QS vs Times Higher Education: What the Two Rankings Actually Measure Differently

QS and THE construct their overall rankings from different sets of evidence. QS uses 9 weighted indicators grouped into 5 performance lenses. THE uses 18 performance indicators across 5 pillars. QS also has an indicator with 0% weight, International Student Diversity, while THE’s study abroad metric currently has 0% weight. These differences are structural: they determine which achievements can contribute directly to a university’s position and which cannot.

Neither structure is inherently defective. Each ranking is answering a different question about institutional performance.

How the two tables are assembled

QS assigns 50% to Research and Discovery, 20% to Employability and Outcomes, 10% to Learning Experience, 15% to Global Engagement and 5% to Sustainability. Its research lens is therefore driven by Academic Reputation at 30% and Citations per Faculty at 20%. Employer Reputation supplies 15% of the total score, while the Faculty Student Ratio accounts for the whole Learning Experience lens.

THE divides its score among Teaching at 29.5%, Research environment at 29%, Research quality at 30%, International outlook at 7.5% and Industry at 4%. Its two research pillars separate the environment in which research occurs from the quality of the resulting output. Its teaching pillar also combines reputation with staffing, doctoral activity and institutional income.

This means a university cannot rise through exactly the same profile in both tables. QS gives direct weight to employer perceptions and citations relative to faculty size. THE gives separate roles to research income, research productivity, citation impact, research strength, research excellence, research influence and industry income. THE describes its table as judging research-intensive universities across teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook; that stated scope is part of what its indicator set is designed to examine.

Research and citations: intensity is not the same as a research profile

QS’s Citations per Faculty indicator carries 20% and sits within the 50% Research and Discovery lens. QS divides an institution’s citation count by the number of individuals in its faculty to account for institutional size. The result is a measure of citation intensity rather than a simple ranking of absolute citation volume.

A smaller institution is not automatically advantaged, but it cannot rely on scale alone to produce a high ratio. Relatively strong citation performance for each faculty member can contribute strongly even when the institution does not have the largest total citation count. Conversely, a large citation total divided by a large faculty does not by itself guarantee a high score.

The other half of QS’s research lens comes from Academic Reputation at 30%. QS’s Academic Survey asks academic experts to nominate institutions in their subject areas, evaluating approximately 7,000 institutions each year. The ranking therefore combines a relative research-output measure with a reputation measure. A university can lead on one without leading on the other.

THE separates more types of research evidence. Research environment accounts for 29%, with Research Reputation at 18%, Research income at 5.5% and Research productivity at 5.5%. Research quality then accounts for 30%, divided among Citation impact at 15% and research strength, research excellence and research influence at 5% each.

THE’s citation impact measure combines country-adjusted and non-adjusted citation measures. The country-adjusted component prevents different national citation environments from being treated as identical, while the non-adjusted component retains citation impact in its observed form. This is not the same construction as dividing citations by faculty.

The additional research measures also detect different features. Research strength provides a separate signal about research production; research excellence identifies field-leading work; and research influence captures a separate dimension of citation reach. Research excellence is defined particularly precisely: it counts publications in the top 10% for field-weighted citation impact worldwide and is normalised by year, subject and staff numbers. THE’s 2026 bibliometric window covers publications from 2020 to 2024 and citations from 2020 to 2025.

The result is that QS compresses much of its research assessment into reputation and citations per faculty, while THE distributes research judgement across reputation, income, productivity, several citation-related measures and field-leading output.

Teaching: one ratio against several signals

QS has one weighted teaching-related indicator: the Faculty Student Ratio at 10%. It describes the relationship between faculty and students, but it cannot by itself show whether academics are widely regarded as effective teachers, how doctoral education is structured or what institutional resources support learning.

THE’s 29.5% Teaching pillar contains a broader set of signals. The full indicator-by-indicator treatment of both teaching constructions is in the indicators explained. Teaching reputation carries 15%. The remainder is distributed among the staff-to-student ratio at 4.5%, doctorates-to-bachelor’s ratio at 2%, doctorates-awarded-to-academic-staff ratio at 5.5% and institutional income at 2.5%.

These measures answer different questions. The staff-to-student ratio provides a resource-oriented comparison. The doctoral ratios connect staffing and degree activity, while institutional income provides a measure of the organisation’s financial base. Teaching reputation directly captures academic perceptions.

The pillar still does not constitute a complete account of learning quality. Its value lies in making several teaching-related conditions visible rather than reducing the teaching domain to a single institutional ratio.

Employer reputation: present in one table, absent from the other

Employer Reputation is a 15% indicator in QS. It sits within the 20% Employability and Outcomes lens alongside Employment Outcomes at 5%. QS says its employer survey measures institutional and programme reputation among employers. It also describes QS as the only major ranking to focus on this aspect of student experience.

