Two German universities have been named among the top 20 in Europe in QS’s second-ever ranking of universities across the continent. However, experts warn that the ranking should be taken with a “healthy dose of scepticism”. 

QS European Universities ranking 2025

For the second time ever, Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a higher education analytics company, has published a report focusing solely on universities and institutes of higher education in Europe.

QS does not fully disclose how its scores are calculated, but explains that 684 different universities from over 40 countries and territories were analysed and ranked through the following categories:

• Academic reputation
• Employer reputation 
• Citations per academic paper
• Faculty-to-student ratio
• International faculty and student ratio, and student diversity
• International research network
• Outbound exchange students
• Employment outcomes
• Sustainability

Each institution was given a score out of 100 in each category, with a weighted average used to generate an overall score. Unlike the Times Higher Education (THE) rankings, QS’s report says it focusses solely on the quality of teaching rather than the overall student experience.

With the top spot taken by ETH Zurich, Imperial College London and the University of Oxford filled out the top three. Overall, UK universities took all but three of the top 10 spots.

TU Munich and Heidelberg ranked among 20 best universities in Europe

Since 2018, TU Munich has been either rising in the QS World University Rankings or maintaining its place. In the 2025 European ranking, the university in Munich scored 92,1 overall but just 54 when it came to graduates finding work.

Sharing a place with the University of Birmingham, Germany’s oldest university, Heidelberg was ranked the 18th best in Europe, with an overall score of 87. The ranking called Heidelberg “one of Europe’s most research-intensive institutions” and praised its “leading role in the scientific community”.

International doubt grows about value of university rankings

While students and academics once celebrated the arrival of university rankings as a chance to congratulate their institutions, international scepticism about the value of ranking systems, their methodologies and how rankings sell universities’ data, is moving into the mainstream.

In September 2023, the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands announced it would withdraw from the THE ranking because “makers of the rankings use data and methods that are highly questionable”. The University of Zurich followed, announcing in March 2024 that it would withdraw from the THE ranking.

While the first global university rankings were only published in 2003, the number of publishers has shot up in the past 20 years, with the most influential rankings run by four companies, who “collect vast amounts of data from universities and publicly accessible sources, which they then privatise in order to market them to universities, governments, and other interested parties in the form of performance analytics,” according to the United Nations University (UNU).

“Recent research suggests that universities that buy products and services from QS and THE may have better chances of moving up in those rankings,” the UNU explains. As such, readers and prospective students “should not take any [ranking] information at face value, but approach it with a healthy dose of scepticism,” Jelena Brankovic, a researcher at the University of Bielefeld whose expertise includes the university ranking industry, told IamExpat.

“[Students] should never rely only on one source of information, such as a ranking, but should try to cast a wide net, compare information from various sources, discuss with peers and parents, and assess this against their own preferences,” Brankovic explained.

10 best universities in Europe according to QS

For now, here are the 10 best universities in Europe, according to QS:

1. ETH Zurich, Switzerland
2. Imperial College London, United Kingdom
3. University of Oxford, United Kingdom
4. University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
5. University College London, United Kingdom
6. University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
7. University of Manchester, United Kingdom
8. King’s College London, United Kingdom
9. Université PSL, France
10. L'École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland

To read the complete 2025 QS ranking check the official website.

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