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Imperial College beats Oxford and Cambridge in major university rankings for first time ever – as 52 British colleges slipped down the rankings

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Imperial College beats Oxford and Cambridge in major university rankings for first time ever – as 52 British colleges slipped down the rankings

Imperial College has beaten the mighty Oxbridge duopoly in major university rankings for the first time ever.

The renowned science-based university in London is now ranked number two in the world, while Cambridge slipped from second to fifth place and Oxford remained in third.

The respected Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings said it is the first time since its inception that Imperial has beaten Oxbridge.

Meanwhile, the scoreboard also shows the overall performance of UK universities is waning, with 52 universities slipping down the table and only 20 universities climbing up.

The remaining 18 of the 90 British universities featured managed to retain last year’s positions.

Imperial College has beaten the mighty Oxbridge duopoly in major university rankings for the first time ever

Oxford remained third in the rankings. Pictured: Radcliffe Camera and All Souls College at Oxford University

Oxford remained third in the rankings. Pictured: Radcliffe Camera and All Souls College at Oxford University

Cambridge slipped from second to fifth place. Pictured: King's College in Cambridge

Cambridge slipped from second to fifth place. Pictured: King’s College in Cambridge 

In addition, the rankings showed our universities are particularly lagging behind in terms of research influence – measured by looking at how often faculty members are cited.

No British university ranks among the global top 50 for faculty-adjusted research impact, and the national leader, Imperial, is only placed at 54th.

Mainland China is the top leader on this metric, followed by Australia and the US, India, Hong Kong and South Korea.

QS suggested British universities may struggle to compete internationally in future due to budget problems and fewer people applying.

Chief executive Jessica Turner said: ‘This year’s results suggest that British higher education has limited capacity remaining to continue excelling in the face of funding shortages, drops in student applications, and ambiguity about the status of international students.’

Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, said: ‘Higher education spending is too thinly spread.

‘More should go to our best universities, but those peddling Mickey Mouse courses should be converted back to employment-focused polytechnics.’

QS, a higher education analyst, first set up its rankings 20 years ago, with universities judged on research, employability and other metrics.

Imperial climbed to number two once before in 2014, but this spot was shared with Cambridge.

This year is the first time it has held the top UK position alone.

Its rise from sixth to second place has been attributed by QS to exceptional research performance, employability scores, and sustainability commitment.

No British university ranks among the global top 50 for faculty-adjusted research impact, and the national leader, Imperial, is only placed at 54th

No British university ranks among the global top 50 for faculty-adjusted research impact, and the national leader, Imperial, is only placed at 54th

Professor Hugh Brady, president of Imperial, said: ‘Imperial’s ranking is a testament to the quality and commitment of our entire community.

‘It is inspiring to see our students, staff and partners come together every day to interrogate the forces that shape our world and address the challenges facing humanity and our planet.’

In contrast to many of its fellow Russell Group universities, Imperial specialises in science and maths, and does not offer degrees in subjects such as English Literature.

It is one of the biggest recruiters of foreign students, with 60 per cent of its intake coming from outside the UK, including 20 per cent from other European countries.

Famous alumni of Imperial include Queen guitarist Brian May and War of the Worlds author HG Wells.

This year, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US claimed the top overall spot in the rankings, which it has held consistently since 2012.

Meanwhile, the only other British university in the top ten was University College London (UCL), retaining ninth position.

Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings 2025 

  1.  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US
  2. Imperial College London, UK
  3. University of Oxford, UK
  4. Harvard University, US
  5. University of Cambridge, UK
  6. Stanford University, US
  7. ETH Zurich, Switzerland
  8. National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore
  9. UCL, UK
  10. California Institute of Technology (Caltech), US
  11. University of Pennsylvania, US
  12.  University of California, Berkeley (UCB), US
  13. The University of Melbourne, Australia
  14.  Peking University, China
  15.  Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  16.  Cornell University, US
  17.  The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
  18.  The University of Sydney, Australia
  19.  The University of New South Wales, Australia
  20.  Tsinghua University, China
  21.  University of Chicago, US
  22. Princeton University, US 
  23. Yale University, US
  24.  Université PSL, France
  25.  University of Toronto, Canada
  26.  EPFL – École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland
  27.  The University of Edinburgh, UK
  28.  Technical University of Munich, Germany
  29.  McGill University, Canada
  30.  Australian National University (ANU), Australia
  31.  Seoul National University Seoul, South Korea
  32. Johns Hopkins University, US
  33. The University of Tokyo, Japan 
  34.  Columbia University, US
  35. The University of Manchester, UK 
  36. The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) 
  37. Monash University, Australia
  38. University of British Columbia, Canada
  39.  Fudan University, China
  40. King’s College London, UK
  41. The University of Queensland, Australia
  42.  University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), US
  43. New York University (NYU), US 
  44. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, US 
  45. Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China 
  46. Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France
  47.  The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
  48.  Zhejiang University, China
  49.  Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
  50.  Kyoto University, Japan
  51.  Northwestern University, US
  52. The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK 
  53. KAIST – Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology, South Korea
  54.  University of Bristol, UK
  55. University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
  56.  Yonsei University, South Korea
  57.  The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
  58.  Carnegie Mellon University, US
  59. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany
  60.  Universiti Malaya (UM), Malaysia
  61.  Duke University, US
  62. City University of Hong Kong 
  63. KU Leuven, Belgium
  64.  Sorbonne University, France
  65.  The University of Auckland, New Zealand
  66.  University of Texas at Austin, US
  67. Korea University, South Korea
  68.  National Taiwan University (NTU), Taiwan
  69.  The University of Warwick, UK
  70. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, US
  71.  Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA), Argentina
  72.  University of California, San Diego (UCSD), US
  73. Université Paris-Saclay, France
  74.  KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
  75.  Lund University, Sweden
  76. University of Washington, US
  77. The University of Western Australia, Australia
  78.  University of Glasgow, UK
  79.  Brown University, US
  80. University of Birmingham, UK
  81.  University of Southampton, UK
  82. The University of Adelaide, Australia
  83.  University of Leeds, UK
  84.  Universität Heidelberg, Germany
  85.  Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), Japan
  86.  Osaka University, Japan
  87.  Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
  88.  University of Technology Sydney, Australia
  89.  Durham University, UK
  90.  Pennsylvania State University, US
  91. Purdue University, US
  92.  Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
  93.  Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (UC), Chile
  94.  Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia
  95.  Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), Mexico
  96.  University of Alberta, Canada
  97.  Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany
  98.  Pohang University of Science And Technology (POSTECH), South Korea
  99.  RWTH Aachen University, Germany
  100.  University of Copenhagen, Denmark

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