The Hardman Rankings

← World University Rankings 2026

Birkbeck, University of London

United KingdomROR 02mb95055
=910
World University Rankings 2026 · 90% range 566–1605 of 2,287 · score 35.0
Research Index: not ranked

How it scores

Research
64
Alumni outcomes
81
Admissions & earnings
69/91

Research and Alumni outcomes are percentiles among 2,287 universities; alumni outcomes are counted per student. Admissions & earnings is the position among universities in the same country (United Kingdom).

Note: It has 1,050 core papers, below the Research Index threshold of 1,500, so its citation shares are shrunk toward the median of similarly small universities before scoring.

Admissions, outcomes and alumni

Offer rate (UK 18-year-olds, UCAS)
97.2% src
Offer holders who enrol
17% src
Median earnings 5 years after graduating (LEO)
£32,500 src
Internationally notable alumni (Wikidata)
7 src
Heads of state or government (Wikidata)
1 src
Founders, billionaires and $30M+ alumni
not on the published top lists; estimated
Students (undergraduate / total)
4,495 / 7,720 src

Each figure links to its source. Admissions and earnings figures are comparable only within a country.

Research Index

The Research Index ranks a university only when it has at least 1,500 fractionally counted core publications over four years, so that a handful of highly cited papers can’t produce an extreme score. Its field ranks (where it has 200 or more papers in a field) and all of its data are shown here.

The numbers behind it (2020–2023)

Papers in the top 10% of their field
13.4% (11.9%–15.0%)
Papers in the top 1% of their field
1.9% (1.4%–2.6%)
Top-10% papers (fractional count)
141
All papers (fractional count)
1,050.1
International co-authored
55.9%
Open access
84.4%
Papers from 2020–23 since retracted
0 (0.00 per 1,000)

Core publications, fractional counting, field-normalised citation shares. Brackets show Leiden’s stability interval. Collaboration and open-access shares use full counting and aren’t field-normalised. Retraction counts come from the Retraction Watch database and include publishers’ mass retractions as well as honest-error retractions; a retraction is not by itself evidence of misconduct, and the count is never scored.

By field

Biomedical & health sciences=532range 288–811 of 1,671
Life & earth sciences–fewer than 200 papers
Mathematics & computer science–fewer than 200 papers
Physical sciences & engineering–fewer than 200 papers
Social sciences & humanities201range 108–350 of 1,262

Position over time

Not enough periods to show a trend.

The same method applied to each 4-year publication window. The number of ranked universities grows from period to period, so position is shown as a share of the field.

How other rankings place it

–Research Index 2026 (not ranked)
–QS 2027 (not in top 100)
–THE 2027 (not in top 100)
–ARWU 2026 (not in top 100)

Other rankings are cited for comparison. The Research Index measures research only; QS and THE also use reputation surveys and figures universities submit, and ARWU counts prize winners and total output.

Prize winners

Alumni laureates
0
Staff laureates
5

Alumni: none recorded. Counted from Wikidata (CC0). Alumni laureates count toward the overall ranking per student (10 of 65 global weight points); staff laureates are shown for context only.