The Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences has enhanced its position in a number of subject areas, with the vast majority among the top 10 in the UK, in the latest Complete University Guide (CUG) rankings.

We placed 2nd for Social Policy and Sports Science, with the latter moving up from 4th place (2023). We were also ranked number one for Graduate Prospects in Social Policy.

We're 4th for courses in Education (up from 8th), while in Economics we improved on our previous 9th place by moving up to 8th. Within Economics, we also placed 1st for Graduate Prospects.

Our courses in the subject areas of Iberian Languages and German were the biggest climbers, moving up to 9th from 18th and 10th from 17th respectively.

Courses in our other subject areas achieved the below rankings:

Speaking about the rankings, Professor Deborah Wilson, Dean of the Faculty, said:

This is a really strong performance that demonstrates the strength in breadth of the Faculty across research, education and student experience. I’m proud of my colleagues in all six of our departments for the excellence in teaching they continue to demonstrate, which benefits each and every one of the students in our community. I’m particularly pleased to see the improvements in these rankings, that also reflect the strength of colleagues’ impactful and innovative research across our broad range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives.

Overall, the University of Bath placed in the top 5 of UK universities. This is the fifth year in a row that Bath has been in the top 10, and eighth year running it’s been the number one University in the South West.

The CUG, which compares 130 institutions, is based on 10 measures: entry standards; student satisfaction; research quality; research intensity; graduate prospects – outcomes; graduate prospects – on track; student-staff ratio; spending on academic services; spending on student facilities; and continuation.

Find out more about our CUG 2024 rankings, as well as other UK and international rankings.