Back in April 2024 we published an article about Royal Holloway’s declining world ranking as measured by respected analyst THE (Times Higher Education). Our article then used the most recent data which was for 2023 so, with the end of 2025 fast approaching, we thought that we would revisit the topic and update our data.
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| Royal Holloway World Ranking according to Times Higher Education |
As our graph above shows, RHUL’s ranking – despite an encouraging upward tick last year (the only improvement in the last eleven years) – has now sunk even further and currently languishes somewhere between 401st and 500th in the world.
It is perhaps worth noting that THE only ranks the top 200 universities with individual places and then groups the next 200 into four groups (201 – 250, 251 – 300, 301 – 350 & 351 – 400) and the next 200 into just two groups (401 – 500 & 501 – 600). It’s difficult to establish then where, exactly, Royal Holloway now stands in the world but certainly not in a position of any great significance.
It’s not just the THE’s analysis that has marked Royal Holloway’s decline either. Several weeks ago The Guardian published its UK university rankings for 2026 which saw Royal Holloway’s position drop a whopping 27 places in just one year from 52nd in 2025 to 79th for 2026.
The Guardian’s rankings are of particular note for Royal Holloway because, many years ago, Royal Holloway used them on its website as accolades for its performance as the figure below shows:
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| Royal Holloway website in 2011 |
Now however, according to The Guardian’s analysis, Royal Holloway’s performance has declined relative to other UK universities and no longer deserves such recognition. For example, RHUL’s performance in Psychology and Media Arts – both ranked as 10th in the UK in 2012 – have now declined to 33rd and 54th respectively and Royal Holloway has removed references to The Guardian’s ranking from its website:
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| Royal Holloway website in 2025 |
The Guardian’s latest ranking of 79th out of the UK’s 123 universities now places Royal Holloway squarely in the bottom half and Royal Holloway’s claim that ‘We are consistently ranked in the top tier of UK universities in rankings published by the British media’ has also disappeared from its website.
Long-term residents will remember when the community once regarded Royal Holloway’s presence as an asset: some even regarded it as ‘prestigious’. Now though, residents are only too well aware that the ‘quantity over quality’ expansion behind the college’s ‘Master Plan’ has not only resulted in the chronic decline of Royal Holloway’s own ratings, but has also caused great sociodemographic damage to the surrounding community as those residents face the everyday problems of parking, anti-social behaviour and loss of family homes to HMOs.
According to Royal Holloway’s own website, University Provost Tracy Bhamra is responsible for leading the academic schools and so it would be surprising if she isn’t thought to be somewhat responsible for Royal Holloway’s latest plummeting position. So, as rumours circulate in Westminster about the ‘suitability-for-the-job’ of some of our government’s leaders, we wonder if, more locally, there are conversations going on about the suitability of some members of Royal Holloway’s Senior Leadership Team.