Imperial College London leads the Daily Mail’s overall institutional league table, but subject-level rankings published in the 2025 University Guide show excellence is widely dispersed across the UK higher education sector.
The guide, compiled by Daily Mail University Guide editor Alastair McCall, presents 78 subject tables and finds 44 different universities top at least one subject. The subject rankings are driven largely by measures of graduate outcomes and student experience, producing a different map of strengths from overall institutional standings.
The ranking methodology weights how effectively courses prepare students for high-skilled jobs after graduation at 40 percent and uses the Graduate Outcomes Survey to capture the extent to which former students say their careers are on track 15 months after leaving university for a further 20 percent. The remaining 40 percent of each subject score comes from the 2025 National Student Survey and reflects student ratings for the quality of teaching, support while studying and overall student experience.
Universities must have registered scores in each of the five component areas to appear in a subject table; those with insufficient survey participation are excluded from the relevant lists, the guide notes. The subject results for each university are published in online profiles accompanying the guide.
St Andrews tops five subject tables — history of art, archaeology, classics, mathematics and psychology — the most of any institution. By contrast, two universities that rank among the overall top ten, Warwick and Bristol, do not top any subject tables, underscoring how specialist excellence can sit outside an institution’s overall position.
Imperial is identified as the best place to study chemistry and mechanical engineering and ranks in the top ten for 11 of the 13 subject tables in which it appears. Oxford University is top for German, materials and technology, philosophy and physics, and appears in the top ten for 20 of the 21 subject tables it enters.
Several newer or ‘modern’ universities top subject tables in specific areas. Chichester is the guide’s highest-ranked institution for performing arts and for tourism, transport and travel. Teesside leads social work. Brighton tops childhood and youth studies and health studies. Other modern winners include Buckinghamshire New University for sport and exercise sciences, Derby for bioengineering and Gloucestershire for journalism and media studies.
Additional subject leaders among post-1992 and newer institutions include Hertfordshire for counselling, psychotherapy and occupational therapy; Leeds Beckett for health sciences; Lincoln for dance; Liverpool John Moores for pharmacy; Northumbria for physiotherapy; Oxford Brookes for nursing and midwifery; Plymouth for civil engineering and cinematics and photography; and West of England for environmental and public health. Longstanding teacher training colleges St Mary’s, Twickenham and Plymouth Marjon top education and teacher training respectively.
The guide’s publication highlights how subject-level analysis can reveal pockets of specialist strength that overall rankings may obscure. All subject tables and university profiles referenced were published as part of the Daily Mail University Guide on Sept. 5, 2025, with an update on Sept. 8, 2025. The guide was compiled by Alastair McCall.