Best universities for Theology & Religion
Built only from official government data.
You may not agree with this order. We present the data as we find it, and we say plainly how much we think each measure is worth. Every weight is published, every figure is sourced and dated, and where we cannot prove something we leave it blank rather than fill it in. Complete transparency is the whole claim — disagree with the weighting, and you can see exactly what you are disagreeing with.
Tier 1 — strongest for this subject
On our measures these are the strongest places in our catalogue to study this. They are listed alphabetically: the differences between them are smaller than the uncertainty in the data.
Tier 2
Strong, and separated from Tier 1 by more than the margin of error.
Universities inside a tier are listed alphabetically, and there is no order within a tier — the differences are smaller than the data can carry, so publishing one would be inventing it. Open any university, or several at once, for the published figures behind it: earnings, satisfaction, research and the rest, on the same rows every time so they can be read side by side.
Held back by missing data — listed, not ranked
These have too little published data to score fairly, usually because the official statistics withhold figures for a cohort too small to publish safely. That is not a verdict on the course, so here is what we do hold rather than nothing at all.
Religion, Philosophy and Ethics — graduates earn −£3,424 against the national average for Theology & Religion, five years on. Only 38% of the measures we score are published for it.
Theology & Religious Studies — graduates earn +£1,515 against the national average for Theology & Religion, five years on. Only 43% of the measures we score are published for it.
Theology — graduates earn +£1,515 against the national average for Theology & Religion, five years on. Only 43% of the measures we score are published for it.
Theology & Religious Studies/Theatre Studies — graduates earn +£1,466 against the national average for Theology & Religion, five years on. Only 38% of the measures we score are published for it.
Courses we hold that are not in this table
None of these is a judgement on the course. A university marked not in this table at all is missing for one of the reasons below and for no other reason — never because it scored badly.
BA Religious & Theological Studies — we have not yet matched this course to its official record.
BA Theology & Religious Studies — we have not yet matched this course to its official record.
Global Religions — we have not yet matched this course to its official record.
Islamic Studies MA (Hons) — HESA classifies this as language and area studies, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
Middle Eastern Studies MA (Hons) — HESA classifies this as language and area studies, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
Divinity and Classics — we have not yet matched this course to its official record.
Religious Studies and English Literature — HESA classifies this as language and area studies, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
Religious Studies and Scottish Literature — HESA classifies this as language and area studies, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
Celtic Studies/Theology & Religious Studies — HESA classifies this as language and area studies, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
Theology & Religious Studies/Comparative Literature — HESA classifies this as language and area studies, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
Theology & Religious Studies/Computing Science — HESA classifies this as computing, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
Theology & Religious Studies/English Language — HESA classifies this as language and area studies, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
Theology & Religious Studies/English Literature — HESA classifies this as language and area studies, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
Theology & Religious Studies/Gaelic — HESA classifies this as language and area studies, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
Theology & Religious Studies/Politics — HESA classifies this as social sciences, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
Theology & Religious Studies/Russian — HESA classifies this as language and area studies, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
Theology & Religious Studies/Social & Public Policy — HESA classifies this as social sciences, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
BA Theology & Religious Studies — we have not yet matched this course to its official record.
Religion and Anthropology — HESA classifies this as social sciences, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
BA Religion & Asian & Middle Eastern Studies — HESA classifies this as language and area studies, so it is measured against that subject rather than this one.
Hebrew MA (joint degree) — we have not yet matched this course to its official record.
A university missing from every list above is not ranked last — it is not ranked. Either we do not list it, or it has no Theology & Religion course in the official data at all. An absence means "we do not know", never "it is weak".
Not published: Other — not a discipline — a browsing bucket with no subject classification behind it, so there is nothing coherent to rank its courses against. We would rather leave a subject out than band it on too little.
Who decided this order?
We did, out of eight published government measures with every weight shown — and none of them is a survey of opinion. The next tab has all of it: what each measure contributes, what we deliberately left out, where the order stops being something the data can support, and the source and year of every figure.
Sources: Discover Uni (on_2026_09_29_12_31_32), the Longitudinal Education Outcomes dataset, Graduate Outcomes, the National Student Survey, and REF 2021. Snapshot on_2026_09_29_12_31_32-c6abef4e77df, computed 2026-10-05. Each source publishes annually or less often, so these tables change when a release lands and not otherwise.