Best universities for engineering degrees 2020

Find the best colleges for engineering and technology using Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings data

October 16 2019

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

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

The 2020 subject ranking for engineering and technology, from Times Higher Education features 1,008 universities across more than 70 countries.

Best universities by degree subject

Best universities for arts and humanities
Best universities for business and economics
Best universities for clinical, pre-clinical and health
Best universities for computer science
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
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Although the schools at the very top are in the United States and the United Kingdom, universities in Singapore, China and Switzerland perform extremely well and appear high up the rankings.

China is the third most-represented country in the list of the best universities for engineering, ahead of the UK, Germany, Australia and Canada. Only Japan and the United States have a higher number of universities present 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 what you can do with these degrees.

Best universities worldwide

Best universities in the world
Best universities in the United States
Best universities in the UK
Best universities in Canada
Best universities in Australia
Best universities in Europe
Best universities in Singapore
Best universities in China

Top 5 universities for engineering degrees

=1. California Institute of Technology

Three of the six academic divisions at the California Institute of Technology teach and research engineering and technology subjects: the biology and biological engineering division, the chemistry and chemical engineering division, and the engineering and applied science division.

Both teaching and research are fairly cross-disciplinary. Undergraduates declare a major at the end of their first year.

There are five distinct engineering majors and an interdisciplinary studies programme that allows students to customise a course of study.

Caltech is one of the smallest universities in the world but prides itself on ambition and innovation.

=1. Stanford University

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

There are nine departments in the school and additional institutes, laboratories and research centres.

Research focuses on 10 of the “most daunting human challenges of the coming decades”. These are: systems design, bioengineering, network security, climate change, robotics, information technology, materials and matter, urban design, affordable accessible healthcare, and computation and data analysis.

Across the nine departments there are eight interdepartmental undergraduate programmes that students can major in.

=3. University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge engineering department is the largest department at the university.

Undergraduate students are able to learn across all of the engineering disciplines in the first and second years and are then required to specialise from third year onwards. Almost all undergraduate students study the four-year programme that results in a master’s degree.

Graduate students are given the opportunity to get to the heart of research and development, with the vast majority of research students studying for a PhD.

The department also undertakes research in a number of different engineering fields including electrical engineering, manufacturing and management and civil engineering, among others.

What can you do with an engineering degree?

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?

=3. 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 and became a school in its own right in 2007.

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.

Alumni from the school have been awarded a Nobel Prize, a MacArthur Award, a Turing Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among others.

5. University of Oxford

University of Oxford students are admitted for a specific engineering degree, differing from US universities where students can pick from various strands of engineering to study.

For undergraduates, this will be a four-year course in engineering science or more specifically biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, electrical engineering, information engineering or mechanical engineering.

Just under half of all applicants for these courses 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.

Student experience studying engineering

Women in STEM: how can we encourage more women into engineering?
Finding a place at the National University of Singapore
International perspective: from Delhi to Toulouse
Women in STEM: looking forward to equality
Two Indian engineering students explain why they chose the University of Toronto
Life at the world's best Millennial university
Women in STEM: stories from MIT students
A week in the life of a student in Brazil

