Best universities for computer science degrees 2024

Top 10 universities in the world for computer science degrees 2024

Scroll down for the full list of best universities in the world for computer science.

Computer science rank 2024	Computer science rank 2023	University	Country/region
1	1	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
2	3	Stanford University	United States
3	2	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
4	5	Carnegie Mellon University	United States
5	4	ETH Zurich	Switzerland
6	9	Harvard University	United States
7	6	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
8	=11	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
9	=11	Princeton University	United States
10	8	University of California, Berkeley	United States

Studying computer science is a smart bet in today’s world because the career opportunities for tech-savvy graduates are expanding every year.

There is also an extensive choice of universities when it comes to deciding where to study the subject.

Some 1,027 schools feature in the Times Higher Education ranking of computer science degrees for this year.

---

Best universities for arts and humanities
Best universities for business and economics
Best universities for clinical, pre-clinical and health
Best universities for engineering and technology
Best universities for life sciences
Best universities for physical sciences
Best universities for social sciences
Best universities for law degrees
Best universities for education degrees
Best universities for psychology degrees

---

More than 120 of the featured universities are American, and 61 institutions are based in the UK. Canada and Australia are also well represented with 28 and 30 institutions respectively. 

Computer science degrees vary in their focus and specialisms. Some courses are very theoretical, while others are more focused on programming.

The ranking uses the same methodology as the World University Rankings, but with slightly higher weighting given to the innovation metric and lower weighting for citations. The full methodology can be found here.

Scroll down to find out what you can do with a computer science degree.

---

Best universities in Australia for computer science degrees
Best universities in the UK for computer science degrees
Best universities in the US for computer science degrees
Best universities in Canada for computer science degrees

---

Top 5 universities for computer science

5. ETH Zurich

ETH Zurich has a history of developing software and designing computer systems. Eventually, these projects called for a dedicated computer science department, which was created in 1981.

The department covers many areas of computer science, including computational intelligence, networks and distributed systems, algorithms and theory, and information security. Different programming languages are also taught on software engineering courses.

There are close relationships with other departments within the university and with partners in business and industry, such as IBM, Microsoft, Google, SAP and Disney, with which the university collaborates on research projects.

4. Carnegie Mellon University

The Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science was established more than 25 years ago.

The university introduced the US’ first bachelor’s degree in artificial intelligence in 2018, and it added a bachelor’s programme in human-computer interaction in 2020.

The university offers a wide range of undergraduate programmes, majors and minors including robotics and human-computer interaction.

There are also several master’s and doctoral programmes within the field of computer science. 

3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Many of MIT’s alumni feature on lists of influential entrepreneurs making an impact at home and abroad.

Students are encouraged to develop start-ups, and research projects have explored problems such as calculating the financial risks of renewable energy and developing faster parallel computing.

Undergraduates are enrolled on a flexible curriculum that allows them to focus on both abstract theory and practical problems in computer science. Students can major in computer science or in both computer science and molecular biology.

Graduates go on to design video games, work on supercomputers, research robotics and often join big companies such as Google and Microsoft.

---

What can you do with a computer science degree?

---

2. Stanford University

The Stanford University computer science department was established in 1965.

The department offers bachelor’s of science, master’s of science and doctor of philosophy degrees.

The department undertakes research in many areas, including artificial intelligence, robotics, foundations of computer science, scientific computing and programming systems. There is also a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary research across chemistry, genetics, linguistics, construction and medicine, among others.

The home of the computer science department is the Gates Computer Science Building, named after Bill Gates, who donated $6 million (£4.9 million) to the project.

1. University of Oxford

Although computer science is a relatively modern discipline, the University of Oxford has one of the oldest departments in the country, formerly known as the Oxford University Computing Laboratory.

Since its beginnings, the department has provided lectures for undergraduates and trained research students at postgraduate level.

In addition to core computer science topics, students can take courses in computational biology, quantum computing, information systems, software verification, software engineering and computational linguistics.

The department offers three undergraduate degrees: single honours computer science, mathematics and computer science, and computer science and philosophy.

Like other students, computer science students – whether undergraduate or postgraduate – belong to one of Oxford’s colleges, where they live, eat, socialise and study.

---

Women in STEM: stories from MIT students
Caltech: ‘uniquely difficult but a wonderful place to study’
Keeping up with coding
Women in STEM: ‘I hope that one day the tech sector will be more diverse’

---

Best universities for computer science 2024

Click each institution to view its World University Rankings 2024 profile.

