2024 Guardian League Tables: Undergraduate programmes see ranking boost

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We are pleased to report a positive set of Guardian League table results for our ULMS Undergraduate programmes. Overall, all of our subject areas have moved up the rankings, occupying a Q1 position based on their overall score.

Commenting on our progress over the last few years Associate Dean, Undergraduate Nick Drape noted ‘the general trend for the Guardian League Table is very pleasing, compared to 2020 all of our subjects are ranked higher overall, some significantly so. The general trend over the last 5 years has been positive.’

‘All subjects have very good scores for continuation and there have been healthy moves up the rankings for all 4 subjects with respect to this area this year.’

Highlights from our subject areas include:

BA Accounting and Finance:

· Overall ranking of 12th of 100 (vs 16th of 99 last year).

· 1st in RG for ‘satisfied with feedback’ and 2nd for ‘satisfied with teaching’.

· 6th overall for ‘satisfied with the teaching’.

Business and Management (BA Business Management and BA International Business):

· Overall ranking of 29th of 118 (vs 38th of 118 last year).

· 11th for ‘Career after 15 months.’

Economics (Bsc Economics and BA Business Economics):

· Overall ranking of 13th of 72 (vs 23rd of 75 last year).

· 3rd in RG for ‘satisfied with feedback’.

BA Marketing:

· Overall ranking of 7th of 78 (vs 17th of 67 last year).

· 3rd overall in RG and 2nd in RG for ‘satisfied with teaching’.

· 7th overall for ‘satisfied with the teaching’ and 4th for ‘Career after 15 months’.

How the league tables work

The Guardian League table provides an overall score for universities based on the following weightings:

Score Element %Additional detail
Satisfied with teaching 10 From 2022 NSS question theme (NSS 2023 published too late).
Satisfied with feedback 10 From 2022 NSS question theme (NSS 2023 published too late).
Student - staff ratios 15  
Expenditure per student 5 Mainly based on 21/22 data (limited use of 20/21 data).
Entry standards 15 Based on actual entry grades, not advertised entry requirements.
Value added 15 Degree classification vs entry qualifications.
Careers 15 Graduate outcome survey (simple average over 2 years) of class of 20 and 21.
Continuation 15 Proportion that continue after year 1. Only those who are inactive (ie left HE altogether) are counted negatively.
Overall 100  

 There were some minor tweaks to the methodology this year and one major change due to the removal of the ‘overall satisfaction’ question from the 2023 NSS, which previously had a 4% weighting. As a result, the weightings for ‘satisfied with teaching’ and ‘satisfied with feedback’ were both increased from 8% to 10%.