Best universities for engineering degrees 2024

By seeta.bhardwa@…, 26 October, 2023

Top 10 universities in the world for engineering 2024

Scroll down for the full list of best universities in the world for engineering

Engineering rank 2024	Engineering rank 2023	University	Country/region
1	1	Harvard University	United States
2	2	Stanford University	United States
3	4	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
4	5	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
5	7	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
6	3	University of California, Berkeley	United States
7	6	California Institute of Technology	United States
8	9	Princeton University	United States
9	8	National University of Singapore	Singapore
10	14	Imperial College London	United Kingdom

Studying engineering is a smart choice for career-minded students, and there are universities all over the globe offering world-class degrees.

Most students enrol on a degree for a specific discipline within engineering. Common specialisations include civil engineering, electrical engineering and chemical engineering.

Times Higher Education’s 2024 subject ranking for engineering and technology features 1,374 universities across more than 70 countries.

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Although the schools at the very top are in the United States and United Kingdom, universities in Singapore, China and Switzerland perform very well and appear high in the rankings.

China is the second most-represented country in the list of the best universities for engineering, ahead of the UK, Germany, Australia and Canada. Only the United States has a higher number of universities in the ranking.

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

Scroll down for a full list of degrees covered by the ranking and information on what you can do with these degrees.

Best universities in Australia for engineering degrees
Best universities in Canada for engineering degrees
Best universities for engineering degrees in the UK
Best universities for engineering degrees in the US

Top 5 universities for engineering degrees

5. University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge’s undergraduate engineering course is four years long.

The first two years provide a broad engineering education, and the third and fourth years allow students to select modules to specialise further. These include aerospace and aerothermal engineering; bioengineering; civil, structural and environmental engineering; electrical and electronic engineering; and energy, sustainability and the environment.

There are six postgraduate programmes in engineering that can be taken as a taught course or as research study.

4. University of Oxford

The University of Oxford offers undergraduates a four-year degree in engineering science, where they can specialise from their third year in one of six branches of engineering: biomedical, chemical, civil, electrical, information or mechanical.

Just under half of all applicants to this course get through to the interview round, and 15 per cent secure a place on a course.

Many Oxford engineering graduates go on to careers as professional engineers, although some enter business, consultancy or further study.

3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The MIT School of Engineering is the largest of the five schools at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The school offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses, and encourages students at all levels to conduct research.

The school has eight academic departments and two interdisciplinary institutes. Departments include aeronautics and astronautics, biological engineering, mechanical engineering, nuclear science and engineering.

What can you do with an aerospace engineering degree?
What can you do with a chemical engineering degree?
What can you do with a civil engineering degree?
What can you do with an electrical engineering degree?
What can you do with a general engineering degree?
What can you do with a mechanical engineering degree?

2. Stanford University

Stanford University’s School of Engineering has been at the cutting edge of new technology and innovation for the past century.

It has nine departments, as well as a number of institutes, laboratories and research centres.

Research focuses on the “most daunting human challenges of the coming decades”. These include: bioengineering, network security, climate change, robotics, information technology, materials and matter, urban design, accessible healthcare, and computation and data analysis.

1. Harvard University

The John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is the newest school at Harvard University, having been established in 2007.

Its roots are in the Lawrence Scientific School, which was founded in 1847.

The school covers a number of teaching areas, such as applied mathematics, applied physics, bioengineering, computer science, electrical engineering, environmental science and engineering, and materials science and mechanical engineering.

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Best universities for engineering 2024

