Imperial College London vs University of Oxford

Imperial College London vs University of Oxford — at a glance

	Imperial College London	University of Oxford
Country / City	UK, London	UK, Oxford
QS World rank	#2	#3
Tuition (intl)	£40k/yr	£38k/yr
IELTS	7	7.5
TOEFL	100	110
GRE	Optional	Optional
Acceptance rate	14%	14%
Intl students	60%	45%
Intakes	Sep/Oct	Sep/Oct
Top programs	MSc Computing, MSc Business Analytics, MSc Finance	MSc Computer Science, MBA (Saïd), MSc Financial Economics

Which should you choose?

Choose Imperial College London if you want a more selective brand name and value Engineering & Medicine. Choose University of Oxford for All disciplines & Research. The best choice depends on your target program, budget and post-study plans — run both through the free predictor.

Imperial College London or University of Oxford — reading the differences

• Rank. Imperial College London sits 1 place above University of Oxford (#2 against #3). Treat that as a coarse signal: QS rank is built largely from institution-wide research output and reputation surveys, so a gap of this size says very little about the department you would actually join, and nothing at all about teaching on your specific programme.
• Selectivity. Both report an indicative acceptance rate of about 14%, so neither is the safer application on this measure — which means your shortlist needs a genuine back-up elsewhere rather than treating one of these two as one.
• English requirement. IELTS 7 at Imperial College London against 7.5 at University of Oxford. If you are applying to both, prepare to the higher of the two — University of Oxford — because a score built for the lower bar closes the other door.
• Fees. £40k/yr at Imperial College London; £38k/yr at University of Oxford. Compare these over the full length of the programme rather than per year, and check what each excludes — bench fees, materials, compulsory insurance and placement costs vary enormously by subject and are rarely in the headline number.

Both are in UK, so visa route, post-study work rights and living costs are broadly common to the two and drop out of the decision. That is useful: it means the choice really is about programme, department and cost, rather than about country — and those are things you can investigate directly by reading the module lists and emailing the departments.

The comparison that actually decides it. Rank, acceptance rate and fees are the numbers that are easy to publish, which is why every comparison page leads with them. The things that determine whether you finish the degree well are the specific module list, who teaches it, whether there is a placement or industry link where you want to work, and the total cost to a work permit. None of those are in a ranking table, and all of them are answerable in an afternoon by reading two programme pages and sending two emails.