained places on results day last summer to welcome them. Two-thirds of UK entrants to this research-intensive Russell Group university come from the West Midlands, London and the South East, and there is a large overseas contingent, too. Many students are drawn to Birmingham's excellent academic reputation across a swathe of subject areas, coupled with its stellar graduate outcomes. It is one of the original redbrick universities, so called because of the materials used in the principal buildings which date from the early 20th century. The university is located in the affluent suburb of Edgbaston, which is a seven-minute train ride from the city centre, but most students live out in the neighbouring (and less salubrious) Selly Oak district. Birmingham is socially inclusive, providing financial support for one in five students each year through a £14m bursary and scholarship programme. 20 (joint). University of Edinburgh Nowhere is the disconnect between the findings of the annual National Student Survey (NSS) and the popularity of a university as stark as it is at the University of Edinburgh. Ranked by its own students in the bottom ten of all three of the NSS-derived performance measures in our league table - covering teaching excellence, student experience and student support (with the latter seeing the worst ranking of all universities) - Edinburgh is nevertheless the third most-applied-to university in the country. Indeed, such is the university's global standing that well over one-third of undergraduates come from abroad to join some 40,000 undergraduates and postgraduates based on university sites scattered throughout the Scottish capital. Founded in 1583, the university has a long history of academic excellence and is currently a world leader in artificial intelligence (AI) and data science. It is home to the UK's national supercomputer, Archer2, and has developed six new hubs in different areas of data-centric technologies and AI, bringing together academics and industry to drive further innovation. The Scottish capital provides a beguiling backdrop to the mostly four-year courses (the norm in Scotland) and the university offers some of the cheapest student accommodation in the UK, particularly for those willing to share an ensuite room. 22 (joint). University of Glasgow The next stage of Glasgow's £1bn campus redevelopment is under way as it seeks to create facilities to keep it ahead of the pack before its 600th anniversary in 2051. Only Oxford, Cambridge and St Andrews have been around longer, and Glasgow's global reputation for excellence means it recruits internationally, with overseas students making up around one in five of the record undergraduate intake in September 2024. The main Gilmorehill campus is in Glasgow's West End; a 14-acre site next door is where all the new buildings are going up. A further campus at Garscube, four miles away, is home to outdoor sports facilities, veterinary medicine students and the catered Wolfson Hall student accommodation. Further afield in Dumfries, the university teaches social and environmental sustainability, as well as its primary education with teaching qualification. Four in five of the domestic intake are recruited from Scotland, although a sizeable minority make the long trip from London and South-East England - some of them taking advantage of generous bursary support that more than offsets the extra year of study required for Scottish degrees for students from low-income households. 22 (joint). University of Surrey Surrey is a university on the rise, admitting a record number of undergraduates last September as applications climbed above 30,000 for the first time since 2019. The attraction is not hard to explain, with Surrey outgunning many Russell Group universities in the graduate employment stakes. Average starting salaries of £30,000 and more than four in every five students believing their careers to be on track 15 months after leaving speaks volumes. Healthcare, education and finance are the top three industry destinations for Surrey graduates. The university recruits three-quarters of its intake from London and the South East, with students heading to its two modern campuses in Guildford. With both a new medical school and a veterinary school having opened in the past decade, Surrey now has all the academic baubles it needs to sustain a high ranking and a good number of applications - with international enrolments holding up even as others universities struggle. The intake is notably diverse and about a third come from homes where parents did not attend university. While bursary and scholarship provision is smaller than most, Surrey defies the property economics of South-East England by offering some of the cheapest student rooms at any university, with prices starting at just £85 a week. 24 (joint). Heriot-Watt University Heriot-Watt University (HWU) specialises in the science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects for which there remains a national demand for graduates. This partly explains the university's great success in the graduate jobs market, with HWU students commanding some of the highest graduate starting salaries of any British university. A 2023 survey conducted by Novuna showed HWU was the top university in the UK for the number of graduates in chief executive or managing director roles. The university runs seven graduate apprenticeship programmes and has more than 400 students enrolled on them. HWU also helps prepare all students for work and post-graduation through both industrial and overseas placements, including years or semesters abroad at its Dubai or Malaysia campuses. The Riccarton campus on the western edge of Edinburgh is home to the bulk of the university's students, who have the cultural and social playground of the Scottish capital on their doorstep. There are two smaller campuses in Galashiels (the base for fashion, textile and design courses) and Stromness on Orkney, which is home to three postgraduate MScs in marine science and renewable energy, as well as the International Centre for Island Technology. 