St Andrews Ranking Lowered in The Sunday Times 2025 UK University Rankings

Last week, The Sunday Times published its reputable Good Universities Guide, an annual ranking of UK universities in various categories. St Andrews claimed the top spot in the 2022 and 2024 guides, but this year it was knocked down a peg by its cross-country rival, The London School of Economics (LSE). 

The Sunday Times utilises a wide range of metrics to rank universities nationwide, including factors such as student satisfaction, research quality, student-to-staff ratio, entry standards, and graduate prospects. Based on its stellar performance across these categories, St Andrews has topped the rankings and been widely accoladed for its high percentage of student satisfaction, notably becoming the first university to surpass the Oxbridge giants as the best UK university in 2023 and 2024. In fact, this year the National Student Survey (NSS) ranked St Andrews as the best university for student experience and second for teaching quality. In recognition of its achievements, the University received two separate awards from The Sunday Times: Top Scottish University of the Year and University of the Year for Student Experience.

Despite its achievements, this year’s rankings of the top five UK universities offered an unwelcome shift for St Andrews, which dropped to second place, trailing behind LSE and followed by University of Oxford in third, University of Cambridge in fourth, and finally Durham University in fifth. 

St Andrews’ fall from glory may not be for the reasons one might expect. 

This year, the criteria used by The Sunday Times to measure top-performing universities was altered to include a brand-new category: ‘sustainability and climate action’, in which St Andrews failed to impress. 

Helen Davies, Editorial Projects Director at The Sunday Times, said, “This year we have tweaked our methodology to keep up with contemporary concerns around climate change and careers and have added a sustainability metric, teaming up with People & Planet.”

People & Planet, the UK’s largest student campaigning network for climate change, also compiled its own league table, which ranks UK universities exclusively by environmental and ethical performance. In People & Planet’s guide, St Andrews came in at 78th place out of the 151 universities included in the rankings for climate action. Overall, the network scored St Andrews 50 per cent for its environmental policy. Still, it received a shocking 0 per cent for its sustainability strategy, as the University failed to establish sufficient ‘SMART targets’ in the required areas. 

This low score in sustainability likely contributed to St Andrews' drop from first place.

What does this mean for St Andrews? The 0 per cent score indicates room for improvement in the University's approach to sustainability. To be outperformed in climate action by a much larger university in the centre of London, a global hub for transmission pollution and emissions, signals that if the University seeks to regain its position at the top, it needs to introduce robust climate initiatives and policies.

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