Choosing a university is a big moment. It determines the quality of your education, the subjects you can study, and just how crazy your nights out will be. You want to make the right decision, so doing a bit of research in advance is a good idea.
Several publications do uni rankings, but The Times Higher Education league table is one of the most respected in the business. Each year, it analyses data from literally thousands of institutions across the world, measuring them each on 18 different criteria from teaching to research output to global relevance. Everything is covered, so only the very best of the best make their way to the top – you can discover the top 10 universities in the world here.
There are several world-leading universities in Europe, although all of them are split between three countries: the United Kingdom, Germany, and Switzerland.
UK universities dominate Europe leaderboard
The UK dominates the European leaderboard, claiming half of the top ten including all of the top three spots. The University of Oxford, which has been leading the pack for a decade now, claimed the gold with an impressive overall score of 98.2 out of 100, and Cambridge wasn’t far behind with 97.2, making it third in the world. Imperial College London was third in Europe, and eighth on Earth.
Oxford’s best asset was its research environment, which received a perfect score of 100. It was also leading in the subject areas of medicine and computer science, and second worldwide in the social sciences and economics.
Cambridge’s research environment also received 99.9 out of 100, but its best subjects are the arts and humanities, life sciences, and psychology, all of which it is second in the world for. You can learn more about the rest of the UK universities which placed in the top 10 here.
The highest-scoring European university outside of the UK was ETH Zurich, which was 11th overall and received a score of 93.1.
The top 10 universities in Europe
Here are the top 10 universities on the continent according to the Times Higher Education ranking for 2025, including which spot each school ended up in globally.
- University of Oxford: 1
- University of Cambridge: 3
- Imperial College London: 8
- ETH Zurich: 11
- UCL: 22
- Technical University of Munich: 27
- University of Edinburgh: 29
- LMU Munich: 34
- École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne: 35
- King’s College London: 38
You can see the Times Higher Education’s full rankings on its website.
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