Brain-boxes and clever-clogs of the capital city, gather round. A legendary London university has just been named one of the world’s very best in a recently-released global university ranking. And considering that if there was a degree dedicated to bragging about London, I’d pass it with First-Class Honours; I’m sure you can imagine that I’m pretty darn delighted about it.
The global university ranking in question is one of the most prestigious in the world, and it comes courtesy of Times Higher Education. Each and every year, the education-aficionados carefully collate a list of the best, brightest, and most brilliant universities on the planet. Their World University Rankings list for 2026 has just been released, and – as I may have mentioned already – an iconic institution in the capital city managed to nab itself a comfortable spot in the top ten.
The best university in London
Imperial College London was the only London-based university to earn itself a sought-after spot in the top ten. Coming in at a number 8 on the global list, the highly-prestigious institution managed to climb up a notch from last year’s rankings. Imperial is the UK’s only STEM and business-focused university, and continues to attract hopeful students from far and wide. The nearby University of Oxford managed to maintain the top spot for the tenth year running. And the only other UK-based university to make the top ten was (unsurprisingly) the University of Cambridge.
The rather lengthy list details a whopping 2191 institutions in total, spanning 115 different countries and territories. The rankings are based on a large range of factors and performance indicators to ensure the findings are thorough, balanced and comprehensive. It’s also the only global performance table that judges research-intensive universities across all of their core missions. I told you it was thorough…
The 10 best universities in the world (according to Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings 2026):
- University of Oxford
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Princeton University
- University of Cambridge (joint third)
- Harvard University
- Stanford University (joint fifth)
- California Institute of Technology
- Imperial College London
- University of California, Berkeley
- Yale University
You can take a look at Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings 2026 here.