How much do you care what others think about you? What about how much they rate the university you went to? Prestige isn’t all that when it comes to picking a uni but if you give a damn about reputation, you might be interested to find out which universities topped Times Higher Education’s (THE) World Reputation Rankings for 2025 (not to be confused with its pick of the best universities in the world).
This ranking is based on votes from thousands of specially selected scholars all over the planet, who nominated the unis that they think are the best for research and/or teaching in their field. THE counts these votes and considers them alongside the diversity of voters and a ‘pairwise’ comparison, which essentially makes sure that the ranking isn’t just dominated by academic ‘super brands’.
Now that’s all that cleared up, it’s time to reveal the UK institutions voted two of the top 10 most prestigious in the world. And it’s not a huge surprise.
The University of Oxford secured the highest position for a UK institution since 2015, landing in joint second with an overall score of 99.7 (alongside Massachusetts Institute of Technology). That’s in spite of it topping THE’s best universities league table for the last nine years straight.
The second British establishment to make it into the top ten was, you guessed it, the University of Cambridge. It followed closely behind Oxford, placing joint fourth with Stanford University with overall score of 99.6.
As for the rest of the list, Imperial College London just missed out on a top ten spot to place 14th while University College London was the next most prestigious UK uni in 25th. You can see the full league table here.
More on higher education at Time Out
Picking a uni is a major decision and it’s handy to get more than one opinion. That’s why we’ve reported on multiple rankings, from QS Top Universities and the Academic Ranking of World Universities to the Sunday Times and the Guardian.. But like we said, prestige is not everything. We’ve roundups of the prettiest campuses on the planet, the best cities to be a student and the best unis for student satisfaction.
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