24 (joint). Queen's University, Belfast Queen's University Belfast enjoys a reputation as the Oxbridge of Northern Ireland. While that may be true academically, the university has a longstanding record of social inclusion - which sees 32% of students recruited from low-income backgrounds. Celebrating its 180th anniversary this year, Queen's is enjoying a moment, with applications close to an all-time high and admissions at a level beaten only during the pandemic. About 10% of the British intake now come from beyond Northern Ireland, and the university enjoys buoyant recruitment from around the world. Hillary Clinton has been chancellor since 2020, a symbol of the international mindset that now pervades the university. While academic excellence spans many subjects including medicine and healthcare, science, humanities and the arts, the university also nurtures the practical application of knowledge. It has ranked first or second in the past two Entrepreneurial Impact Rankings, produced by Octopus Ventures, which judged universities on the patents and spin-out companies they created. Queen's is located in an attractive district to the south of the city centre with the Lanyon Building at its heart. The opening next year of the eco-friendly Passivhaus student accommodation shows university architecture is also moving with the times. 26. City St George's, University of London The former City, University of London and St George's, University of London came together officially on August 1, 2024, but this is the first time they have appeared as a merged entity in our ranking. The new institution, City St George's, University of London, is now one of the largest suppliers of healthcare workers in the capital. It is the first of many predicted mergers likely to take place across UK higher education in the coming years. It has created one of the big hitters within the University of London, with strength spanning medicine and healthcare (within both institutions), and business and the professions (at City). It was recognised by the two awards we gave the newly merged institution a year ago - University of the Year for Graduate Jobs and runner-up in our University of the Year title. Applications and admissions at the two predecessor institutions were already on the rise, up 9% and 16% respectively on the previous year for courses beginning in September 2024, so there is every chance of creating an academic powerhouse. Almost four in every five UK entrants were recruited from the capital and almost two-thirds of the intake were of Asian or black heritage. 27. University of Liverpool Applications are booming at Liverpool. One of the redbrick universities founded in the late 19th century, the university retains the civic mission that characterised these institutions at their launch. Committed to social diversity, it recruits 89% of its UK students from state schools, and one third of students come from homes where the parents did not go to university. Its city centre campus adjoins that of Liverpool John Moores University, creating a huge university precinct at the heart of the city. Dentistry, veterinary medicine, nursing, architecture and engineering are some of the subjects the university is best known for. Liverpool demonstrates strength across multiple disciplines, but business and law are among the top picks in our subject rankings. Although popular in its home region, Liverpool recruits strongly from across the UK with 1,170 of the record 6,750 UK recruits in September 2024 coming from London and the South East. Liverpool was one of the Russell Group universities that vastly increased its domestic intake of students last year to offset anticipated falls in overseas students. Numbers were up by 23.7% from the level seen just two years before, beating even the pandemic years of inflated university admissions. 28 (joint). University of Exeter Record numbers of students applied to Exeter for courses which began in September last year. It is still a hugely popular choice for privately educated students and draws around half of its intake from the most affluent regions of the country. But it also spends upwards of £9m on bursaries, scholarships and hardship support for its increasingly diverse student body, a quarter of whom gain their places with a contextual offer - a proportion the university predicts will rise further still. It was named Higher Education Institution of the Year in 2023 by the National Education Opportunities Network for its work in widening access to university. It is among the ten universities most popular with the leading graduate employers (ahead of both Oxford and Cambridge); the salaries graduates command are among the highest; and few universities can rival Exeter for location. The main Streatham campus is one of the UK's most beautiful and is home to the majority of students. There are smaller sites such as its St Luke's campus, which is home to the medical school, and at Penryn in Cornwall. Exeter is also one of the most solvent universities in the UK right now, registering a surplus of more than £186m in 2023-24. 