King’s College London (KCL) now ranks in the top 20 universities in the UK, after rising two places to 19th in rankings recently published by The Guardian.
The 2027 rankings, covering over 123 UK universities across 66 subject areas, were recently published by The Guardian.
This is the second year in a row that King’s ranking has risen. Originally placing 28th in the 2025 series, it has since risen 9 places to end up in the top 20 this year.
Other London Universities saw mixed results. London School of Economics (LSE) rose one place (from 4th to 3rd) whereas University College London (UCL) fell from 10th to 13th. UAL (University of the Arts London) also fell from 9th to 10th whilst Imperial rose one place from 6th to 5th.
In the rankings, King’s placed in the top 10 for 6 subjects. The highest-ranked position was for ‘International Relations’ where King’s placed fourth behind LSE, St Andrews and Durham.
King’s also placed in the top 10 for Anatomy and Physiology, where it ranked 5th and rose 14 places since last year’s rankings. The other subjects include Law (6th), Politics (7th), Classics and Ancient History (9th) and Sociology and Social Policy (9th).
The Guardian’s methodology for determining the rankings includes teaching metrics – calculated by the percentage satisfied with teaching/feedback – student to staff ratios and spending per student (among other metrics) to calculate the ‘Guardian Score’ which ultimately determines the rankings.
King’s fell in student spending this year, falling from 8.1 to 7.9 — which is the same figure as the 2025 rankings — this means they fell to 12th best in the country. The metric itself is a measure of money spent on each student, excluding academic staff costs, rated out of 10. UCL fell sharply for the second year in a row, ending up with a final rating of 5.2, down two points from their 7.2 in 2025. LSE rose slightly, going from 8.9 to 9.0 and placing 5th best in the country.
Another year of good results in the National Student Survey (NSS) helped boost student satisfaction scores. Satisfaction with feedback rose again by 3.3 points to reach 76.6. Similarly, satisfaction with teaching rose by 1.3 points to 88.2, beating UCL’s 87.6.
On graduate prospects, King’s fell to 86%, from 89%, UCL also fell from 89% to 87%. LSE beat both of them with a score of 92% despite the fact that its score fell slightly.
Shitij Kapur, Vice-Chancellor & President at King’s College London, said:
“It’s fantastic to see King’s rank in the top 20 universities, as well as 11th for graduate employment prospects. This reflects the strength and well established reputation the institution holds across a broad range of disciplines, and is testament to our talented staff and students.”
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