Southampton celebrates further rise in UK league tables

The University of Southampton has risen to 23rd overall in the 2019 Guardian University Guide - a climb of 12 places.

Southampton is also ranked second in the UK for both Education and Electrical & Electronic Engineering, leading a list of 10 subject areas where the University is placed in the top 10 by The Guardian. The ranking for Electrical & Electronic Engineering continues a run of nine consecutive years in the UK top two in the Guardian Guide and completes a hat-trick of top 10 ratings for Southampton's undergraduate engineering programmes including Civil Engineering, ranked 4th, and Mechanical Engineering, ranked 6th.  

These latest results follow Southampton’s recent return to the top 20 in the 2019 Complete University Guide where Southampton climbed 6 places to 20th overall.

President and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Christopher Snowden, commented, “I welcome the improvement in our University’s ranking in the Guardian University Guide, following on from our 6 place rise in the Complete University Guide rankings, reflecting our strategic focus on quality.”

Southampton is also ranked in the top 10 by The Guardian for Media & Film Studies (5th), Philosophy (6th), Physics (6th), Art (7th - through the Winchester School of Art), Computer Science & Information Systems (8th) and Earth & Marine Sciences (10th). Overall, 80% of Southampton’s subject rankings are in the top 40.

Professor Bashir Al-Hashimi, Dean of Physical Sciences and Engineering, said, “Electrical and Electronic Engineering is consistently ranked among the best departments in the UK and this outstanding result reinforces that the University and Electronics and Computer Science provide the highest quality educational experience and training to our students. I am also delighted that Computer Science and Physics are in the top 10 in their disciplines, which is a fantastic achievement. Such consistent results are testament to the expertise and commitment of our staff as well as the leadership at Department, Faculty and University level.”

Professor Jane Falkingham, Dean of Social, Human and Mathematical Sciences added: “I am delighted that the excellence in our teaching and student experience has been recognised with the School of Education being ranked second in the UK. This reflects the hard work and dedication of our staff and students.”

The Guardian University Guide, which ranks 121 UK institutions, is entirely focused on undergraduate study and experience. Rankings are based around the familiar criteria of entry tariffs, student satisfaction, graduate prospects, student-staff ratio and university spend per student. It also provides an overall ‘value added’ score (out of 10).