Key messages

At Queen Mary University of London, we believe that a diversity of ideas helps us achieve the previously unthinkable. 

What is this resource for?

Across these internal webpages, you’ll find our most important stats, facts, messaging, and case studies in three main areas: ‘Excellence in research and innovation’; ‘Excellence in education’; and a focus on our community and how its initiatives bring our ambitions to life.

At the top of each section, you’ll see the headline facts and messaging for each category. As you move down through each section, you’ll find sub-categories that delve a little deeper into the work that goes on in each area, such as case studies and data from reports.

Our key achievements
The Queen Mary community
2027 rankings
2026 rankings
Our history

Our key achievements

9 Nobel Prize winners .
7th in the UK for quality of research (REF2021). 
In 2026, Queen Mary has been named the highest-performing Russell Group university in England for social mobility in new analysis from the UK Government Social Mobility Commission.
In the 2027 Times Higher Education rankings, Queen Mary is 32nd in the world for research quality based on hard metrics, placing us in the top 1.4 per cent of universities globally. For international outlook, we are 15th in the world (top 0.7%), and =129th in the overall rankings.
Queen Mary is a top global university and top 10 UK university for the third year running in the 2026-27 edition of the influential US News and World Report Best Global Universities rankings.
Queen Mary is now ranked 103rd in the QS World University Rankings 2027 – our highest position to date and a rise of 42 places for Queen Mary in just three years, making us the fastest-rising Russell Group University in the QS World University Rankings.
Queen Mary's income is £728m excluding capital grants (2024/25) of which research income is £159m excluding capital grants (2024/25).
87 per cent of our graduates are in work or further study 15 months after graduation (Graduate Outcomes Survey 2023/24).
We rose 13 places to 11th in the 2026 University Compare Employability Rankings, which are based on student and alumni feedback.
Ranked at 16th for 2026, we have been among the top 20 UK universities targeted by leading employers for the past six years (The Graduate Market in 2026 report).

The Queen Mary community

With staff, students and alumni from over 170 nationalities, we are one of the most diverse higher education institutions in the world.
Over 32,000 students on degree programmes and 5,700 members of staff. 
An alumni community of over 240,000 members based all over the globe.  
Of our domestic undergraduate students, 91 per cent are from state schools, 77 per cent are BAME, 46 per cent are first into higher education, 34 per cent are from households where the annual income is less than £35k, and 21 per cent eligible for free school meals .
Six campuses in London, a presence in Malta and Paris, and a ground-breaking transnational education programme in China.

Queen Mary ranks at 40 in the Complete University Guide 2027, continuing to maintain its position in the top 50.
Queen Mary is a top global university and top 10 UK university for the third year running in the 2026-27 edition of the influential US News and World Report Best Global Universities rankings.
Queen Mary is now ranked 103rd in the QS World University Rankings 2027 – our highest position to date and a rise of 42 places for Queen Mary in just three years, making us the fastest-rising Russell Group University in the QS World University Rankings.
In the Daily Mail rankings released in 2026, Queen Mary came 18th overall in UK, 16th for research quality and 10th for graduate salaries. Subject areas we scored highly in are History (5th), Medicine (10th) and Linguistics (12th).
In the Guardian University Guide 2027 we rank at 54, a rise of 18 places from 72 in the previous year. This significant jump was due to improvements across heavily weighted NSS metrics such as student satisfaction and student to staff ratios.
In the 2026 Shanghai Ranking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects, six of our subject areas featured in the top 50 worldwide; Telecommunication Engineering (19th), Dentistry and Oral Sciences (33rd), Geography (38th), Biomedical Engineering (44th), Electrical and Electronic Engineering (46th), and Economics (47th).
In the 2027 Times Good University Guide we rank at 36. Of the University, the Times wrote "Queen Mary fuses its distinctive focus on social justice and combines its research-led status with a deep-seated mission to improve lives through education."
In the 2027 Times Higher Education rankings, Queen Mary is 32nd in the world for research quality based on hard metrics, placing us in the top 1.4 per cent of universities globally. For international outlook, we are 15th in the world (top 0.7%), and =129th in the overall rankings.

2026 rankings

Queen Mary is a top 100 global university and top 10 UK university for the second year running in the 2025-26 edition of the influential US News and World Report Best Global Universities rankings.
For the quality of research, we ranked 31st in the world and 7th in the UK according to the THE World University Rankings 2026.
Queen Mary has climbed 35 places in two years in the QS World University Rankings 2026, and is now ranked 110 in the world - firmly establishing its recognition as one of the top universities in the world.
Queen Mary ranks at 40 in the Complete University Guide 2027, continuing to maintain its position in the top 50.
In the 2025 Daily Mail rankings, we came 15th overall in UK, 16th for research and =12th for graduate salaries. Subject areas we scored highly in are Linguistics (1st), Law (16th) and Creative Writing (7th).
Described as "a rare institution that excels in both academic league tables and social inclusion", we rank at 35 in the Times Good University Guide 2026.
Ranked at 16th for 2026, we have been among the top 20 UK universities targeted by leading employers for the past six years (The Graduate Market in 2026 report).

Queen Mary has a long, proud and distinctive history built on four historic institutions stretching back to 1785.

Established to improve the health of local communities in the City and east London:

1785: London Hospital Medical College, England's first official medical school, founded.
1843: St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College established – St Bartholomew’s Hospital was founded 1123 to help the poor of West Smithfield.

Provided education to women and working-class communities in the East End when these groups faced extreme barriers to education :

1882: Westfield College founded as a residential college for women – first such college in London, and one of four in the UK that opened for women in the second half of the nineteenth century.
1887: Queen Mary College – The People’s Palace Technical Schools opened by Queen Victoria. Providing education to people from all backgrounds and promoting diversity as “a place where people of all classes and conditions congregate.”
1965: Queen Mary College opens a School of Law and School of Economics and Finance in response to the Robins Report published in 1963
1980: Queen Mary College opens the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, which offers postgraduate law programmes and professional legal training in a wide range of subjects.
1995: Queen Mary and Westfield College merge with Bart’s and the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry – the final merger that created Queen Mary University of London.

Throughout our history, we’ve fostered social justice and improved lives through academic excellence. And we continue to do this today.

1934: Sir Lynden Macassey, writes in the Times that Queen Mary, “stands in striking refutation of all the early critics, who thought that university education was an unnecessary luxury for east London...Drawn as the students are from classes which have their own way to make in the world, they achieve exceptional results in their degree examinations.”
2024 The Times & Sunday Times Good University Guide: “Queen Mary continues to prove that social mobility and academic success are not mutually exclusive.”

Read about our history in full.