Our University placed 50th in THE World Reputation Rankings 2025
18 Feb 2025
Manchester has risen in the prestigious rankings, built on a survey of 55,000 expert academic voices from around the world – a powerful and robust indicator of global academic standing.
Our University has been ranked the 50th most powerful global university brand in the Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2025, making us one of eight UK institutions in the top 50.
The prestigious ranking of 300 universities is decided based on the judgement of senior academics in the world’s largest invitation-only academic opinion survey. Reputation is assessed based on three core pillars of evaluation: vote counts, pairwise comparison and voter diversity, with all three considered in relation to research and teaching.
Our University’s position has improved since the reputation rankings were last published in 2023.
President and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Duncan Ivison said: “Our inclusion in the THE World Reputation Rankings top 50 reflects our global reputation for pioneering research and excellence in teaching and learning.
“How we are perceived on the world stage is vital to attracting top talent and, as the higher education sector grows increasingly competitive, we must continue to innovate and evolve to strengthen our position. This recognition serves as both a testament to our achievements and a motivation to push further as we shape the future through Manchester 2035 – our bold new strategy for the next decade.”
Times Higher Education’s chief global affairs officer, Phil Baty said: “The THE World Reputation Rankings are built on a survey of 55,000 expert academic voices from around the world – so they are a powerful and robust indicator of a university’s global academic standing among peers.
“There are tens of thousands of higher education institutions in the world, so to make the list of the world’s top 50 most prestigious universities, voted by expert academic peers, is an exceptional accolade. Manchester clearly has a very strong grounding in its local community – but it is evidently also greatly respected and admired by scholars all across the world.”
The Times Higher Education website includes the full ranking of 300 universities with the best reputation in the world.
This year's ranking has seen a change in methodology, with the introduction of two new metrics.
The introduction of the pairwise comparison (where respondents are asked to order pre-selected institutions from 1 to 5) shows that reminding respondents of our institution has a positive impact on our relative position. In this measure, the University gained a score of 93.
A new measure on voter diversity - based on range of countries and subject areas (score of 99) - shows our global brand is positive and we have votes from a high number of countries / territories. This is something that applies to the UK in general.
The University of Manchester was placed 53rd in the THE World University Rankings 2025 (and 8th in the UK), while the University’s commitment to academic excellence in research and teaching across all subject areas was also recognised in the THE World University Rankings by Subject.