UEL celebrates 56-place rise in Times Good University Guide

The University of East London (UEL) has recorded the biggest rise of any UK university in The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2027, climbing 56 places, ranking first among London’s full-range modern universities and 58th nationally.

Surging 80 places, UEL also ranks in the top 10 for Teaching Quality, reflecting consistently strong National Student Survey (NSS) results.

The result is the latest measure of a transformation built around a clear purpose: not simply widening access to higher education, but ensuring that students convert opportunity into achievement, successful careers and lasting impact.

Professor Amanda Broderick, Vice-Chancellor and President of UEL, said:

This is more than a league-table rise. It is powerful recognition of what happens when an entire university is deliberately designed around student and graduate success.

Opening the door to higher education is only the beginning. The real measure of a university is how far it enables every student to travel - building the knowledge, confidence, professional networks and career momentum to exceed expectations and shape a changing economy.

That is UEL’s distinctive contribution: combining social inclusion with academic excellence, career success and enterprise. Our students’ starting points do not determine how far they can go.”

At UEL, career readiness is not an optional extra or something introduced at the end of a degree. It is embedded from day one through the University’s Practice Makes Professional Curriculum.

Integrated across every programme, the curriculum combines academic learning with industry-led experience, practical application and the development of professional fitness, mental wealth and digital capability. It is reinforced by the UEL Careers Guarantee, which gives every student access to hands-on industry experience, enterprise support, future-focused skills development and lifelong careers guidance.

The University’s 56-place rise is not an isolated result. It forms part of a sustained, multi-year pattern across the UK’s principal independent measures of university performance:

• Graduate success: UEL is the fastest-rising university in England for positive graduate outcomes (with its overall rate matching those reported by Oxford and Cambridge).
• Graduate enterprise: Fastest growth in enterprise with UEL ranking second nationally for active graduate start-ups and is among the UK’s top 20 universities for employment created by graduate businesses.
• Student experience: After three consecutive years in the UK top 10, UEL ranks first in England for graduating students’ overall positivity (National Student Survey 2026, using the Times Higher Education methodology for institutions with more than 1,000 responses).
• Academic progress and employment: UEL achieved the largest rise in the Complete University Guide 2027, driven by the strongest improvement in graduate employment outcomes and the highest student satisfaction score in London.
• Value added: Following the UK’s largest rise in The Guardian University Guide 2026, UEL ranks first nationally for value added in the 2027 guide - recognising the progress students make relative to their entry qualifications.
• Student support: UEL was named University of the Year for Student Support in the Daily Mail University Guide 2027, alongside the guide’s largest national rise of 51 places.

Professor Broderick continued:

Taken together, this transformation tells a much bigger story than any single ranking. The results demonstrate that inclusion and excellence are not competing ambitions. When a university is designed around the potential of every student – and the economic growth of communities - then social mobility, enterprise and outstanding graduate outcomes can advance together.

We are proud of this progress, but we are not complacent. We will continue to push the boundaries of next-generation higher education - working with industry, harnessing new technologies and creating more opportunities for our students and graduates to lead, innovate and generate lasting economic and societal value across London, the UK and the world.”