From York to Sheffield and Leeds to Hull, Yorkshire’s aspiring university students have plenty of great schools to choose from - including many not too far from home.
Across the country, thousands of ‘freshers’ are right now readying themselves for the next step in their educational journey, with orientation week for the lion’s share of UK universities set to kick off sometime this month. The Guardian has released its brand new, updated university league table just in time, to mark the beginning of the 2025 academic year.
This table gives most of the UK’s 160-odd universities a score out of 100, ranking them overall based on a whole sway of different metrics. These include current student’s satisfaction with both teaching and feedback, the school’s staff-to-student ratio, how much money the institution spends per student, the average UCAS entry score for new starters accepted into the university, percentage of first year students continuing on to their second year of study - and even graduate career prospects.
It’s worth noting that a few don’t appear to be included in the overall ranking, including Yorkshire’s Leeds Arts University. The compiler says that some institutions cannot be included in the final list, because not enough data was available.
The Guardian also adds that different universities’ rankings might jump around a bit year-on-year based on factors like additional funding. The list also allows you to sort schools by the different courses on offer - and universities with lower overall rankings sometimes rank highly in specific subjects.
Here’s how Yorkshire and the Humber’s universities did, based on their overall scores:
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1. University of Sheffield
The University of Sheffield is ranked 20th overall in the UK this year, up one place from 21st last year. The Guardian gave it a score of 65.3 out of 100. | Adobe Stock
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2. University of York
York is ranked 25th overall in the UK this year in The Guardian’s league table, down from 19th place last year. It was given an overall score of 63.5 out of 100. | National World
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3. University of Leeds
The University of Leeds came in 37th overall this year, a notable drop on its position as 27th last year. The Guardian gave it a score of 61.1 out of 100. | Jonathan Gawthorpe/National World
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4. University of Huddersfield
Huddersfield is ranked 68th overall this year, a substantial jump from its ranking of 79th last year. The Guardian gave it a score of 54.4 out of 100 (shared with two other universities). | Adobe Stock