Harper Adams climbs 24 places in Complete University Guide

Posted 27 April 2015

Harper Adams University has climbed an impressive 24 places in the Complete University Guide 2016, published today, the second highest leap in a group of 11 universities nationally to improve their ranking by more than ten places.

Harper Adams now sits at 60th in the overall ranking of 126 UK universities and holds its place in the top 10 for agriculture, forestry and related subjects.

Vice Chancellor Dr David Llewellyn said: “We were pleased to see such a strong improvement in our performance in this year’s Guide.  This reflects a year in which we have worked hard to ensure that our students receive an outstanding academic experience and in which we have continued to strengthen our connections with industry across our range of courses. 

“Our graduates are in high demand from industry and this, together with our distinctive subject provision, and global outlook, have been important factors in our success that we hope will prove attractive to students considering their choice of university in 2016.”

The university’s engineering courses made impressive advances in the subject tables, with Harper Adams climbing eight places to 36th in Mechanical Engineering and joining the General Engineering league at 28. Harper Adams University is the only university-level institution in the UK to offer degrees in agricultural engineering. From 2016 it will introduce new courses in Automotive (Off-highway) Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. 

The Complete University Guide’s main league table is based on ten measures: Student Satisfaction, Research Quality, Research Intensity, Entry Standards, Student: Staff Ratio; Spending on Academic Services; Spending on Student Facilities; Good Honours degrees achieved; Graduate Prospects and Completion.

Harper Adams University’s student satisfaction rates are high – consistently placing in the top 20 in the National Student Survey. Just last week, Harper Adams was named the second best university of 2015, based on student reviews via whatuni.com

Job prospects are also excellent – with more than 96 per cent of graduates in work or further study six months after graduating. And the quality of the university’s research was recognised in the 2014 Research Assessment Framework, which concluded that Harper Adams work assessed was of international quality and that more than 50 per cent was either world-leading or internationally excellent.

The league table, full methodology and other information are available at www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk