Complete University Guide 2026 now out

[Cakeandusername]

The 2026 version is now out..
www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings

Love seeing non-RG universities in the top 10, I hope this starts to undo the belief that only RG is good enough.

No, it's just a way of misleading the uninitiated into paying a lot of money for low quality courses.

You can only get a good quality course at an RG university? @Ceramiq

It shows that a lot has changed since the RG category was adopted, which is not surprising as it was what, an early-mid 90's category?

Have you looked at list @Ceramiq?
St Andrews, Bath, Loughborough are well regarded and require top entry grades.
No one selects solely by league tables but I found Complete Uni Guide a good starting point using the subject league tables for dc to then narrow down by other requirements like campus v city. It’s certainly more reliable than guardian for subject I know.

And I am assuming some courses at RG universities aren’t all brilliant

I completely agree that the Guardian's rankings are beyond a joke. But all the rankings are all to be taken with a massive pinch of salt and national rankings in particular need to be crossed with international rankings.

This list is just a general guide though and nothing to do with individual courses

its completely different course by course uni by uni

Its insulting quite frankly to some excellent universities where the students aren’t being pushed as much to fill in questionnaires which go towards the rankings in certain areas bumping up universities above others unfairly

I think however for international students paying more it will be a useful enough guide

That depends. If you're planning on working abroad or aiming at employment by a multi-national company, it might be worth consideration.the majority of British firms aren't going to give a monkey's about international league tables.

Good that DD's uni - Aber- appears solid in the course she's doing.

The RG is a marketing tool- obviously some unis in there are genuinely elite but a lot aren't. They can't be advertising a load of clearing courses at BCC and expect to be regarded as elite.

You can search Complete Uni Guide by subject too. The Complete uni guide and Times rankings are similar for subject my dc is doing.

The subject ratings can be quite useful, especially I think to help middling ability students target universities that perform well and are well regarded by students despite not being the obvious very high grade elites.

CUG remains in denial about the existence of some subjects , though, which it lumps together arbitrarily. And yet separates sociology and social policy, for example.

Interesting to see Lancaster so high. When I was sixth form back in the eighties Lancaster was one of those you put fifth choice as a banker. It's the uni I think of as having most changed it's status since then.

Manchester seems surprisingly low - it doesn't feel like it's up there with the very top any more - again a change from my own sixth form days.

I agree it’s surprising how some unis are now perceived compared to a couple of decades ago. In the 90s Sussex, Manchester, Cardiff, York were all top tier choices - while I wouldn’t then have thought of Nottingham and Southampton to be as high as they are now. Or Lancaster.
which makes me wonder if employers who themselves went to university in the 80s/90s/noughties also carry their own personal “league tables” around with them rather than the current ones when looking at applications.

York is still a top tier choice, while Nottingham is sliding and has never really reached that top status. It helps if you look at the subject leagues in the CUG where you can see this most clearly.

MN parents do - you only have to look at how much higher some unis are than, for example, Edinburgh and Bristol - Birmingham, for example , is very underrated and underdiscussed on here. I am sure lots of this is to do with middle class perceptions of a place.

I don't agree about Lancaster,although I am Scottish so perhaps didn't have quite the same ideas back then. But I went to uni in the early 90s (to York) and Lancaster was seen as very good then. All the new plate glasses were seen as excellent - Warwick , Lancaster, York amongst others - no RG back then!. I have also always heard students talking very highly of Nottingham ever since I started teaching.

St Andrew's to me is the one that is much more highly regarded than it used to be.

That's not my point. What is important is to try to understand the quality of the education on offer in any one university/course.

Absolutely this - I'm always surprised by how much people expect employers to be au fait with the ins and outs of league tables and RG snobbery. How many know that Southampton is supposed to be in a superior place to Reading or Essex?

I mean "employers" generally, not a few top end law firms.

My daughter refused to resit any of her A-Levels and opted to apply through Clearing on her existing grades. I was surprised (pleasantly) by what was open to her - she wasn't going to qualify for the top end but the places she could consider were a long way from scraping the bottom of the barrel, at least to my 80s eyes.

Yes you can set a filter all the league tables

Exactly, My ds is in the same position - on a gap year, holding a good offer from UEA but hoping to trade up in clearing. He's looked at recent league tables and thinks that Nottingham, Loughborough, Lancaster and Surrey (which look like they might be in clearing) would be viewed as 'better' by employers than UEA, or even Leicester where he also had an offer.

I asked my three siblings (in their late 30s/40s) to rank the above unis based on where they thought they stood in terms of reputation/prestige. They all put Nottingham top, then Leicester, Lancaster and UEA. They thought Loughborough and Surrey were much lower down. In reality, Leicester is the lowest ranked of that bunch per current league tables. I said to ds that my siblings are the sort of people who would be recruiting him in future and they thought UEA or Leicester were good unis so he doesn't actually need to worry about trading up - unless he prefers something that comes up in clearing.

Employers don’t necessarily know the ins and outs of league tables. It very much depends on subject and the reason some universities remain popular is destinations of students and ambition for a highly paid job being a key consideration. Many people looking for high flying roles don’t care that much about being taught by professor Blog. It’s more about being in a student body like you with ambition like you. Nottingham isn’t seen as a backnumber by London students. Most degrees are there to open doors and the degree in non sciences is just part of a cv.

Unless working abroad is a goal, world rankings are a moot point. Manipulated too. Also everyone knows StA, Lancaster and Bath might as well be RG. Surrey still has lowish entry standards for quite a few courses.

I would take this league table with a pinch of salt.

They are genuinely one level up from clickbait. “100 universities that will Blow Your Mind. You won’t BELIEVE number 26.” 🙄

The people who get into Russell group unis in clearing tend to be bright students who have underperformed at A level eg due to MH issues and this was also the case 30 years ago. One also needs to bear in mind that there was a vast difference in the school experience people had during the lockdown years and this will definitely have affected A level results in the past few years. Whilst A level results are a guide they are not the sole indicator of academic success at uni.

You can underperform at A level without any MH issues as well. Not everything is chalked up to MH issues.