28 (joint). University of Nottingham A near-5,000 drop in applications via Ucas for admission in September 2024, coupled with a near-1,300 increase in students admitted, made the task of winning a place at one of the UK's top universities considerably easier last year. The drop in applications is unlikely to be maintained for long such is the strength of Nottingham's offer to applicants. A member of the Russell Group of highly selective, research-intensive universities, Nottingham has formidable strength in engineering and a strong presence across all academic disciplines. It is the third most-targeted university for leading graduate employers, according to High Fliers research, and its graduates command among the highest salaries in their first jobs. The proactive careers and employability service gets to work with pre-entry summer school participants, offering them careers activities, as well as fostering extensive alumni networks. Nottingham occupies several sites just off the city centre, with the 300-acre University Park campus the heart of the operation. Academic, residential and social facilities are easily absorbed within the spacious grounds. Its sports facilities have been the subject of a recent investment that has seen tangible results on university pitches across the country. Nottingham was the top UK university for team sports in 2024-25. 30 (joint). Cardiff University Record admissions in September last year, and another bumper crop of applications, stand in stark contrast to the proposed job losses and threat of course closures that have put Cardiff in the news for all the wrong reasons this year. The negative headlines will be viewed as the price to pay for delivering on the university's 2035 strategy document Our Future, Together, which is upfront in declaring: 'Universities are facing an existential moment. The current model is no longer fit for purpose'. In other words, what's happening at Cardiff today will be happening in plenty of other universities tomorrow. Cardiff is the biggest university in Wales and the only one to be a member of the elite Russell Group. It occupies two campuses: Cathays Park in the city centre and the more modern Heath Park a mile away, which is home to healthcare-related courses and the University Hospital of Wales, where the medical school is located. It is one of the more socially inclusive of the Russell Group universities and has a broad-based academic excellence. Improved scores in this year's National Student Survey have helped push the university into our elite top 30. The city is hugely popular with students at its three universities and is one of the UK's hot student destinations. Cardiff will be hoping this features large in applicants' minds while the financial dust settles. 30 (joint). University of York York is our Community University of the Year - an acknowledgement of the role the university plays in the cultural, economic and academic life not just of the City of York but of the wider northern region. This is embodied culturally by the university's annual Festival of Ideas, a programme of more than 200 talks and events that plays to a combined audience of 60,000. But York also has a national and global academic footprint. It recruits students from across the UK, with no one region dominating, thanks to its excellent reputation across most academic disciplines. It is one of just four members of the research-intensive and highly selective Russell Group of universities to secure both a top-ten ranking for research and a gold rating in the most recent Teaching Excellence Framework assessments. There is particular strength in the social sciences, history, languages and biosciences. The university's 1960s origins are evident in the concrete of the original Heslington campus (now called Campus West), an attractive low-rise site built around a pond with a sizeable population of ducks. The newer Campus East site has been the scene of much recent development, and the university's new School of Architecture opens there in September. 32. Aston University Enrolments at Aston - our University of the Year for Student Success last year - surged by more than 16% in September 2024. The intake rose above 4,000 for the first time and was 44% higher than just six years before. With more than 23,000 applications for the third successive year, word is getting out about this institution that positions itself to be 'the leading university for students aspiring to success in business'. Aston was one of a small number of universities to secure triple gold in the last Teaching Excellence Framework covering student experience, graduate outcomes and an overall rating. Business, computing, engineering and healthcare subjects dominate the course portfolio. More than 70% of last September's intake came from the West Midlands and the student population is reflective of the local area, with more than eight in ten students being of ethnic minority heritage - the highest proportion at any UK university. Aston takes pride in its diversity and embraces degree apprenticeships, too, with around 1,300 apprentices currently enrolled and following 11 pathways. The university sits in the top 20 nationally for the proportion of graduates who land high-skilled jobs and just outside the top 30 for graduate salaries. 33. University of East Anglia Broadening the student mind and experience is at the heart of what the University of East Anglia (UEA) offers to its students. For many years now, UEA has pushed study-abroad options, and by 2026 the university will have more than 200 global partners. It is also significantly expanding the number of degrees offered with foundation years (to widen access and diversify the student body) and work placement years (to increase graduate employability). A dental school moved a step closer in June with approval from the General Dental Council for UEA to provide undergraduate training. UEA is about to see some major upgrades to its attractive parkland campus come on stream, too - central among them the upgrade to the iconic, Grade II-listed Lasdun Wall. UEA came early to the financial crisis besetting many other universities, and consequently is now coming out the other side. Having cut jobs, courses and budgets, it has emerged leaner and more student-focused. Admissions jumped by 9% in September 2024 and the university will be hoping for a rise in the number of applications, too. UEA has a strong global reputation for everything from creative writing to climate change courses. Its sports facilities are among the best in the UK, while the Sainsbury Centre is home to one of the finest collections of modern art in the country. 