When considering which university to choose for higher education, QS ranking is one of the most reputable ones. But there is more information available in local rankings while evaluating UK universities. One of the important factors is these regional ranking is that they measure universities under the same education system and country. We will go through the top 3 regional university ranking for UK universities methodologies.
First of them in The Complete University Guide published by The Mayfield University Consultants. Next is The Guardian University Guide by The Guardian newspaper. The last one being Good University Guide published jointly by The Times and The Sunday Times.
The complete university guide has been published annually since 2007 by Mayfield University Consultants. It uses ten key aspects to measure university ranking using the most recent data available at the time. The data collected is mostly from public domains like the National Student Survey, The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and individual universities.
The ten key aspects of this guide are shown in the diagram below:
The Complete University Guide official Page
The Guardian University Guide is published annually by The Guardian, a British newspaper. The ranking uses nine different criteria, each weighted between 5 and 15 per cent. Unlike other annual rankings of UK universities, the criteria do not include a measure of research output.
This ranking is on the undergraduate level and aims to represent each stage of a student’s journey, starting from entry to graduation and followed by employment. Nine indicators are used to measure a university’s performance in teaching each subject. These measures relate to both input – for example, expenditure by the university on its students – and output – for example, the probability of a graduate finding a graduate-level job.
The measures are knitted together to get a Guardian score, against which institutions are ranked. These Guardian scores have also been averaged across all subjects to generate an institution-level table. Below diagram shows the breakdown of these measures:
The Guardian University Guide official page
The good university guide is one of the most popular and reliable rankings in the UK. It is published by The Times and The Sunday Times together since 1998. This ranking allows local and international students to compare universities and help them to make a better and more informed decision.
The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide contains full profiles of all UK universities. The league table is made up of nine indicators including student satisfaction with teaching quality and their experience, research quality, graduate prospects, entrance qualifications held by new students, degree results achieved, student/staff ratios, service and facilities spend, and degree completion rates. Below diagram shows the breakdown of these indicators:
Good University Guide official page
Below table compare side by side the UK university ranking in Finance and Accounting subject.