Computer science and engineering subject rankings 2022: results announced

Browse the full results of the World University Rankings 2022 by subject for computer science and engineering

The US and UK continue to be world leaders on computer science and engineering, but Australian universities are making considerable gains, according to the latest Times Higher Education subject rankings.

The University of Oxford remains world number one for computer science in a top ten otherwise dominated by six US-based institutions. Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology maintain second and third spots, followed by ETH Zurich in Switzerland and the University of Cambridge.

The University of California, Berkeley, jumps from ninth to joint-eighth place, highlighting a trend of Californian universities ascending the computer science rankings.

The University of California, Los Angeles climbs from joint-16th place to 11th, California Institute of Technology jumps from 25th place last year to 13th, and the University of California, San Diego rises from 37th to 33rd. The University of California, Santa Barbara and University of California, Davis also improve their rankings.

The increases were all driven by significant rises in scores for working with industry, along with improvements in research and teaching, and may reflect geographical ties to Silicon Valley.

US universities in general score higher for industry income via computer science departments than their UK counterparts. The average score for working with industry for US universities was 46.2 out of 100 compared to 42.7 for the UK.

Californian universities score higher than the rest of the US with an average score of 53. The University of Oxford scores 46.5 on industry income compared to 92.8 and 84 for Stanford and MIT respectively.

Several Australian universities have jumped up the computer science rankings, with the University of Melbourne rising from 64th to 51st place and overtaking UNSW Sydney to become the new top institution in the country, and Australian National University rising from 65th to joint-56th.

Australian institutions have also made big gains in the engineering table; there are now eight in the top 100 compared to seven last year. Every Australian university in the top 100 improved their ranking this year, with the University of Queensland making the biggest jump from 88 to 66.

The top of the engineering table is dominated by the US, however, as Oxford drops from second to sixth place. Harvard, Stanford and Berkeley now take the top three spots with virtually the same scores as last year.

ETH Zurich and the National University of Singapore are the only universities outside of the US and UK to make the top ten for engineering, coming in at ninth and tenth place respectively.

The publication of the computer science and engineering rankings follows the release of four health and science subject rankings last month: clinical and health, life sciences, physical sciences and psychology. 

The other five THE subject rankings for 2022 will be released on the following dates:

• 13 October – Social sciences, business and economics, education and law 
• 3 November – Arts and humanities 

View the full rankings schedule for the rest of the year here.

rosa.ellis@timeshighereducation.com