34. University of Leicester Leicester is one of the best bargains to be had in the annual dash to secure a university place. In exchange for mostly medium-tariff offers, Leicester - our University of the Year last year - offers a high-quality student experience in a bustling multi-cultural city. Students rate the institution highly in the annual National Student Survey, graduates go on to well-paid jobs and teaching is underpinned by a strong (some might say box-office) record in research. This is the university where DNA fingerprinting was pioneered by Professor Alec Jeffreys in 1984; it is also the university that, with others, discovered the remains of Richard III under a Leicester car park in 2013. It takes the requirement for universities to innovate seriously and wants its students to embrace that spirit by being 'Citizens of Change'. The university admitted a record number of students in September 2024, surpassing 5,000 for the first time - a 52% rise on the number admitted in 2019. It is a hugely popular choice for applicants from London, as well as the East and West Midlands. The student intake is multicultural and socially diverse, reflecting the wider city, with white, Asian and black students in almost equal numbers. 35. University of Aberdeen When you have been around for 530 years, you have a pretty good sense of self - and this certainly applies to the University of Aberdeen, Britain's most northerly university and one of its most ancient and prestigious. Only Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews and Glasgow have been around longer. While this long history is evident in the buildings on the Old Aberdeen campus - home to the original King's College and Marischal College - and linguistically in the likes of the School of Divinity, Aberdeen also prides itself on being at the cutting edge in teaching and research. There are more than 400 undergraduate degree options, with business, medicine, teacher training and education, and mechanical engineering faring particularly well in our subject rankings. The university is split across two main sites - the modern Foresterhill campus is home to life sciences, medicine and education and is jointly owned by NHS Grampian, while arts, social sciences and physical sciences students are based in Old Aberdeen. The city has excellent air and rail connections that make it attractive to both UK and international students. 36 (joint). Glasgow Caledonian University Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) delivers on its founding mission to be for 'the common weal'. It is our University of the Year for Graduate Jobs this year and was our Modern University of the Year in last year's edition of this guide. It has been the top-ranked modern university (those founded since 1992) on both occasions. GCU has a relentless focus on achieving the best possible outcomes for students, many of whom come from backgrounds poorly represented on campuses elsewhere. Last September, GCU gave places to more than one in five of the total number of students admitted to Scottish universities from the 20% of postcode districts (SIMD20) considered to be the most deprived. For two years in a row, GCU has had the highest number of SIMD20 acceptances. Which makes the university's achievements in the graduate jobs market all the more remarkable. GCU is among the top 20 institutions in the UK for the proportion of graduates who gain high-skilled jobs, beating many Russell Group universities to boot. It is one of the biggest providers of health, social care and life sciences graduates for the NHS; produces more building and surveying graduates than any other university in the UK; and is the only university to offer a full suite of optometry degrees. It is also Scotland's largest provider of graduate apprenticeships, with eight programmes and 1,000 learners on campus. 36 (joint). Lancaster University Lancaster University is one of the great success stories from the generation of universities founded in the 1960s. In the space of 60 years, it has forged an international reputation, attracting students from across the world to its Bailrigg campus on the outskirts of the small, pretty city of Lancaster. There was a record number of applications for courses beginning in September 2024 and only once has Lancaster admitted more students, putting the university's finances in a healthier position than many institutions right now. Students join one of eight undergraduate colleges which divide the 13,000 undergraduates into bite-sized communities; the groupings are purely social rather than academic, but they provide an additional layer of student support in a university with one of the lowest dropout rates in the UK. Subject strengths range from medicine, engineering and the sciences through to social work, English, drama and creative writing. The Lancaster University Management School is also highly rated. There is a range of means-tested financial support as well as generous scholarships for academic achievement. The university is making rapid progress towards net zero with a programme of refurbishments (rather than carbon-heavy new builds), energy upgrades and the introduction of huge onsite sources of renewable energy. 