SOAS Falls Yet Again in University League Tables

Roxanna Brealey, Editor-in-Chief, History & Politics. 

SOAS University has fallen 27 places in the Guardian 2026 University rankings, resulting in an overall institutional score of 39.5/100. The Guardian University league table compares 123 universities, SOAS now ranks in position 117. This is a significant decline in position from the Guardian 2025 University rankings, where SOAS scored 51.7 and ranked in position 90. 

Breaking down the factors that determine the overall institutional score makes it easier to see why SOAS has fallen in the league tables. These factors include: student satisfaction of teaching and feedback, student to staff ratio, graduate employment after 15 months, spend per student, and a value added score. 

Reassuringly, student satisfaction of teaching and feedback has improved from the previous year. These scores have been formulated in accordance with the 2025 National Student Survey, which is open to all final year undergraduates. The satisfaction of teaching score has risen from 82.1 to 84.1 and feedback has risen from 64.8 to 69.4.

However, when considered in comparison to other universities, these scores are below mediocre, with SOAS ranking 106th in the satisfaction of teaching score, and 121st regarding satisfaction of feedback. 

For the majority of factors, scores have declined. According to the Graduate Outcomes survey (2021/22 and 2022/23), as to whether graduates had found employment after 15 months, a decline can be seen from the 2025 level of 82% to 77%. Spend per student, which estimates the number of resources that are directed towards academic provision and is rated on a ten-point scale, has declined from 6.2 to 5.7. Additionally, the value added score which indicates whether students have academically improved since coming to university has declined from 6.5 to 5.1. 

There is clearly some work to be done here, which has already been established by other recent league tables. In The Sunday Times 2025 university rankings, SOAS came second to last in teaching quality and student experience, just beating the Royal Agricultural University. Moreover, it fell 37 places in the overall ranking, which was partially due to its poor score of 13.9% in the ‘People & Planet’(P&P) factor, which assesses universities on their environmental and ethical performance. As part of the P&P factor, SOAS received 0% in the ethical investment and banking metric due to unpublished ethical investment and banking policy.

Whilst some leeway can be given for SOAS’ previous mediocre ranking due to the error of  unpublished policy, the same cannot be said for the Guardian’s ranking, where no similar problem occurred.