Find the best universities for computer science using Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings data
Studying computer science is a smart bet in today’s world; the career opportunities for tech-savvy graduates are expanding every year.
There’s also an extensive choice of universities when it comes to deciding where to study computer science.
Some 300 schools feature in the 2018 ranking for computer science by Times Higher Education this year.
Nearly a quarter of the featured universities are American colleges and almost half the universities are based in Europe. Nearly 40 of the top 300 universities are Asian institutions.
Computer science degrees vary in terms of their focus and specialisms. Some courses are more theoretical and some more focused on programming.
The ranking uses the same methodology as the World University Rankings, but with slightly higher weighting given to the innovation metric and lower weighting for citations. The full methodology can be found here.
Scroll down to find out what you can do with a computer science degree.
Top 5 universities for computer science
1. Stanford University
The Stanford University computer science department was established in 1965. The department offers bachelor's of science, master's of science and a doctor of philosophy.
The department undertakes research in many areas including artificial intelligence, robotics, foundations of computer science, scientific computing, and programming systems. There is also a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary research across chemistry, genetics, linguistics, construction and medicine among others.
The home of the computer science department is the Gates Computer Science building, named after Bill Gates who donated $6 million to the project.
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The department of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT confidently declares "our students change the world".
Many of its alumni feature in lists of influential entrepreneurs who are making changes at home and abroad.
Students are encouraged to develop start-ups and research projects have explored problems such as calculating the financial risks of renewable energy and developing faster parallel computing.
Undergraduates are enrolled on a flexible curriculum that allows them to focus on both abstract theory and practical problems in computer science. Students can major in computer science or both computer science and molecular biology.
Graduates go on to design video games, work on supercomputers, research robotics and often join big companies such as Google and Microsoft.
3. University of Oxford
Although computer science is a relatively modern discipline, the University of Oxford has one of the oldest departments in the country, formerly known as the Oxford University Computing Laboratory.
Since its beginnings, the department has provided lecturers for undergraduates and trained research students at a postgraduate level.
In addition to core computer science topics, students can take courses in computational biology, quantum computing, information systems, software verification, software engineering and computational linguistics.
Three undergraduate degrees are offered by the department: single honours computer science, maths and computer science, and computer science and philosophy.
Like students of other subjects, computer science students – whether undergraduate or postgraduate – belong to one of Oxford's colleges where they have the option to eat, socialise, study and live.
4. ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
ETH Zurich has a history of developing software and designing computer systems. Eventually these projects called for a dedicated computer science department, which was formed in 1981.
The department covers many areas of computer science, including computational intelligence, networks and distributed systems, algorithms and theory and information security. Different programming languages are also taught in software engineering courses.
There are close relationships with other departments within the university and with partners in business and industry, such as IBM, Microsoft, Google, SAP and Disney, with whom the university collaborates on research projects.
ETH Zurich dates back to 1855, just a few years after the formation of the federal state of Switzerland. It was created as a centre for scientific knowledge and innovation and remains a top institution for a range of subjects.
5. University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge Computer Science department offers the Computer Science Tripos course for undergraduate students which is a three- or four-year computer science course.
The university also offers an MPhil in computer science as a general master's degree which helps prepare students for a PhD in computer science.
There are many research groups based in the computer science department looking at artificial intelligence, security, graphics and interaction and computer architecture.