and reputation ===
In the 2022 The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, St Andrews ranked as the best university in the UK, the first university to ever top Cambridge and Oxford in a British ranking. In the 2023 Guardian University Guide, St Andrews achieved the same feat and ranked first for the first time in the guide's history. In the 2024 versions of both The Guardian University Guide and The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, St Andrews was again ranked first in the United Kingdom. It has been twice named University of the Year by The Times and Sunday Times.
In a ranking conducted by The Guardian in 2009, St Andrews placed fifth in the UK for national reputation behind Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and the LSE. When size is taken into account, St Andrews ranks second in the world out of all small to medium-sized fully comprehensive universities (after Brown University) using metrics from the QS Intelligence Unit in 2015.
The university is ranked 5th in Europe by Times Higher Education in its 2019 Teaching Rankings. The 2021 Research Excellence Framework ranked St Andrews 16th in the UK, and second in Scotland, amongst multi-faculty institutions for the research quality (GPA) of its output profile. St Andrews was ranked ninth overall in The Sunday Times 10-year (1998–2007) average ranking of British universities based on consistent league table performance, and is one of only three universities to have never left the top 10 in any of the three main domestic league tables since 2008.
According to data released by the Department for Education in 2018, St Andrews was rated as the fifth best university in the UK for increasing male graduate earnings with male graduates seeing a 25% increase in earnings compared to the average graduate, and the ninth best university for females, with female graduates seeing a 15% increase in earnings compared to the average graduate. St Andrews is placed seventh in the UK (1st in Scotland) for the employability of its graduates as chosen by recruiters from the UK's …
