The Hardman Rankings

How it scores

Research
82
Alumni outcomes
92
Admissions & earnings
68/91

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).

Admissions, outcomes and alumni

Offer rate (UK 18-year-olds, UCAS)
92.1% src
Offer holders who enrol
17% src
Median earnings 5 years after graduating (LEO)
£31,800 src
Internationally notable alumni (Wikidata)
25 src
Heads of state or government (Wikidata)
1 src
Founders, billionaires and $30M+ alumni
not on the published top lists; estimated
Students (undergraduate / total)
9,310 / 14,015 src

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

Research Index

A · Quality
80.9
B · Strength
35.7

Percentiles among 1,305 ranked universities. Rank on quality alone: =235. On strength alone: =839. The Research Index scores research only; admissions, earnings and alumni outcomes are scored in the overall ranking where data exists.

The numbers behind it (2020–2023)

Papers in the top 10% of their field
12.8% (11.8%–13.9%)
Papers in the top 1% of their field
1.3% (1.0%–1.7%)
Top-10% papers (fractional count)
230
All papers (fractional count)
1,790
International co-authored
66.3%
Open access
85.3%
Papers from 2020–23 since retracted
1 (0.19 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=702range 480–1000 of 1,671
Life & earth sciences–fewer than 200 papers
Mathematics & computer science=552range 387–766 of 1,391
Physical sciences & engineering–fewer than 200 papers
Social sciences & humanities=172range 100–292 of 1,262

Position over time

top 30%2016–2019: 408 of 1,0102020–2023: 464 of 1,305

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

=464Research Index 2026
–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
2
Staff laureates
0

Alumni: 2 Nobel. Most recent: Christopher A. Pissarides (Nobel Economics, 2010), Óscar Arias Sánchez (Nobel Peace, 1987). 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.