King’s College London is one of the top five best UK universities, according to the 2026 QS World University Rankings.
Globally, the university placed 31st, whilst domestically, it reached fifth place. This comes after KCL placed 19th nationally in recent ranking from the Complete University Guide.
QS uses 10 indicators and five lenses to complete its rankings, including research and discovery, employability and outcomes, learning experience and global engagement. From this, it ranks 1,500 of the world’s best universities from over 100 different locations.
King’s achieved a score of 88.3 and placed 31st overall, rising nine places since 2025. King’s ranked higher than most universities that are above it nationally, such as LSE, which is ninth in the UK and 56th globally.
The university scored greatest in its Global Engagement, having a high International Student Ratio (99), International Research Network (98.4), International Faculty Ratio (99.5) and International Student Diversity (99). As well as this, King’s achieved excellent scores for its Academic Reputation (96.2) and Employer Reputation (91.6).
It also scored high for Sustainability, with a score of 96.5. King’s came 14th overall for sustainability, similarly last year, when King’s was in the top one per cent globally.
However, King’s scored lower for Citations per Faculty (70.2), Faculty Student Ratio (74.4) and Employment Outcomes (76.4).
Imperial, Oxford, Cambridge and UCL are the other four UK universities that surpassed King’s in the rankings.
