What do you look for in a top university? Interesting courses and modules? World-class teaching and facilities? A buzzing university town? In the UK one deadline for choosing a university for 2025 is pretty soon: if you want to go to Oxford or Cambridge, you need to have submitted your application by next week (October 15). The deadline is later for other unis.
Every year Times Higher Education (THE) publishes its definitive list of the best universities in the world, examining 2,000 institutions in 115 countries and territories. Today (October 9) it’s published its ranking for 2025 – and, as always, a bunch of UK unis make the cut.
This year a UK university topped THE’s ranking. None other than Oxford University was named the best university in the world. Congrats, Oxford!
Keen followers of the THE’s ranking won’t be surprised by Oxford’s achievement. Not only did the uni also place first on the planet last year, but it’s topped THE’s list for a whopping nine years on the trot.
Oxford received an overall score of 98.5, apparently bolstered this year by ‘significant improvements in industry engagement and teaching’. Particularly impressive is that it received a perfect 100 score for its ‘research environment’.
Second was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), while third was Harvard – both in the US. Other trends in this year’s Times Higher Education list saw Chinese universities edge closer to the top 10, and first-time placements in the top 200 for universities in Brazil, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
But Oxford wasn’t the only UK university to feature in THE’s 2025 list. A remarkable 25 British unis made the cut, with Cambridge in fifth and Imperial College London in ninth. Here’s a full list of all the UK unis in the list, and where they came.
All the UK universities in the Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2025
1. University of Oxford
5. University of Cambridge
9. Imperial College London
22. University College London
29. University of Edinburgh
36. King’s College London
50. London School of Economics and Political Science
53. University of Manchester
78. University of Bristol
87. University of Glasgow
93. University of Birmingham
98. University of Sheffield
106. University of Warwick
115. University of Southampton
123. University of Leeds
136. University of Nottingham
141. Queen Mary, University of London
146. University of York
157. Newcastle University
160. University of Liverpool
168. Lancaster University
172. Durham University
172. University of Exeter
185. University of St Andrews
191. University of Leicester
2025 UK university rankings with Time Out
If you’ve been following other recent university rankings on Time Out, you’ll notice some significant differences. The Sunday Times 2025 ranking was topped by LSE and St Andrews, the Daily Mail and the Guardian placed Imperial at the top, the ARWU had Oxford and Cambridge repping the UK and QS had Imperial as the highest-ranking UK uni.
You can check out Times Higher Education’s full ranking on the official website here.
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