Oxbridge tops list of best UK universities but Surrey named 'University of the Year'

Oxbridge tops the Sunday Times' league table once again but the University of Surrey is named it's 'University of the Year'

The University of Surrey was named the 'University of the Year' as it entered the top 10 for the first time (Wikimedia Commons)

Oxford and Cambridge have maintained their lead as the UK's two best universities, according to the Sunday Times’ Higher Education guide.

The two institutions came joint first in the annual list compiled by the newspaper.

Closely followed by Imperial College London and the University of St Andrews in Scotland, elite Russell Group universities dominated the top 20.

But the University of Surrey was named as the Sunday Times University of the Year because it “listens to students and targets investment”, seeing it shoot up from 11th in the league table to 8th.

The university’s vice-chancellor, Professor Sir Christopher Snowden, puts its success down to its focus on student satisfaction.

He told the Sunday Times: “You can be research-led but you should have a clear balance between teaching and research. And you have to teach as seriously as anything else you do.

“We took the NSS seriously at a time when others were making excuses about why things were not as good as students would like.”

The worst place to get a degree is the University of East London, with just 45.6 per cent