The Dashboard: Thanks to Brexit, British Universities No Longer Impress

British university rankings have dropped 71 places in one year according to Times Higher Education (THE) due to the impact of Brexit affecting levels of employability.

THE’s global university rankings are based on graduate employability, and with many multinational corporations keen to place their European headquarters elsewhere, UK graduates entering the workforce are predicated to receive fewer employment options in the future.

The graph above, analyses the British, European, Asian, and North American schools that ranked in the top 100 for employability, as well as their change in rank from 2016 to 2017. Universities with notable changes have been labelled.

In just one year, British universities’ rankings have dropped 71 places overall. Not a single school experienced an increase in employability. It was an especially difficult year for the University of Edinburgh which dropped 46 places, more than any other university in the top 100.

The scoring system is done by Emerging, an HR Consultancy, with points based on assessments from employers around the world, assessing universities both home and abroad.

While the rankings tend to favour pre-professional over liberal arts universities, they offer a good indication of which countries we are likely to see the most emerging talent.

While American and Canadian universities remained relatively stable (with an overall net change of +14 places in the top 100), many European and Asian universities have rushed to fill in the gap left by the UK, with net changes of +93 and +74, respectively.

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and École Polytechnique all performed quite impressively, with the prize for “Most Improved,” going to EDHEC Business School in Nice by a long shot, rising an impressive 34 places despite not even making the 2016 top 100.

While the main takeaway is that Brexit hurts, there are a few other interesting side observations:

How will the Nordic cities Helsinki and Copenhagen fare? Why is Oxford significantly less employable than Cambridge? And most pressing, are Mormons (see Brigham Young University) slacking in their work ethic?

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King’s may well have their own European partnership in the pipeline…