The University of Aberdeen (UoA) has been reported to take its place among the UK\u2019s top 20 universities for a sixth consecutive year, ranking 18th in The Guardian University Guide 2026<\/i>\u00a0and 3rd in Scotland.<\/p>\n
The Guardian rankings and the University’s assessment were based on teaching quality, student satisfaction, and graduate outcomes. Despite a slight fall from last year\u2019s 12th place, Aberdeen remains one of Scotland\u2019s strongest performing institutions in the Guardian tables.<\/p>\n
Some of Aberdeen\u2019s other placements included Medicine, 6th in the UK and 2nd in Scotland; Accounting & Finance, 6th in the UK and 1st in Scotland; and Anthropology & Archaeology, 8th in the UK and 2nd in Scotland. A further three disciplines – Business Management & Marketing; English & Creative Writing; and Law –\u00a0 were placed within the UK\u2019s top quartile.<\/p>\n
Professor Peter Edwards, a Senior Vice-Principal and newly announced Principal from 1 November, commented:<\/p>\n
\u201cThis continued placing within the national top 20 is a testament to the hard work of our community in driving forward the commitments we made under Aberdeen 2040.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, whilst maintaining an impressive rank, internal reports highlight a performance dip of the University. Aberdeen\u2019s ranking dropped from 12th in the UK to 18th in the UK placing, falling six places.<\/p>\n
The \u2018value added score\u2019 declined from 7.2 to 6.0 and played a central role in Aberdeen\u2019s fall from 12th to 18th place nationally. The measure shows students\u2019 academic improvement in relation to their entry grades and accounts for 15 – 20% of an institution\u2019s Guardian score. The reduction in score reflects that on average UoA students in Aberdeen are improving less than anticipated.<\/p>\n
Professor Edwards responded:<\/p>\n
\u201cThese areas will be subject to particular focus in the coming year, with a view to driving improvements. Going forward, the University will be focusing on improving performance under various measures, including the National Student Survey metric for Teaching Quality.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, rankings showed that career prospects rose nine places to 23rd, reflecting stronger graduate outcomes in the latest Graduate Outcomes Survey. The University retained high rankings for teaching satisfaction and average entry tariff, demonstrating the strength of its academics and overall classroom experience.<\/p>\n
Sustainability is another area of focus for the University – the recently introduced \u2018The People & Planet\u2019 measure in Guardian rankings is \u201cthe area with the greatest potential for improvement,\u201d shared Professor Edwards.<\/p>\n
In The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2026<\/i>, Aberdeen ranked joint 23rd in the UK and fourth in Scotland. Though this marks a fall from last year\u2019s record 15th place, the University remains within the national top 25 for the fifth consecutive year.<\/p>\n
Looking forward, the University will be undertaking further work to better understand this metric ahead of next year, ensuring that our score and ranking are more reflective of the other strong performances in the The Impact Rankings and QS Sustainability Rankings.<\/p>\n
Overall, we can also see a strong university performance, achieving 1st place in the UK for Archaeology & Forensic Science and top 10 positions in Anatomy & Physiology, Politics & International Relations, English, Geology, Drama, Dance & Cinematics, and Education.<\/p>\n
Further ranking results, including The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2026<\/i> were due for release this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The University of Aberdeen (UoA) has been reported to take its place among the UK\u2019s top 20 universities for a sixth consecutive year, ranking 18th in The Guardian University Guide 2026\u00a0and 3rd in Scotland. The Guardian rankings and the University’s assessment were based on teaching quality, student satisfaction, and graduate outcomes. Despite a slight fall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":6230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","iawp_total_views":86,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1450,1448,805,183,1449],"wf_post_folders":[181],"class_list":{"0":"post-6227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-league-table","9":"tag-rankings","10":"tag-university","11":"tag-university-of-aberdeen","12":"tag-university-rankings"},"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Ana Kolesnyk","author_link":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/author\/ana-kolesnyk\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Photo-by-Ana-Kolesnyk-300x169.jpeg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["News<\/a>"],"unlinked":["News<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["league table<\/a>","rankings<\/a>","university<\/a>","University of Aberdeen<\/a>","university rankings<\/a>"],"unlinked":["league table<\/span>","rankings<\/span>","university<\/span>","University of Aberdeen<\/span>","university rankings<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 10 months ago","modified":"Updated 5 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on 21 October 2025","modified":"Updated on 7 April 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on 21 October 2025 15:10","modified":"Updated on 7 April 2026 22:34"},"featured_img_caption":"Old Aberdeen campus (Photo: Ana Kolesnyk)","series_order":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6227"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7260,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6227\/revisions\/7260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6227"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gaudie.co.uk\/wpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=6227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}