38. Ulster University Ulster is enjoying a boom in applications in the wake of it being named the Times Higher Education University of the Year for 2024, a few weeks after it was shortlisted for the Daily Mail University of the Year title. Its success is an acknowledgment of the institution's transformation over the past decade, with it consolidating excellence in areas of existing strength while securing a foothold in new disciplines. Nothing demonstrates this better than the development of the university's Belfast campus in the Cathedral Quarter, which has helped to regenerate a key part of the city and now hosts facilities such as the £75m Studio Ulster, Northern Ireland's largest virtual-production studio. Belfast is one of the three campuses that make up the truly regional university. There are further outposts in Coleraine and Derry-Londonderry, as well as the university's sports village in Jordanstown, seven miles outside Belfast. Ulster is committed to social inclusion on campus, with about 40% of students drawn from homes where parents did not attend university. It serves a predominantly Northern Irish student population, who make up 99% of the British intake. However, the university continues to recruit strongly from overseas despite the uncertainties caused by government policy on student visas. 39. Newcastle University The lowest-ranked of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities, Newcastle is nevertheless experiencing record popularity with applicants and near-record admissions. Although it recruits nearly a quarter of its undergraduates from the North East - the English region with the lowest uptake of higher education - Newcastle has strong national appeal; applicants are attracted by both the university's academic standing and the city's reputation for enjoying itself. Its medical school is one of the best and the university aims to further advance its outstanding reputation in medicine and healthcare more generally - its biggest subject discipline. It has recently embarked on developing a £500m health innovation neighbourhood on the site of the former Newcastle General Hospital. This will build on the university's expertise in healthy ageing by creating a living laboratory of intergenerational and later living with interdisciplinary primary healthcare focused on helping residents live longer, healthier lives. A raft of other capital projects and redevelopments on the city centre campus have been completed in the past year which will enhance the student experience. The university will hope these filter through to improved scores in the annual National Student Survey; underperformance here is primarily responsible for Newcastle's disappointing ranking in this guide. 40. Swansea University Swansea University boasts two seafront campuses to tempt students. The Singleton Park campus was joined by the Bay science and innovation campus ten years ago. Swansea challenges Cardiff each year to be the top-ranked university in Wales. It is placed in the UK top 25 for students believing their careers are on track 15 months after graduation. This pedigree attracts applicants from across the country, with half the intake drawn from over the Severn Bridge. The university is organised into three faculties - humanities and social sciences; medicine, health and life science; and science and engineering - and has a broad portfolio of courses that includes a graduate-entry medicine degree. Medical and healthcare students form the largest group on campus, with finance, sport science and social policy among the top performers in our subject rankings. Excellent sports facilities are second only to those at Cardiff Met in Wales. Last September admissions were at their lowest point in the past ten years. However, the university's commitment to making offers to all UK applicants whose predicted grades fall within the offer range for a given course (with the exception of medicine, healthcare and social work) should put the university on the radar. 41. University of Essex Essex is a university as distinctive as the Brutalist tower blocks that dominate its Colchester skyline. Since its founding in the 1960s it has ploughed its own furrow. A hotbed of student radicalism 50 years ago, Essex is still challenging the status quo. 'We are Essex. Are you?' the university demands of prospective applicants. It has built a global reputation in politics and the social sciences and has always attracted a high proportion of international students, which gives the campuses a cosmopolitan feel that belies their location on the Essex coast. Applications and admissions jumped by 11.3% and 18.9% respectively for the September 2024 admissions cycle - a trend the university would like to maintain after income fell by £17.6m in 2023-24, with a further shortfall expected for 2024-25. Students are split between three sites: the headquarters just outside Colchester; a second coastal campus at Southend-on-Sea, specialising in health and social care (an industry for which Essex now turns out large numbers of graduates) and business; and a third base in Loughton, North-East London, where the East 15 acting school is based. About one in five students benefits from financial support through bursaries, scholarships or hardship payments, with £5m paid out in 2023-24. 42. University of Bradford Bradford is our University of the Year for Social Inclusion and makes our shortlist of five for the overall UK University of the Year title off the back of its strong performance across many of the ranking measures in our league table. The pursuit of social inclusion extends beyond admissions practices to permeate the curriculum and research focus of the institution. It's evident in initiatives such as the Digital Health Enterprise Zone, which seeks to develop digital health innovations to improve the lives of people living with long-term conditions. One of the most diverse student populations at any university is well-supported financially and academically, and Bradford serves its region well, from which it draws 85% of its recruits. More than 70% of last year's domestic intake were of Asian descent, with the university mirroring the ethnic diversity of the city it calls home. The university is helping the area to celebrate its status as the 2025 UK City of Culture, too. Bradford offers an extensive range of science, technology, engineering and health-related degrees, and a significant proportion of graduates go into the NHS, contributing to the university's excellent graduate employment outcomes. 