Lancaster University has fallen three place places nationally in the Guardian University Guide 2026 rankings.
Lancaster previously placed 11th in the 2025 Guardian University Guide rankings, but has dropped this year to 14th place.
Despite a lower ranking than 2025, nine subjects were in the top 10 of their respective tables.
The top subjects include: Creative writing (3rd), biomedical science (4th), marketing and public relations (6th), product design (7th), chemistry (7th), social work (7th), physics (7th), english (7th), and sociology and social policy (9th).
The table takes into account areas such as student satisfaction with feedback and teaching, student-to-staff ratio, money spent on the education of each student, amongst other things.
The rankings also consider feedback provided from the annual National Student Survey.
Across eight criteria, Lancaster University scored: 88.2 in student satisfaction with teaching, 78.3 in satisfaction with feedback, 12.9 in its student-to-staff ratio, 5.6 out of 10 in spending on each student, 144 in typical UCAS entry points, 4.9 out of 10 in degree results compared to A-Level results, 84 in post-graduate careers after 15 months, and 95.6 in the percentage of students continuing from first year to second.
These factors gave Lancaster University an overall score of 69 out of 100, placing it 0.4 points behind the University of Edinburgh, which came in at 13th, and 0.6 points ahead of the University of Bristol.
Regarding the ranking, interim Vice-Chancellor Professor Rebecca Lingwood said: “I am delighted to see Lancaster retain its position in the national top 15 institutions, and highest ranked position in the north west of England.”
She added: “Lancaster prides itself on its outstanding teaching and world-class research, and it is great to see that we have performed particularly well in the ‘satisfied with teaching’ category, reflecting the quality of student experience here.”
In other rankings, Lancaster retained its position in the top 10 in the Complete University Guide 2026 and earned a Gold rating for teaching excellence in the Teaching Excellence Framework (2023).
The top four positions in the rankings were the University of Oxford, the University of St. Andrews, the University of Cambridge, and the London School of Economics.
The universities of Bristol, Manchester, and York all ranked below Lancaster University this year.
The ranking guide can be accessed here.
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Featured image edits via The Guardian
