Best ranked medical schools in the UK just released by The Guardian!

The table ends with Lancashire on 33.9. 9 more universities teach medicine and aren't ranked at all: Bangor, Greater Manchester, Brunel, Buckingham, Canterbury Christ Church, Chester, Middlesex, South Wales and Worcester.

What the score is built from

The Guardian score is 8 measures added together, weighted differently for medicine. Entry grades and the student-staff ratio are worth 24% each, so nearly half of it. Satisfaction with teaching is 16%, and satisfaction with feedback, spend per student and continuation are 10% each. The satisfaction scores come from the 2026 National Student Survey, and the entry and staffing data from 2024/25. A school's position moves with the grades of the students it takes and the staff it employs, more than with anything that happens to you on placement.

Remember the university you go to doesn't decide where you work...

In the UK, you finish medical school and you work in the NHS. Where you do that first isn't decided by your medical school's ranking. Everyone applying to the Foundation Programme (first job as a doctor) gets a computer-generated rank and gets essentially "randomly" allocated around the country.

What matters when you're choosing medical schools

The rankings don't matter. What matters is finding a medical school that teaches in a way that works for you. The teaching styles really are different: some schools are built around problem-based learning in small groups, some are lecture-heavy, and some get you into hospitals in first year. That's the part worth reading about before you put 4 choices on a form. The rest of it is where you'd fit in. The people, the city, the environment you want to spend 5 or 6 years in, and the clubs and societies you'd actually turn up to. Most of that isn't in a league table.