University of Oxford crowned the Complete University Guide’s best university 2023

Oxford and Cambridge retained their tops spots in the tables once more.  However, places at the top of the table cannot be taken for granted as newcomers have challenged traditional incumbents to rapidly climb for positions of excellence.   

Biggest climbers 

Major advancers include Norwich University of the Arts rising 30 places, and the University of Surrey rising an impressive 17 places to land a spot in the top 20. St Andrews maintained the prestige of the highest ranked university in Scotland, and Cardiff University remains top of the table in Wales.  Harper Adams claims the highest new university ranking at 29th.  

Every year we release UK university and subject league tables to support prospective students in making informed decisions about their future.  Regional league tables are also on offer to help people find the right university for them in their area.  

Professor Amanda Chetwynd, Chair of the Complete University Guide Advisory Board, said:  

Congratulations to the University of Oxford for maintaining the top position in this year’s Complete University Guide rankings. The tight rankings in the top 20 shows just how high the standards are among UK universities.  

The subject league tables have seen lots of movement in the rankings this year and are a really valuable source of information for prospective students who know what they want to study but need some help deciding where.

Notes to editors  

• The team behind thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk has compiled university league tables for more than 25 years. Since 2007, these have been freely available online. The Guide is an autonomous division of IDP Education, global leader in education services and technology, from which, by mutual agreement, it retains its complete editorial independence.  
• thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk attracts over ten million visitors each year.  
• The main league table is based on ten measures: Entry Standards, Student Satisfaction, Research Quality, Research Intensity, Graduate Prospects – outcomes, Graduate Prospects – on track, Student-Staff Ratio, Spending on Academic Services, Spending on Student Facilities, and Completion. It includes 130 institutions. 
• The Arts, Drama & Music League Table, published since 2016, lists 13 specialist institutions offering too small a subject range to appear in the main table. 
• The subject tables are based on five measures (Entry Standards, Student Satisfaction, Research Quality, Graduate Prospects – outcomes and Graduate Prospects – on track) and include 150 universities, university colleges and specialist higher education institutions.  
• All university league tables on thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk can be filtered by region and mission group (Cathedrals Group, GuildHE, MillionPlus Group, Russell Group, University Alliance, as well as unaffiliated universities). Tables from the current and previous years can be downloaded. All tables can also be sorted by any of the measures that comprise them.  
• Some links within this release may not work until 06:00 BST on 14 June 2022 as they’ll be hidden until the publication of the League Tables. 
• Criteria for inclusion in the main university league table or the subject tables can be seen on our website.  

Press & media contacts 

• Jonah Duffin, Director of External Relations - jonah.duffin@idp.com  
• Bethan Clark, Cathod Du Media Agency - bethan@cathoddu.com