King’s College London (KCL) has risen to 7th in the QS University World Rankings: Europe 2026.
This article was originally published in Roar’s Spring 2026 print edition.
In the 2024 rankings, KCL placed 10th, rising two positions to 8th in 2025 before ascending another position this year.
The QS World University Rankings: Europe 2026 gave the university an overall score of 96.8 out of 100. This marked an improvement from 93.1 in 2024 and 94.9 in 2025.
The rankings judge universities on five criteria: Research and Discovery, Learning Experience, Global Engagement, Sustainability and Employability. The summation of these criteria builds to a score for the university out of 100. This is complemented by some of the individual criteria being broken down into sub-categories that are also judged out of 100.
In Research and Discovery, KCL was assessed on three sub-categories: Citations per Paper, Papers per Faculty, and Academic Reputation. The latter factor counted for 30% of KCL’s overall score for the rankings. The former two count for 10% and 5% of the overall score, respectively. Whilst it scored a relatively low 72.9 on Papers per Faculty, KCL scored highly in Citations per Paper (96.9) and particularly Academic Reputation (99.8).
All three of these scores marked a significant improvement over how KCL scored in 2024. However, KCL’s score for Papers per Faculty (51.3) was the 4th lowest of Europe’s top ten universities according to the rankings.
A similar improvement was seen in Learning Experience. KCL’s score leapt from 72.7 in 2024 to 86.2 in 2026. KCL also performed well in sustainability, achieving an almost perfect score of 99.4. A rise of 12.4 points in only two years. Both factors count for 5% of the final score.
In Global Engagement, KCL was assessed on five sub-categories: Outbound Exchange Students, International Research Network, Inbound Exchange Students, International Faculty Ratio, and International Student Diversity.
The university’s International Research Network (10% of the overall score) and International Faculty Ratio (5% of the overall score) scores remained high at 98.1 and 98.8, respectively. These strong performances were also mirrored in KCL’s International Student Diversity (5% of the overall score), which scored 97.6.
KCL’s scores on exchange students varied widely. In the field of Outbound Exchange Students, its score plummeted from 27.6 in 2024 to 1 by 2026. This contrasted with its Inbound Exchange Student score, which was 88.4, up from 27.2 in 2024. Combined, the scores make up 5% of the final score.
There were no such discrepancies in the Employability category. KCL was assessed on the sub-categories of Employer Reputation (15% of the overall score) and Employment Outcomes (5% of the overall score). Both areas marked a significant improvement from 2024, as Employer Reputation rose slightly from 98.1 to 99.2 and Employment Outcomes rapidly accelerated from 80 to 94.
Although KCL passed Manchester to become the UK’s sixth-highest ranking university according to the rankings, it remains behind Imperial and UCL. However, KCL remains ahead of the LSE, which descended from 12th in 2024 and 2025 to 14th by 2026.
About the author