Computer science rank 2024	Computer science rank 2023	University	Country/region
1	1	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
2	3	Stanford University	United States
3	2	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
4	5	Carnegie Mellon University	United States
5	4	ETH Zurich	Switzerland
6	9	Harvard University	United States
7	6	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
8	=11	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
9	=11	Princeton University	United States
10	8	University of California, Berkeley	United States
11	7	National University of Singapore	Singapore
12	13	Tsinghua University	China
13	19	California Institute of Technology	United States
14	16	Cornell University	United States
15	10	Technical University of Munich	Germany
16	20	Peking University	China
17	=22	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland
18	15	University of Washington	United States
19	18	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	United States
20	14	Nanyang Technological University, Singapore	Singapore
21	26	University of California, Los Angeles	United States
22	17	Georgia Institute of Technology	United States
23	32	Yale University	United States
24	21	Columbia University	United States
25	=22	University of Toronto	Canada
26	24	University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom
27	28	Johns Hopkins University	United States
28	=29	UCL	United Kingdom
29	25	New York University	United States
30	27	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
31	=29	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong
32	31	University of Texas at Austin	United States
33	42	The University of Tokyo	Japan
34	35	University of Pennsylvania	United States
35	=38	Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris	France
36	33	University of California, San Diego	United States
37	=38	The University of Chicago	United States
38	36	Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
39	43	University of Waterloo	Canada
40	41	KU Leuven	Belgium
41	37	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	United States
42	46	Institut Polytechnique de Paris	France
43	34	University of Montreal	Canada
44	40	Zhejiang University	China
45	=48	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands
46	44	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)	South Korea
47	45	University of Maryland, College Park	United States
48	=66	Université Paris-Saclay	France
49	47	University of British Columbia	Canada
50	50	RWTH Aachen University	Germany
51	=48	Seoul National University	South Korea
52	57	Monash University	Australia
53	55	University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
54	=91	Purdue University West Lafayette	United States
55	51	University of Melbourne	Australia
56	59	Technical University of Berlin	Germany
57	85	University of Massachusetts	United States
58	58	Nanjing University	China
=59	52	Duke University	United States
=59	64	University of Science and Technology of China	China
61	77	KTH Royal Institute of Technology	Sweden
62	65	LMU Munich	Germany
63	=53	University of Southern California	United States
64	=82	City University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
65	60	University of California, Santa Barbara	United States
66	61	University of Amsterdam	Netherlands
67	71	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	Germany
68	63	University of Wisconsin-Madison	United States
69	=86	Kyoto University	Japan
=70	76	University of California, Irvine	United States
=70	=66	Technical University of Darmstadt	Germany
72	=89	Eindhoven University of Technology	Netherlands
73	81	Fudan University	China
74	74	Brown University	United States
=75	=53	McGill University	Canada
=75	72	Sorbonne University	France
77	62	University of Sydney	Australia
78	69	University of Technology Sydney	Australia
79	=66	Australian National University	Australia
=80	88	Politecnico di Milano	Italy
=80	=82	Yonsei University (Seoul campus)	South Korea
82	=86	University of Manchester	United Kingdom
83	70	UNSW Sydney	Australia
84	93	TU Wien	Austria
85	75	University of Adelaide	Australia
86	73	Aalto University	Finland
87	79	Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hong Kong
88	80	Michigan State University	United States
89	101–125	University of Alberta	Canada
90	98	Northwestern University	United States
91	101–125	Boston University	United States
92	101–125	Northeastern University, US	United States
=93	126–150	Aarhus University	Denmark
=93	101–125	Rice University	United States
95	99	University of Bonn	Germany
96	101–125	King’s College London	United Kingdom
=97	=89	Penn State (Main campus)	United States
=97	126–150	Tokyo Institute of Technology	Japan
=99	=91	University of California, Davis	United States
=99	84	Queen Mary University of London	United Kingdom
101–125	101–125	University of Bologna	Italy
101–125	126–150	University of Bristol	United Kingdom
101–125	126–150	Chalmers University of Technology	Sweden
101–125	78	University of Freiburg	Germany
101–125	176–200	Harbin Institute of Technology	China
