National Student Survey
The Department of International History achieved excellent results in the 2020 National Student Survey (NSS). The overall satisfaction rating for undergraduate History degrees was 84.4%. Students recorded high levels of satisfaction with the courses and teaching on offer, making it one of the best performing history departments in the UK. The Department is confident that it can provide an excellent learning environment and a welcoming and supportive atmosphere for all of our students.
National and world rankings
The Department of International History has consistently performed well in the QS World University Rankings. In the QS World University History Subject Table for 2021, History at LSE ranked 5th overall in the world for the second year running, ahead of Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley and Princeton. In the UK and in Europe, History at LSE continues to rank third, behind Oxford and Cambridge, but ahead of King's College London, UCL and Edinburgh.
Published annually since 2011, the QS World University Rankings by Subject are based on academic reputation, employer reputation and research impact. The rankings use data from 1,453 institutions and nearly 14 million unique papers.
LSE has been ranked the 6th best university overall in the Guardian's Best UK Universities 2021 league table for the study of history - an improvement of 34 places on the 2020 rankings. The substantial rise in this year’s Guardian rankings comes after the School’s significant increase in student satisfaction, as measured by the 2020 National Student Survey, and from employers increasingly looking to find highly skilled LSE graduates.
Also, LSE History ranked 7th place in the UK's independent Complete University Guide for 2021. LSE History came behind Cambridge, Oxford, Durham, St. Andrews, UCL, and Exeter but ahead of Sheffield, Manchester and Lancaster, making it top two university for the study of History in London. The rankings of the Complete University Guide are based on student satisfaction, entry requirements, research excellence and employment prospects after graduation. Over the years, History at LSE has twice topped the Complete university Guide Tables and never finished lower than eighth.
Employability and earnings
LSE History students continue to have one of the ten best rates of employability after graduation in the UK. In the case of the Complete University Guide, University League Table 2020, LSE reached the 8th highest score for job prospects. In the Guardian's Best UK Universities 2021 league table LSE History reached 2nd place for percentage of graduates who find graduate-level jobs, or are in further study at professional or HE level, within fifteen months of graduation.
The latest Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) dataset, released by the UK’s Department for Education in June 2019, shows that LSE History and Archaeology graduates continue to be the highest earners after 5 years. Out of all UK universities, for a cohort of male and female individuals, who graduated from LSE in 2010-11 in the field of historical and archaeology studies, their median salary was the highest at £43,200 after 5 years. The LEO pinpoints which universities produce the highest-earning graduates by subject area after they have been in the labour market for five years.
A Returns to Higher Education report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, which calculated the difference in earnings by subject and university choice throughout Britain five years after graduation, ranked History at LSE number 1 in June 2018. The report illustrates the average impact the different universities and subjects would have on the future income of an individual. History at LSE averaged a lifetime earnings boost of £14,000 for men and £15,000 for women when compared with studying history at any other university in the UK, including Oxford, St Andrews, Cambridge, KCL and UCL.