43 (joint). Keele University Set on a parkland campus near Stoke-on-Trent, Keele offers a different university experience. There is a strong accent on sustainability and Keele was named Global Sustainability Institution of the Year at the Green Gown awards in 2021. It is consistently popular and has only twice admitted more students through Ucas than the 2,945 who gained a place in September last year. A multi-faculty institution, Keele has a significant presence in medicine and healthcare, which now accounts for around one third of admissions. A new veterinary medicine school operated with Harper Adams University, and a sports science degree, are among notable recent additions. All courses have a four-year option involving study abroad or a placement. Keele gained an overall gold rating in the latest Teaching Excellence Framework, making it one of just 15 institutions to do so in both 2023 and 2017. The responsive Access & Success bursary scheme invites students to pitch what they need financial support for rather than handing out a set sum. Like many other universities, Keele has experienced job losses in the past year, with humanities and social sciences bearing the brunt. However, no courses have closed, and the university says staff/student ratios remain favourable. 43 (joint). University of Plymouth Plymouth is making a difference to the healthcare needs of the city and region it calls home while benefiting its students at the same time. The opening of the £5m Peninsula Dental Social Enterprise in September will offer appointments to local patients who do not have a regular NHS dentist. A year from now the university will open its Centre for Eyecare Excellence (CEE), also offering services to the public. In both instances, the facilities will provide outstanding spaces for students to work under supervision with professionals, typical of the university's approach to higher education which sees real-world, hands-on experience embedded across all courses. The university punches above its weight for both the proportion of graduates in high-skilled jobs and the salaries they earn. Both CEE and the new dental clinic also demonstrate Plymouth's commitment to serving the South West, from where it recruits more than half of its undergraduates. Admissions were down 10% in 2024 on the year before, leading to a £22m budget shortfall this year, which the university is seeking to plug while protecting student-facing services. Befitting an attractive coastal university, there are centres of excellence in marine and maritime subjects including microplastic pollution. 45 (joint). Teesside University Our Modern University of the Year, which has climbed 13 places in our national ranking to sit 45th=, Teesside continues to build its profile nationally and academically. Another jobs-driven flagship development opened this year and the university is laying the groundwork for a planned medical school, too. The campus in central Middlesbrough, dotted with landmark buildings, is testimony to the university's vision, creating something transformational in one of the country's most unglamorous towns. Teesside is among the most socially diverse universities in the country, recruiting more than 80% of its students from the North East - the English region with the lowest uptake of higher education. This makes its free iPads 4 All policy all the more impactful. Students appreciate the help they receive from academics and the university more widely, ranking Teesside in the UK top ten in this year's National Student Survey for student support. Shortlisted for our UK University of the Year title in 2023, Teesside has found favour in academic assessments, too. It achieved a rare triple gold in the latest Teaching Excellence Framework - for student experience, student outcomes and overall rating. And in January, Ofsted rated the university's extensive graduate apprenticeship provision (comprising around 40 programmes) as outstanding in every category, praising both the quality of teaching and the strength of the partnerships with industry that support apprenticeship delivery. There's a satellite campus in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London offering a limited range of business, computing, cybersecurity and computer games programmes. 45 (joint). University of Reading Reading's pitch to be the go-to destination for the environmentally conscious steps up a gear this year with the introduction of £6,000-a-year global sustainability leaders scholarships. These are open to UK and international applicants in any subject who achieve at least AAA at A-level (or AAB if they qualify for a contextual offer). Reading wants to develop the global sustainability leaders of the future by offering students leadership and development opportunities during study. Reading is already one of the top universities for meteorology and climate change studies and sits fourth in the People & Planet rankings for its environmental and ethical performance. Approaching its centenary in 2026, Reading is in a good place with record numbers of applications and admissions. It is a popular choice locally, with about 60% of UK students hailing from London and the South East. The main 320-acre Whiteknights campus offers a sense of calm in this busy commuter town, but the university's estate also encompasses 2,000 acres of farmland and the smaller London Road and Greenlands campuses, the latter home to Henley Business School. By some distance, business and management is Reading's largest subject area, with an excellent reputation for agriculture and animal sciences, too. 47. Ha