7th in the UK: Complete University Guide 2025

This week, we maintained our place among the UK’s most highly regarded departments for the subject of Chemistry. The Department of Chemistry ranked 7th in the UK in The Complete University Guide 2025.

Head of Department, Professor Caroline Dessent said, "Chemistry at York is excited to have been ranked 7th in the UK for the third year running. Our department is an outstanding environment for both research and teaching, as well as being a supportive and inclusive community. It's great to see these achievements recognized by the Complete University Guide."

York’s overall position

The University of York ranked joint 17th overall in the Complete University Guide 2025. The guide ranks 130 institutions across the UK.

In total, 14 subjects at York were ranked in the UK top 10:

• Archaeology (7th)
• Biological Sciences (7th)
• Chemistry (7th)
• Drama, Dance and Cinematics (3rd)
• English (8th)
• French (4th)
• History (9th)
• History of Art, Architecture and Design (6th)
• Iberian Languages (Spanish) (6th)
• Linguistics (10th)
• Marketing (6th)
• Philosophy (10th)
• Psychology (9th)
• Social Work (3rd)

A further 10 subjects appeared in the UK top 20.

About the Complete University Guide

Published annually, The Complete University Guide league tables rank the best universities in the UK. It covers 74 separate subject areas, as well as an overall institutional ranking. Universities and subjects are ranked on entry standards, student satisfaction, research quality, graduate prospects, completion rates, student-staff ratio and spend on academic services and facilities.

The rankings are based on public domain data collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), the National Student Survey and the Research Excellence Framework 2021.