The Complete University Guide (CUG) 2025 was published this morning. Following a rise of two places last year, the University has dropped five places to 40th in the UK, retaining its rank as fifth in Scotland.
The CUG is based on ten measures: entry standards, student satisfaction, student continuation, graduate prospects: outcomes, graduate prospects: on track, research quality, research intensity, student-staff ratio, spend on academic services, and spend on student facilities. As HESA have not yet made student data for AY 2022-23 available, CUG have used the same student data as last year (HESA 2021-22).
Overall performance:
Unsurprisingly, as CUG have not been able to access refreshed student data, there hasn’t been a lot of movement across many of the metrics since last year. The University continues to rank 10th in the UK for entry standards, 25th in the UK for student continuation, and 45th for student:staff ratio.
As you will remember, the University achieved an excellent result in the NSS 2023, with the University ranking 2nd across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for overall student satisfaction. However, the methodological changes made to NSS last year have resulted in a drop in the student satisfaction metric in the CUG. Aberdeen now ranks 17th in the UK (first quartile), down from 8th place last year, but has retained its rank as second in Scotland.
Our performance on the two research measures, Research Quality and Research Intensity, has not changed in the last couple of years as it is based on the REF 2021 results. Research Quality is a grade point average of the quality profile derived from REF 2021, while Research Intensity measures the proportion of staff involved in teaching who are also doing research. The University’s rank remains 59th for Quality and 7th for Intensity.
The University has risen ten places for spend on facilities to 48th in the UK, but rank for spend on academic services has dropped by two places to 49th place, in spite of a higher score.
A key contributory factor for the overall drop in rank in the CUG is a decline in the two employability metrics. After a welcome rise last year, Graduate Prospects: Outcomes has dropped by seven places to 45th in the UK, and Graduate Prospects: On Track has fallen to 66th place (-19 places) and now ranks within the third quartile. Improving graduate employability remains a key strategic priority.
Subject performance:
The subject ranking results, which are based on six measures, are mixed. The University has seen an increase in rank for 14 of 35 subjects it was ranked for, and has achieved a top quartile rank for seven subjects.
Four subjects have ranked top ten in the UK compared to five last year, and all have seen a rise this year:
Theology & Religious Studies – 2nd in the UK (a rise of one place) and first quartile
Linguistics – 4th place (a rise of two places) and first quartile
Anthropology - 7th place (a rise of three places) and second quartile
Sport Science – 8th in the UK (a rise of four places) and first quartile
Two of the above subjects have also ranked first in Scotland: Linguistics, and Theology & Religious Studies, in addition to General Engineering (which ranks 11th in the UK).
You can access a detailed analysis of the CUG results on the Planning & Governance webpages at League Tables | StaffNet | The University of Aberdeen (abdn.ac.uk)
The QS World University Rankings 2025 are expected on 4 June and the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2024 are due to be published on 12 June.
Best wishes,
Karl
Karl Leydecker
Senior Vice-Principal