Almost three-quarters of the UK’s universities have fallen down the table in the latest QS World University Rankings 2021
In the top 20, the University of Oxford remains the highest ranking UK university, despite having fallen one place to fifth. Cambridge maintained its ranking of seventh, while Imperial College London is the only top 20 UK university to climb up the table, moving from ninth to eighth. University College London (UCL) also fell from eighth to 10th, and Edinburgh held on to its 20th place ranking.
The University of Birmingham (UoB) has been placed 87th in the rankings, six places lower than its 2020 position of 81st. It therefore falls just outside the QS rankings for 2021 top 10 UK universities.
Investment in teaching capacity would serve the British higher education sector well, and help it to regain lost ground
A number of factors have been put forward to explain this drop in UK standings, including the impact of Brexit, restricted budgets and a decline in staff to student ratios at the top UK universities. It is likely that UK universities will experience further tightening of budgets in the wake of the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Indeed, UoB could see a reduction in revenue of around £80 million due to the anticipated decrease in income from international students.
Director of Research at QS Ben Sowter suggests that similar to other academic institutions in North America and the rest of Europe, UK universities are now having to compete with increased investment in higher education in other parts of the world.
The 2021 QS league table sees an increasing number of Asian universities taking top spots, including the National University of Singapore at 11th and Nanyang Technological University at 13th. The top 100 rankings now include a total of 26 Asian universities from across China, Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia.
Sowter also explains that ‘Investment in teaching capacity would serve the British higher education sector well, and help it to regain lost ground. So, too, would concerted efforts to ensure that Britain continues to remain an attractive place for talented academics and students to study in the future, and a national desire to continue collaborating with our European and global partners on transformative research projects.’
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