University of St Andrews students take part in the annual Raisin Monday Shaving Foam Fight. They are the happiest students in Scotland, according to a recent report.University of St Andrews students take part in the annual Raisin Monday Shaving Foam Fight. They are the happiest students in Scotland, according to a recent report.
University of St Andrews students take part in the annual Raisin Monday Shaving Foam Fight. They are the happiest students in Scotland, according to a recent report. | AFP via Getty Images

Scotland's Happiest Universities 2024: How the 14 Scottish universities perform on student satisfaction - best to worst

A new report has revealed how Scottish universities perform when it comes to the overall student experience - according to the students themselves.

Thousands of students have returned to - or arrived for the first time at - universities across Scotland in the last few weeks - hoping that their degrees will see them bag a job after graduating.

They’ll be interested in the findings of the Sunday Times’ recent Good University Guide, an annual publication that ranks the institutions according to a range of factors, from graduate salaries to student-to-staff ratio.

This year has seen St Andrews University drop down from the top spot it held in 2023, being replaced by London School of Economics, with Oxford, Cambridge and Durham completing the top five.

A total of five Scottish universities appear in the top 20, with St Andrews joined by Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Strathclyde.

The guide also tells us which universities perform the best when it comes to how happy students are - using the percentage of positive feedback when it comes to “student experience” in the annual National Student Survey.

Here’s how Scotland’s 14 universities perform.