best engineering universities in the world

Last Updated on December 27, 2022 by Omoyeni Adeniyi

If you are seeking to learn about best engineering universities in the world for the first time, the subject might seem overpowering for those who have not researched the subject before, but you are likely to be fascinated by the information you come across. 

Read more about best aerospace engineering universities in the world, best civil engineering universities in the world, best petroleum engineering universities in the world, and best mechanical engineering universities in the world. You can also find articles related to best chemical engineering universities in the world on collegelearners.

Best universities for engineering degrees

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 2021 subject ranking for engineering and technology from Times Higher Education features 1,098 universities across more than 70 countries.

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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 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 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 information on what you can do with these degrees.

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Top five universities for engineering degrees

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 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 of the school have been awarded a Nobel prize, a MacArthur Fellowship Award, a Turing Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among others.

2. 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 to 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.

3. 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.

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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?

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4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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

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

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

5. University of California, Berkeley

The College of Engineering is one of 14 schools and colleges at the University of California, Berkeley. It was established in 1931.

Students can choose to pursue a number of different areas, including civil and environmental engineering, mechanical engineering and nuclear engineering, among others.

Notable alumni of the college include Steve Wozniack, the co-founder of Apple, Marc Tarpenning, the co-founder of Tesla, Andrew Ng, co-founder and executive chairman of Coursera, and Peter Norvig, director of research at Google.

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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

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Best universities for engineering 2021

