Sir David Attenborough, Malala Yousafzai and Alan Turing — these are just some of the Nobel Prize-winning, global-leading, world famous graduates who have attended elite British universities. But which universities did they go to? And which are the best?
It's that time of year again, when students and alumni get to boast about their alma mater as the Complete University Guide has just released its list of the top universities in the UK for 2026. Multiple factors are considered when ranking these educational establishments, from entry qualifications to research quality, student-staff ratio, student satisfaction and more, it’s all taken into consideration to come up with an overall score out of 1,000.
Predictably, defending its title for the third year is the University of Cambridge who trampled its rivals with another score of 1,000. Famous graduates from the institution include Sir Attenborough, Isaac Newton, Alan Turing, actor Emma Thompson and Malala Yousafzai.
The University of Oxford came in an unsurprising second place. With a score of 978, Oxford's notorious alumni include Stephen Hawking, Bill Clinton, JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis.
While both of these universities excel in entry standards, academic services and graduate success stories, both of their student satisfaction rates rank lower than other unis that placed lower on the list.
In third place was the London School of Economics and Political Science which scored 927. Brilliant minds like the former president of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, and the first openly LGTBTQ+ woman in UK parliament, Maureen Colquhoun, were educated here.
The 10 best universities in the UK, according to the Complete University Guide
- University of Cambridge
- University of Oxford
- London School of Economics and Politics
- University of St Andrews
- Durham University
- Imperial College London
- Loughborough University
- University of Bath
- University of Warwick
- Lancaster University
Read last year's list to see how the rankings have changed.
Four London universities have been named among the 100 most ‘prestigious’ in the world.
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