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

Engineering rank 2024	Engineering rank 2023	University	Country/region
1	1	Harvard University	United States
2	2	Stanford University	United States
3	4	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
4	5	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
5	7	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
6	3	University of California, Berkeley	United States
7	6	California Institute of Technology	United States
8	9	Princeton University	United States
9	8	National University of Singapore	Singapore
10	14	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
11	10	ETH Zurich	Switzerland
12	11	Georgia Institute of Technology	United States
13	13	Nanyang Technological University, Singapore	Singapore
14	12	Peking University	China
15	15	Tsinghua University	China
16	21	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands
17	16	University of California, Los Angeles	United States
18	17	Yale University	United States
19	18	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	United States
20	19	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland
21	22	Carnegie Mellon University	United States
22	20	Technical University of Munich	Germany
23	29	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
24	28	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	United States
25	25	Columbia University	United States
26	27	University of Toronto	Canada
27	24	Cornell University	United States
28	23	University of Texas at Austin	United States
29	34	The University of Tokyo	Japan
30	=30	Zhejiang University	China
31	=30	Northwestern University	United States
32	38	Purdue University West Lafayette	United States
33	26	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong
34	32	RWTH Aachen University	Germany
35	35	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)	South Korea
36	36	University of Pennsylvania	United States
37	33	Johns Hopkins University	United States
38	40	Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hong Kong
39	53	KTH Royal Institute of Technology	Sweden
40	41	Seoul National University	South Korea
41	37	University of California, San Diego	United States
42	=48	University of Manchester	United Kingdom
43	42	University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
44	39	University of Science and Technology of China	China
45	45	UCL	United Kingdom
46	43	University of California, Santa Barbara	United States
47	68	Kyoto University	Japan
48	59	Technical University of Denmark	Denmark
49	=48	University of British Columbia	Canada
50	47	University of Washington	United States
51	79	Harbin Institute of Technology	China
52	46	City University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
53	50	KU Leuven	Belgium
=54	44	Monash University	Australia
=54	=60	Texas A&M University	United States
=56	51	Fudan University	China
=56	65	Tongji University	China
58	54	The University of Queensland	Australia
59	80	Tohoku University	Japan
60	58	Yonsei University (Seoul campus)	South Korea
61	52	Duke University	United States
62	=74	Politecnico di Milano	Italy
63	=55	Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)	South Korea
=64	64	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	Germany
=64	92	Tokyo Institute of Technology	Japan
=64	=55	UNSW Sydney	Australia
67	71	Nanjing University	China
68	=60	University of Sydney	Australia
=69	67	University of Melbourne	Australia
=69	=69	University of Waterloo	Canada
71	=76	McGill University	Canada
72	=85	Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris	France
=73	63	Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
=73	=83	University of Wisconsin-Madison	United States
75	62	Technical University of Berlin	Germany
=76	66	Sichuan University	China
=76	=72	Southeast University	China
78	=88	Xi’an Jiaotong University	China
79	=76	Huazhong University of Science and Technology	China
80	=88	Chalmers University of Technology	Sweden
81	99	Tianjin University	China
82	=72	Rice University	United States
83	=93	University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom
=84	81	Eindhoven University of Technology	Netherlands
=84	91	Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU)	South Korea
86	82	Penn State (Main campus)	United States
87	=74	Brown University	United States
=88	=85	University of California, Davis	United States
=88	126–150	University of Massachusetts	United States
=90	=83	Aalborg University	Denmark
=90	101–125	University of Alberta	Canada
=92	98	National Taiwan University (NTU)	Taiwan
=92	78	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	United States
94	100	University of Sheffield	United Kingdom
95	=69	University of Southern California	United States
96	101–125	University of Bristol	United Kingdom
97	101–125	University of Southampton	United Kingdom
98	101–125	University of Nottingham	United Kingdom
99	101–125	Institut Polytechnique de Paris	France
100	126–150	University of Birmingham	United Kingdom
101–125	101–125	Aalto University	Finland
101–125	87	University of Adelaide	Australia
101–125	126–150	Australian National University	Australia
101–125	151–175	Beijing Institute of Technology	China
101–125	=93	University of California, Irvine	United States
