Cause for Oxford blues as it loses its place in the nation’s top two universities

Cambridge has taken top spot in the annual Complete University Guide, with the London School of Economics and Political Science beating Oxford to second place. York, which recently joined the elite Russell Group, remains the region’s highest ranked university by retaining 12th position.

It is the second year running that Cambridge has topped these league table rankings.

The table ranks 116 universities on student satisfaction, research, entry standards, student to staff ratio, spend on academic services, spend on facilities, graduate prospects, good honours degrees and completion rates. It gives each an overall ranking.

Cambridge took first place for entry standards, and completion rates, as well as joint first for research, along with Oxford and LSE. It also scored highly in many of the other categories.

Buckingham University, one of the UK’s few private institutions, was first for student satisfaction, while Oxford came first for the proportion of good honours degrees achieved and LSE took top spot for graduate prospects.

University College London had the best student-to-staff ratio, while Imperial College London was first in terms of spend on academic services, and Hertfordshire University was top for spend on facilities.

Overall, the top 10 universities this year were Cambridge, LSE, Oxford, Imperial College London, Durham, Warwick, St Andrews, University College London, Lancaster and Bath.

At the other end of the scale, Bolton University and the University of East London were bottom.

Yorkshire’s top three universities are all part of the Russell Group.

Sheffield was the second highest ranked university in the region.

It fell by two places from 26th to 28th. Leeds also fell by two places, dropping from 32nd to 34th.

Hull was ranked fourth best followed by Huddersfield, Bradford and Sheffield Hallam.

York St John was the region’s lowest ranked university and the only one outside of the top 100. Leeds Metropolitan had the region’s second lowest position in the tables.