Click each institution to view its World University Ranking 2021 profile

Engineering Rank 2021	Engineering Rank 2020	University	Country/region
1	=3	Harvard University	United States
2	5	University of Oxford	United Kingdom
3	=1	Stanford University	United States
4	6	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	United States
5	14	University of California, Berkeley	United States
6	=3	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom
7	=1	California Institute of Technology	United States
8	7	Princeton University	United States
=9	8	ETH Zurich	Switzerland
=9	13	Peking University	China
11	=9	University of California, Los Angeles	United States
=12	=9	Georgia Institute of Technology	United States
=12	12	National University of Singapore	Singapore
14	11	Imperial College London	United Kingdom
15	15	Nanyang Technological University, Singapore	Singapore
16	18	Tsinghua University	China
17	20	Yale University	United States
18	16	Carnegie Mellon University	United States
19	17	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	United States
20	19	École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Switzerland
21	21	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	25	Technical University of Munich	Germany
25	26	Cornell University	United States
26	24	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong
27	32	Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)	South Korea
28	27	University of Toronto	Canada
29	33	Columbia University	United States
30	30	RWTH Aachen University	Germany
31	29	University of Science and Technology of China	China
32	31	The University of Tokyo	Japan
33	35	Purdue University West Lafayette	United States
34	39	Zhejiang University	China
=35	28	University of California, Santa Barbara	United States
=35	41	Shanghai Jiao Tong University	China
37	36	Northwestern University	United States
38	37	University of Pennsylvania	United States
39	40	Seoul National University	South Korea
40	34	University of California, San Diego	United States
41	38	Johns Hopkins University	United States
=42	42	University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
=42	46	UCL	United Kingdom
44	44	University of Wisconsin-Madison	United States
45	43	University of British Columbia	Canada
=46	=52	University of Manchester	United Kingdom
=46	54	Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)	South Korea
48	59	UNSW Sydney	Australia
49	49	Duke University	United States
50	50	University of Washington	United States
51	=55	Ohio State University (Main campus)	United States
52	=52	Rice University	United States
=53	67	Fudan University	China
=53	48	KU Leuven	Belgium
=53	60	Technical University of Berlin	Germany
56	=55	Kyoto University	Japan
57	45	University of Southern California	United States
58	=55	Texas A&M University	United States
59	61	Huazhong University of Science and Technology	China
60	58	Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU)	South Korea
61	66	National Taiwan University (NTU)	Taiwan
62	47	McGill University	Canada
63	73	Eindhoven University of Technology	Netherlands
64	63	City University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
65	51	Penn State (Main campus)	United States
66	=86	University of Sydney	Australia
67	75	Nanjing University	China
68	=71	Chalmers University of Technology	Sweden
69	62	KTH Royal Institute of Technology	Sweden
70	69	Technical University of Denmark	Denmark
=71	70	Monash University	Australia
=71	64	Tokyo Institute of Technology	Japan
73	=71	Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University	United States
74	68	University of Melbourne	Australia
=75	96	Hong Kong Polytechnic University	Hong Kong
=75	90	Tohoku University	Japan
77	=77	Chinese University of Hong Kong	Hong Kong
78	74	Karlsruhe Institute of Technology	Germany
79	65	New York University	United States
80	83	University of Maryland, College Park	United States
81	101–125	Xi’an Jiaotong University	China
82	89	University of Waterloo	Canada
83	82	Brown University	United States
=84	=84	University of California, Irvine	United States
=84	=86	University of Minnesota	United States
86	79	University of Edinburgh	United Kingdom
87	80	University of California, Davis	United States
88	=94	The University of Queensland	Australia
89	101–125	Tongji University	China
90	101–125	National Tsing Hua University	Taiwan
91	98	Korea University	South Korea
92	91	University of Wollongong	Australia
93	=77	Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris	France
=94	99	Indian Institute of Science	India
=94	88	TU Dresden	Germany
96	101–125	Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)	South Korea
97	101–125	Wageningen University & Research	Netherlands
98	101–125	University of Sheffield	United Kingdom
99	=84	Arizona State University (Tempe)	United States
100	101–125	University of Adelaide	Australia
101–125	92	Aalborg University	Denmark
101–125	126–150	University of Alberta	Canada
101–125	81	Australian National University	Australia
101–125	126–150	University of Birmingham	United Kingdom
101–125	93	University of Bristol	United Kingdom
101–125	101–125	University of California, Riverside	United States
101–125	126–150	Case Western Reserve University	United States
101–125	201–250	Central South University	China
101–125	101–125	University of Colorado Boulder	United States
101–125	101–125	École Polytechnique	France
101–125	=94	University of Erlangen-Nuremberg	Germany
101–125	101–125	Harbin Institute of Technology	China
101–125	126–150	University of Leeds	United Kingdom
101–125	126–150	University of Luxembourg	Luxembourg
101–125	101–125	University of Nottingham	United Kingdom
101–125	100	Polytechnic University of Milan	Italy
101–125	97	Queen Mary University of London	United Kingdom
101–125	101–125	Queen’s University Belfast	United Kingdom
101–125	76	University of Southampton	United Kingdom
101–125	126–150	Southeast University	China
101–125	176–200	Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech)	China
101–125	101–125	Technical University of Darmstadt	Germany
101–125	101–125	University of Technology Sydney	Australia
101–125	101–125	The University of Tennessee-Knoxville	United States
101–125	126–150	Tianjin University	China
101–125	126–150	Wuhan University	China
126–150	101–125	Aalto University	Finland
126–150	151–175	University of Auckland	New Zealand
126–150	126–150	Colorado School of Mines	United States
126–150	151–175	University of Delaware	United States
126–150	201–250	East China Normal University	China
126–150	126–150	Ghent University	Belgium
126–150	101–125	University of Groningen	Netherlands
126–150	176–200	Hanyang University	South Korea
126–150	126–150	King Abdulaziz University	Saudi Arabia
126–150	101–125	Lund University	Sweden
126–150	126–150	University of Macau	Macao
126–150	101–125	University of Massachusetts	United States
126–150	126–150	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill	United States
126–150	101–125	North Carolina State University	United States
126–150	NR	Paris-Saclay University	France
126–150	201–250	Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University	Russian Federation
126–150	176–200	Qatar University	Qatar
126–150	126–150	Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey	United States
126–150	101–125	Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies – Pisa	Italy
126–150	101–125	University of Stuttgart	Germany
126–150	126–150	University of Surrey	United Kingdom
126–150	176–200	Télécom Paris	France
126–150	151–175	Trinity College Dublin	Republic of Ireland
126–150	101–125	University of Warwick	United Kingdom
126–150	126–150	The University of Western Australia	Australia
151–175	501–600	Bauman Moscow State Technical University	Russian Federation
151–175	201–250	Beijing Institute of Technology	China
151–175	201–250	Beijing Normal University	China
151–175	126–150	Boston University	United States
151–175	151–175	Cardiff University	United Kingdom
151–175	151–175	Curtin University	Australia
151–175	176–200	Deakin University	Australia
151–175	151–175	Drexel University	United States
151–175	151–175	Edith Cowan University	Australia
151–175	176–200	Griffith University	Australia
151–175	NR	Lancaster University	United Kingdom
151–175	151–175	University of Liverpool	United Kingdom
151–175	126–150	University of Malaya	Malaysia
151–175	101–125	Michigan State University	United States
151–175	151–175	Nankai University	China
151–175	151–175	Northeastern University	United States
151–175	151–175	Norwegian University of Science and Technology	Norway
151–175	126–150	University of Notre Dame	United States
151–175	151–175	Queensland University of Technology	Australia
151–175	151–175	Ruhr University Bochum	Germany
151–175	176–200	Soochow University	China
151–175	201–250	South China University of Technology	China
151–175	NR	University of Sussex	United Kingdom
151–175	176–200	University of Twente	Netherlands
151–175	151–175	Yonsei University (Seoul campus)	South Korea
176–200	176–200	University of Bath	United Kingdom
176–200	201–250	Brunel University London	United Kingdom
176–200	151–175	University at Buffalo	United States
176–200	151–175	Dartmouth College	United States
176–200	176–200	University of Florida	United States
176–200	NR	Illinois Institute of Technology	United States
176–200	176–200	Khalifa University	United Arab Emirates
176–200	201–250	Kyung Hee University	South Korea
176–200	126–150	Linköping University	Sweden
176–200	201–250	Missouri University of Science and Technology	United States
176–200	151–175	Nagoya University	Japan
176–200	201–250	Newcastle University	United Kingdom
176–200	201–250	Osaka University	Japan
176–200	151–175	University of Oulu	Finland
176–200	176–200	Polytechnic University of Turin	Italy
176–200	126–150	Pompeu Fabra University	Spain
176–200	176–200	RMIT University	Australia
176–200	251–300	Sejong University	South Korea
176–200	176–200	Sorbonne University	France
176–200	176–200	Swinburne University of Technology	Australia
176–200	176–200	University of Texas at Dallas	United States
176–200	126–150	TU Wien	Austria
176–200	151–175	University College Dublin	Republic of Ireland
176–200	126–150	Vanderbilt University	United States
176–200	151–175	Victoria University	Australia