The 18 best universities in the United Kingdom

A university's ranking is based on the institution's reputation with academics and employers, and the number of research citations the school gets per paper published in a specific discipline - in this case, law. QS then gives a score out of 100.

It hasn't been a great year for British universities. Thirty-eight of the UK's 48 universities in the top 400 have dropped down the rankings this year, with Cambridge falling out of the top three. Despite this, 18 of the top 100 universities listed by QS are British, with four in the top ten.

Check out Britain's top universities below. We've included their global ranking in brackets.