Best universities for engineering 2020

Click each institution to view its World University Ranking 2020 profile

Engineering Rank 2020	Engineering Rank 2019	University	Country/Region
=1	4	California Institute of Technology	United States
=1	2	Stanford University	United States
=3	6	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
=3	3	Harvard University	United States
5	1	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
6	5	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
7	7	Princeton University	United States
8	9	ETH Zurich	Switzerland
=9	13	University of California, Los Angeles	United States
=9	10	Georgia Institute of Technology	United States
11	12	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
12	8	National University of Singapore	Singapore
13	14	Peking University	China
14	11	University of California, Berkeley	United States
15	15	Nanyang Technological University, Singapore	Singapore
16	17	Carnegie Mellon University	United States
17	16	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	United States
18	20	Tsinghua University	China
19	18	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland
20	21	Yale University	United States
21	19	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands
22	22	University of Texas at Austin	United States
23	23	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	United States
24	23	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong
25	26	Technical University of Munich	Germany
26	25	Cornell University	United States
27	31	University of Toronto	Canada
28	29	University of California, Santa Barbara	United States
29	42	University of Science and Technology of China	China
30	27	RWTH Aachen University	Germany
31	=37	The University of Tokyo	Japan
32	33	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)	South Korea
33	34	Columbia University	United States
34	35	University of California, San Diego	United States
35	28	Purdue University West Lafayette	United States
36	32	Northwestern University	United States
37	30	University of Pennsylvania	United States
38	=37	Johns Hopkins University	United States
39	=37	Zhejiang University	China
40	36	Seoul National University	South Korea
41	43	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
42	40	University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
43	65	University of British Columbia	Canada
44	44	University of Wisconsin-Madison	United States
45	=47	University of Southern California	United States
46	41	UCL	United Kingdom
47	55	McGill University	Canada
48	45	KU Leuven	Belgium
49	=47	Duke University	United States
50	=57	University of Washington	United States
51	52	Penn State (Main campus)	United States
=52	56	University of Manchester	United Kingdom
=52	51	Rice University	United States
54	68	Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)	South Korea
=55	46	Kyoto University	Japan
=55	=63	Ohio State University (Main campus)	United States
=55	=61	Texas A&M University	United States
58	50	Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU)	South Korea
59	71	UNSW Sydney	Australia
60	60	Technical University of Berlin	Germany
61	99	Huazhong University of Science and Technology	China
62	53	KTH Royal Institute of Technology	Sweden
63	=61	City University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
64	59	Tokyo Institute of Technology	Japan
65	79	New York University	United States
66	92	National Taiwan University	Taiwan
67	49	Fudan University	China
68	70	University of Melbourne	Australia
69	66	Technical University of Denmark	Denmark
70	=63	Monash University	Australia
=71	=82	Chalmers University of Technology	Sweden
=71	=72	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	United States
73	69	Eindhoven University of Technology	Netherlands
74	54	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	Germany
75	=82	Nanjing University	China
76	75	University of Southampton	United Kingdom
=77	63	Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
=77	=72	Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris	France
79	=57	University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom
80	=76	University of California, Davis	United States
81	=76	Australian National University	Australia
82	80	Brown University	United States
83	81	University of Maryland, College Park	United States
=84	101–125	Arizona State University (Tempe)	United States
=84	89	University of California, Irvine	United States
=86	88	University of Minnesota	United States
=86	93	University of Sydney	Australia
88	=90	TU Dresden	Germany
89	101–125	University of Waterloo	Canada
90	74	Tohoku University	Japan
91	87	University of Wollongong	Australia
92	=90	Aalborg University	Denmark
93	86	University of Bristol	United Kingdom
=94	97	University of Erlangen-Nuremberg	Germany
=94	85	University of Queensland	Australia
96	70	Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hong Kong
97	101–125	Queen Mary University of London	United Kingdom
98	100	Korea University	South Korea
99	=95	Indian Institute of Science	India
100	101–125	Polytechnic University of Milan	Italy
101–125	101–125	Aalto University	Finland
101–125	101–125	University of Adelaide	Australia