101–125	126–150	University of Colorado Boulder	United States
101–125	101–125	Indian Institute of Science	India
101–125	57	King Abdulaziz University	Saudi Arabia
101–125	101–125	King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals	Saudi Arabia
101–125	101–125	Korea University	South Korea
101–125	101–125	University of Leeds	United Kingdom
101–125	101–125	University of Maryland, College Park	United States
101–125	95	University of Minnesota	United States
101–125	101–125	New York University	United States
101–125	101–125	North Carolina State University	United States
101–125	101–125	Norwegian University of Science and Technology	Norway
101–125	=88	Ohio State University (Main campus)	United States
101–125	101–125	Université Paris-Saclay	France
101–125	101–125	University of Stuttgart	Germany
101–125	101–125	University of Technology Sydney	Australia
101–125	101–125	TU Dresden	Germany
101–125	97	Wageningen University & Research	Netherlands
101–125	96	University of Wollongong	Australia
101–125	101–125	Wuhan University	China
126–150	126–150	Arizona State University (Tempe)	United States
126–150	126–150	University of Auckland	New Zealand
126–150	176–200	Beihang University	China
126–150	126–150	Curtin University	Australia
126–150	151–175	Deakin University	Australia
126–150	101–125	University of Erlangen-Nuremberg	Germany
126–150	126–150	Ghent University	Belgium
126–150	151–175	University of Groningen	Netherlands
126–150	126–150	Hanyang University	South Korea
126–150	176–200	Kyushu University	Japan
126–150	151–175	Lund University	Sweden
126–150	126–150	University of Macau	Macao
126–150	101–125	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	United States
126–150	201–250	Northwestern Polytechnical University	China
126–150	201–250	Osaka University	Japan
126–150	101–125	Qatar University	Qatar
126–150	126–150	Queen Mary University of London	United Kingdom
126–150	126–150	RMIT University	Australia
126–150	151–175	Sharif University of Technology	Iran
126–150	126–150	University of Surrey	United Kingdom
126–150	151–175	Technical University of Darmstadt	Germany
126–150	101–125	The University of Tennessee-Knoxville	United States
126–150	176–200	TU Wien	Austria
126–150	201–250	University of Twente	Netherlands
126–150	101–125	Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)	South Korea
126–150	126–150	The University of Western Australia	Australia
151–175	251–300	University of Arizona	United States
151–175	126–150	Boston University	United States
151–175	126–150	University of California, Riverside	United States
151–175	151–175	Cardiff University	United Kingdom
151–175	176–200	Chongqing University	China
151–175	151–175	University of Delaware	United States
151–175	NR	East China Normal University	China
151–175	201–250	University of Florida	United States
151–175	201–250	University of Glasgow	United Kingdom
151–175	151–175	Hunan University	China
151–175	126–150	Linköping University	Sweden
151–175	151–175	University of Liverpool	United Kingdom
151–175	126–150	University of Luxembourg	Luxembourg
151–175	176–200	Macquarie University	Australia
151–175	176–200	Nankai University	China
151–175	126–150	National Tsing Hua University	Taiwan
151–175	151–175	Northeastern University, US	United States
151–175	151–175	University of Notre Dame	United States
151–175	201–250	Polytechnic University of Turin	Italy
151–175	126–150	Queen’s University Belfast	United Kingdom
151–175	151–175	Queensland University of Technology	Australia
151–175	201–250	Sapienza University of Rome	Italy
151–175	201–250	Sorbonne University	France
151–175	151–175	South China University of Technology	China
151–175	176–200	University College Dublin	Ireland
151–175	201–250	University of Warwick	United Kingdom
176–200	176–200	Aarhus University	Denmark
176–200	201–250	University of Calgary	Canada
176–200	151–175	Case Western Reserve University	United States
176–200	151–175	Drexel University	United States
176–200	176–200	University of Electronic Science and Technology of China	China
176–200	151–175	University of Freiburg	Germany
176–200	251–300	Heriot-Watt University	United Kingdom
176–200	151–175	Khalifa University	United Arab Emirates
176–200	176–200	Kyung Hee University	South Korea
176–200	176–200	Lancaster University	United Kingdom
176–200	176–200	University of Malaya	Malaysia
176–200	201–250	McMaster University	Canada
176–200	176–200	Michigan State University	United States
176–200	251–300	University of Montreal	Canada
176–200	251–300	Nagoya University	Japan
176–200	176–200	Newcastle University	United Kingdom
176–200	201–250	University of Padua	Italy
176–200	151–175	Sejong University	South Korea
176–200	126–150	Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech)	China
176–200	151–175	Swinburne University of Technology	Australia
176–200	201–250	Trinity College Dublin	Ireland
176–200	176–200	Vanderbilt University	United States
176–200	176–200	Western University	Canada

Editor’s note: As part of our THE statement on Ukraine published on 2 March 2022, Russian universities have been given less prominence in our rankings. Russian universities that met the criteria for this ranking are not displayed in the table above.

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