In UK there are a number of university ranking tables published every year by the newspapers such as The Times, Financial Times and Sunday Times. In September 2008 the Sunday Times University Guide released its annual ranking of 120 UK universities based on nine key performance indicators as follows:

• Student satisfaction • Teaching excellence • Heads'/peer assessments • Research quality • level/Higher points • Unemployment • Firsts/2:1s awarded • Student/staff ratio • Dropout rate

According to the survey Top 10 UK Universities (out of 120 institutions) are: 1. Cambridge 2. Oxford 3. Imperial 4. LSE 5. St Andrews 6. UCL 7. Warwick 8. Durham 9. York 10. Bath Source: Sunday Times University Ranking 2008

Cambridge tops the list of leading insitutions, followed by Oxford and Imperial. St Andrews is ranked as the number one university in Scotland and it is the only Scottish university featured in the top 10 list.

How do these institutions compare to last year's rankings?

In 2007 the Top 10 universities are as follows: 1 Cambridge 2 Oxford 3 London School of Economics and Political Science 4 Imperial College London 5 University College London 6 St Andrews 7 Warwick 8 York 9 Bath 10 Bristol

From the above ranking tables we can see that almost all institutions remain in the top 10 list this year, except that Durham is moving up to the Top 10 this year (up 3 places from 11th last year).

The top 3 colleges of The University of London are Imperial, LSE and UCL; they are the main rivals in the UK to Oxbridge. They are also the highest ranked London colleges in other league table such as the Times Good University Guide 2009 (Imperial at 3rd, LSE 4th and UCL 7th).

Overall the rankings produced very useful information for anyone choosing a top ranked institution.

How do you think? Have your say. Please visit the relevant guides for more information on the Latest Ranking of UK Universities.

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