101–125	101–125	University of California, Riverside	United States
101–125	=95	University of Colorado Boulder	United States
101–125	84	École Polytechnique	France
101–125	NR	University of Groningen	Netherlands
101–125	101–125	Harbin Institute of Technology	China
101–125	101–125	Lund University	Sweden
101–125	101–125	University of Massachusetts	United States
101–125	101–125	Michigan State University	United States
101–125	101–125	National Tsing Hua University	Taiwan
101–125	101–125	North Carolina State University	United States
101–125	101–125	University of Nottingham	United Kingdom
101–125	176–200	Queen’s University Belfast	United Kingdom
101–125	101–125	Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies – Pisa	Italy
101–125	101–125	University of Sheffield	United Kingdom
101–125	94	University of Stuttgart	Germany
101–125	101–125	Technical University of Darmstadt	Germany
101–125	101–125	University of Technology Sydney	Australia
101–125	126–150	The University of Tennessee-Knoxville	United States
101–125	98	Tongji University	China
101–125	126–150	Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)	South Korea
101–125	101–125	Wageningen University & Research	Netherlands
101–125	126–150	University of Warwick	United Kingdom
101–125	101–125	Xi’an Jiaotong University	China
126–150	126–150	University of Alberta	Canada
126–150	126–150	University of Birmingham	United Kingdom
126–150	151–175	Boston University	United States
126–150	126–150	Case Western Reserve University	United States
126–150	126–150	Colorado School of Mines	United States
126–150	101–125	University of Freiburg	Germany
126–150	151–175	Ghent University	Belgium
126–150	151–175	King Abdulaziz University	Saudi Arabia
126–150	126–150	University of Leeds	United Kingdom
126–150	126–150	Linköping University	Sweden
126–150	151–175	Lomonosov Moscow State University	Russian Federation
126–150	126–150	University of Luxembourg	Luxembourg
126–150	101–125	University of Macau	Macao
126–150	151–175	University of Malaya	Malaysia
126–150	101–125	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	United States
126–150	101–125	University of Notre Dame	United States
126–150	151–175	Pompeu Fabra University	Spain
126–150	126–150	Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey	United States
126–150	151–175	Southeast University	China
126–150	126–150	University of Surrey	United Kingdom
126–150	176–200	Tianjin University	China
126–150	126–150	Vanderbilt University	United States
126–150	151–175	Vienna University of Technology	Austria
126–150	126–150	University of Western Australia	Australia
126–150	101–125	Wuhan University	China
151–175	201–250	University of Auckland	New Zealand
151–175	151–175	University at Buffalo	United States
151–175	151–175	University of California, Santa Cruz	United States
151–175	176–200	Cardiff University	United Kingdom
151–175	201–250	Curtin University	Australia
151–175	151–175	Dartmouth College	United States
151–175	101–125	University of Delaware	United States
151–175	176–200	Drexel University	United States
151–175	176–200	University of Duisburg-Essen	Germany
151–175	201–250	Edith Cowan University	Australia
151–175	151–175	Indian Institute of Technology Bombay	India
151–175	201–250	Indian Institute of Technology Delhi	India
151–175	176–200	University of Liverpool	United Kingdom
151–175	126–150	Nagoya University	Japan
151–175	176–200	Nankai University	China
151–175	201–250	Northeastern University	United States
151–175	126–150	Norwegian University of Science and Technology	Norway
151–175	201–250	University of Oulu	Finland
151–175	201–250	Queensland University of Technology	Australia
151–175	126–150	Ruhr University Bochum	Germany
151–175	126–150	University of South Australia	Australia
151–175	151–175	Trinity College Dublin	Republic of Ireland
151–175	151–175	University College Dublin	Republic of Ireland
151–175	126–150	Victoria University	Australia
151–175	126–150	Yonsei University (Seoul campus)	South Korea
176–200	176–200	Aarhus University	Denmark
176–200	176–200	University of Arizona	United States
176–200	126–150	University of Bath	United Kingdom
176–200	201–250	Binghamton University, State University of New York	United States
176–200	176–200	Centrale Nantes	France
176–200	201–250	CentraleSupélec	France
176–200	151–175	Deakin University	Australia
176–200	126–150	University of Florida	United States
176–200	151–175	Griffith University	Australia
176–200	126–150	Hanyang University	South Korea
176–200	251–300	Hunan University	China
176–200	176–200	University of Iceland	Iceland
176–200	176–200	Khalifa University	United Arab Emirates
176–200	151–175	Polytechnic University of Turin	Italy
176–200	176–200	Qatar University	Qatar
176–200	176–200	RMIT University	Australia
176–200	151–175	Soochow University	China
176–200	151–175	Sorbonne University	France
176–200	201–250	Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech)	China
176–200	201–250	Sun Yat-sen University	China
176–200	201–250	Swinburne University of Technology	Australia
176–200	NR	Tampere University	Finland
176–200	NR	Télécom Paris	France
176–200	151–175	University of Texas at Dallas	United States
176–200	126–150	University of Twente	Netherlands