University League Table

29 April 2013, 11:58 | Updated: 29 April 2013, 12:10

Cambridge has come top of the latest university league table.

It's the third year Cambridge has topped The Complete University Guide.  Oxford climbed back to second, ahead of the London School of Economics, which was second last year.

The University of Northampton is this year's biggest climber, rising from 101st to 62nd.

The University of Hertfordshire dropped six places from 47th to 53rd.  The University of Bedfordshire dropped to 107th, from 82nd last year.

The University of Buckingham dropped two places from 55th to 57th.

The table used available data to rank universities on nine measures including student satisfaction, research, entry standards, staff to student ratios, spending on academic services, spending on facilities, good honours degrees, graduate prospects and completion data.

In total, 124 UK institutions were included in this year's guide, which is published online, compared with 116 last year.

The top 10 universities overall this year were Cambridge, Oxford, LSE, Imperial College London, Durham, St Andrews, University College London, Warwick, Bath and Exeter. All apart from Exeter were featured in last year's top 10.

Dr Bernard Kingston, principal author of the Complete University Guide, said it was "beyond dispute'' that the table's top 10 "includes some of the world's finest higher education institutions''.

Director Nova Jayne Robinson said that the guide gives would-be students "reliable and comprehensive'' information when making university choices.

Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of vice-chancellors' group Universities UK, said: "It is good that there is a growing amount of information about university courses to help inform potential students. However, league tables and guides cannot tell the whole story about universities and individual courses. Positions can vary from one table to the next, based often on small statistical margins.

"Applicants, and those advising them, will want to consider a fuller range of information before they make their final choices."