Imperial College London has once again been ranked the second-best university in the world, as Oxford and Cambridge slipped further down the global league tables.
Oxford dropped from third to fourth place, while Cambridge moved down from fifth to sixth in the 2026 QS World University Rankings.
Imperial College London retained its position behind only the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, which secured the top spot.
In total, four British universities featured in the international top 10, with University College London holding onto ninth place.
However, the rankings, released on Thursday, revealed a broader downward trend for UK universities. Some 54 institutions dropped positions including the University of Glasgow, the University of Manchester, the University of Warwick and the London School of Economics.
Eleven UK universities maintained their rankings from last year, while 24 improved. The University of Sheffield and the University of Nottingham notably returned to the global top 100, ranking 92nd and 97th respectively.
Jessica Turner, chief executive of QS, warned: “The UK government is seeking to slash capital funding in a higher education system that has already sustained financial pressure, introduce an international student levy and shorten the length of the graduate visa route to 18 months from two years.
“This could accumulate in a negative impact on the quality and breadth of higher education courses and research undertaken across the country.
“While the UK Government has placed research and development as a key part of the recent spending review, universities across the country will need more support to ensure their stability going ahead.
“At the same time, global competitors are seeing their governments increase investment in higher education and research, leading to international peers gaining and, in many cases, overtaking UK universities in the QS World University Rankings.”
She added: “The UK has until now been one of the countries to dominate QS World University Rankings, but institutions in the country are facing heightened competition internationally.
“A targeted approach is necessary by both government and individual institutions to ensure that the higher education excellence the country is renowned for is secured for the future, essential to delivering productivity in a knowledge-based economy and attracting top global talent.”
Oxford and Cambridge’s decline coincided with Stanford University in the US rising to third place, overtaking Harvard as well as the two historic UK institutions.
Cambridge experienced a significant fall in the “citations per faculty” metric, dropping 11 positions to 107th. This metric measures the average number of citations an academic’s research receives in scholarly publications.
Jessica Turner said that the slight fall in rankings for Oxford and Cambridge “does not necessarily indicate a decline in performance”.
She said: “The competition at the very top is exceptionally tight, and the difference between positions often comes down to fractions of a point.
“In fact, the gap between Oxford and Cambridge this year is just 0.7 points in overall score, highlighting how marginal these shifts can be.
“In many cases, a drop in rank isn’t due to a decline in performance, but rather the accelerated progress of peers.”