101–125	101–125	Indian Institute of Science	India
101–125	101–125	Korea University	South Korea
101–125	126–150	Linköping University	Sweden
101–125	151–175	Macquarie University	Australia
101–125	101–125	National Taiwan University (NTU)	Taiwan
101–125	94	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	United States
101–125	=95	Qatar University	Qatar
101–125	101–125	Ruhr University Bochum	Germany
101–125	151–175	Sapienza University of Rome	Italy
101–125	101–125	Simon Fraser University	Canada
101–125	151–175	University of Stuttgart	Germany
101–125	101–125	Technical University of Denmark	Denmark
101–125	126–150	Technion Israel Institute of Technology	Israel
101–125	126–150	Tel Aviv University	Israel
101–125	151–175	Texas A&M University	United States
101–125	101–125	University of Tübingen	Germany
101–125	=95	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	United States
101–125	101–125	Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam	Netherlands
101–125	126–150	University of Warwick	United Kingdom
101–125	101–125	University of Zurich	Switzerland
126–150	151–175	Aalborg University	Denmark
126–150	126–150	University of California, Riverside	United States
126–150	176–200	University of Colorado Boulder	United States
126–150	101–125	University of Copenhagen	Denmark
126–150	151–175	École Normale Supérieure de Lyon	France
126–150	151–175	University of Erlangen-Nuremberg	Germany
126–150	101–125	University of Illinois Chicago	United States
126–150	56	King Abdulaziz University	Saudi Arabia
126–150	101–125	University of Luxembourg	Luxembourg
126–150	201–250	Osaka University	Japan
126–150	126–150	University of Oslo	Norway
126–150	101–125	The University of Queensland	Australia
126–150	176–200	Shenzhen University	China
126–150	101–125	University of Southampton	United Kingdom
126–150	126–150	Stony Brook University	United States
126–150	176–200	Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU)	South Korea
126–150	101–125	University of Surrey	United Kingdom
126–150	126–150	Swinburne University of Technology	Australia
126–150	151–175	Tohoku University	Japan
126–150	151–175	TU Dresden	Germany
126–150	201–250	University of Twente	Netherlands
126–150	151–175	University College Dublin	Ireland
126–150	176–200	University of Vienna	Austria
126–150	201–250	Wuhan University	China
151–175	126–150	Arizona State University (Tempe)	United States
151–175	176–200	University of Birmingham	United Kingdom
151–175	151–175	University of Glasgow	United Kingdom
151–175	126–150	Graz University of Technology	Austria
151–175	151–175	University of Groningen	Netherlands
151–175	126–150	Huazhong University of Science and Technology	China
151–175	151–175	Kyung Hee University	South Korea
151–175	126–150	Lancaster University	United Kingdom
151–175	201–250	University of Leeds	United Kingdom
151–175	151–175	University of Macau	Macao
151–175	151–175	University of Mannheim	Germany
151–175	176–200	North Carolina State University	United States
151–175	201–250	University of Notre Dame	United States
151–175	201–250	Ohio State University (Main campus)	United States
151–175	126–150	University of Oulu	Finland
151–175	151–175	Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)	South Korea
151–175	126–150	Queensland University of Technology	Australia
151–175	176–200	Radboud University Nijmegen	Netherlands
151–175	101–125	Rutgers University – New Brunswick	United States
151–175	176–200	Sejong University	South Korea
151–175	126–150	Sun Yat-sen University	China
151–175	151–175	University of Trento	Italy
151–175	251–300	University of Virginia (Main campus)	United States
151–175	=95	University of Warsaw	Poland
176–200	176–200	University of Antwerp	Belgium
176–200	176–200	University of Auckland	New Zealand
176–200	151–175	University of Basel	Switzerland
176–200	201–250	University at Buffalo	United States
176–200	201–250	University of California, Santa Cruz	United States
176–200	201–250	Dartmouth College	United States
176–200	151–175	Deakin University	Australia
176–200	201–250	University of Florida	United States
176–200	251–300	Free University of Berlin	Germany
176–200	176–200	University of Helsinki	Finland
176–200	201–250	Johannes Kepler University of Linz	Austria
176–200	151–175	King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals	Saudi Arabia
176–200	201–250	Loughborough University	United Kingdom
176–200	101–125	Macau University of Science and Technology	Macao
176–200	126–150	University of Malaya	Malaysia
176–200	176–200	University of Minnesota	United States
176–200	176–200	University of Newcastle	Australia
176–200	201–250	University of Nottingham	United Kingdom
176–200	201–250	Université du Québec	Canada
176–200	251–300	RMIT University	Australia
176–200	151–175	University of Rochester	United States
176–200	176–200	Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies – Pisa	Italy
176–200	151–175	University of South Australia	Australia
176–200	201–250	Trinity College Dublin	Ireland
176–200	251–300	University of Würzburg	Germany