An institution with strong employer perceptions therefore receives a direct contribution in QS that has no equivalent in THE. Conversely, an institution with weaker employer perceptions is not directly marked down on this dimension by THE because employer reputation is outside THE’s score. Absence is not a zero score: it means that the ranking does not measure the signal at all.

This is one of the clearest reasons the same university can move between positions. QS rewards a perception that employers are not making, while THE allocates that share of the score to other defined indicators.

Internationalisation: overlapping ideas, different constructions

QS places 15% of its score under Global Engagement. International Faculty Ratio and International Student Ratio each account for 5%, while the International Research Network accounts for another 5%. International Student Diversity has 0% weight and therefore does not currently affect the overall score.

The active indicators capture the international composition of staff and students and the institution’s international research connections. The 0% assigned to student diversity is important: the label appears in the methodology, but it does not allow a university to gain points for diversity under the current weighting.

THE assigns 7.5% to International outlook, divided equally among international students at 2.5%, international staff at 2.5% and international collaboration at 2.5%. Its collaboration measure considers the proportion of relevant publications with at least 1 international co-author and rewards higher publication volumes.

THE also changed the normalisation of its 3 international measures to account for country population. Its stated reason is that large countries were disadvantaged because it was easier for students and staff from small countries to study or work abroad. Population normalisation therefore changes the country context against which international performance is evaluated. The site’s separate coverage of these international signals is at international faculty ratios and international student signals.

Both rankings use international ratios; the difference is that QS gives its Global Engagement lens 15% and includes an international research-network indicator, while THE gives each of its 3 student, staff and collaboration measures 2.5% and adjusts them for country population.

THE’s study abroad metric is an explicit exception. It currently carries 0% because of the effect of Covid-19 on travel. THE says it will introduce the metric only after its data team is satisfied with its quality, rigour and international comparability, and following consultation on its use and weight.

Industry and knowledge transfer: a distinct THE pillar

Industry is a 4% pillar in THE, divided equally between Industry income at 2% and patents at 2%. Industry income captures research income earned from industry, adjusted for PPP and divided by the number of academic staff. Scaling by staff means the indicator is not simply a contest to report the largest absolute income.

Patents add a separate recorded-output signal. Together, the 2 measures give knowledge transfer a direct place in THE’s overall construction. THE includes knowledge transfer among the core missions it says its ranking assesses.

QS’s weight table contains neither Industry income nor patents. It therefore has no direct indicator with which to recognise performance in those 2 areas. QS’s Employment Outcomes indicator concerns employability and graduates’ social impact, but it is not a substitute for measured industry income or patenting activity.

This omission does not subtract points from a university under QS. It means that industrial engagement and knowledge transfer cannot directly increase its QS position.

Why one university can occupy different positions

The arithmetic begins with alignment between institutional performance and available indicators. A university with a strong profile in academic reputation, employer reputation and citations per faculty has direct routes to a high QS position. A profile concentrated in research income, productivity, field-leading publications, international collaboration, industry income or patents has stronger direct representation in THE.

The difference is not only total research strength. A university can perform strongly on citations per faculty yet be distinguished differently by THE’s research-income, research-excellence or research-influence measures. It can have substantial international staff and student proportions, making the QS ratios relevant, while THE’s collaboration and country-population treatment captures another aspect of its international profile. Teaching reputation carries substantial weight in THE, whereas QS’s teaching-related lens is represented by the Faculty Student Ratio.

Overall positions are therefore weighted consequences of selected signals. A different order does not by itself show that one table contains an error. It shows that the institutions’ profiles align differently with the evidence each publisher has chosen to score. It also means that an overall position can conceal which components produced it.

Reading the tables and their transparency mechanisms

QS states that its weightings are reviewed annually. The weights are therefore methodological choices subject to review, not fixed properties of universities. QS also states that corrections to university performance may be made after publication. Its 2027 results page, published on 18 June 2026, provides a release version and a summary of edits, allowing readers to distinguish the original publication from later corrections.

THE provides a different check on precision. It shows precise ranks and overall scores for the top 200. Below the top 200, it assigns banded ranks because differences between the institutions’ scores are not statistically significant. Universities within the same band share the same position and are listed alphabetically. Their displayed order therefore cannot be read as a performance order, although precise pillar scores remain available for comparison.

THE’s published 2026 methodology also carries visible revision information: it was first published on 22 September 2025 and last updated on 16 September 2026. This records a later methodological revision, although the update date is not an institution-by-institution results correction log.

QS’s annual weighting review and correction notice help readers inspect how its published score was produced and amended. THE’s banding and dated methodology update help readers avoid treating small score differences as meaningful. In both cases, transparency concerns the evidence model; it does not turn the overall order into a complete description of the university.

The practical rule is to read each position against its component signals. QS gives particular direct weight to academic and employer reputation, citations per faculty and the faculty-student ratio. THE gives separate roles to teaching, research environment, research quality, international outlook and industry. When the orders diverge, those component profiles are the appropriate place to look for the arithmetic explanation.