As a leading international university, we welcome students and staff from around the world. They enrich our learning community by bringing a wider perspective to our work and our culture.

Their experiences contribute to the University’s efforts to ensure that all of our students graduate with the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to contribute to a global society.

Birmingham is making strides to increase its position as one of the world’s leading universities. We start from a strong base, as these figures demonstrate:

Birmingham is 79th in the QS World University Rankings, cementing our position in the top 100 universities globally and placing us as 14th amongst UK universities.
We are consistently top 100 in the Financial Times and Economist Business School world rankings.
We currently have 5,000 students from over 150 countries among our student community. 
Of our academic staff, 34% are overseas nationals.
Birmingham is one of the UK’s major participants in the Erasmus programme, which encourages student exchanges between leading European institutions.
We are a founder member of Universitas 21, a global network of 27 research-led universities across 17 countries.

The 2017 U.S. News & World Report ranks Birmingham 118th in the world. In 2019, it ranked 137th among the universities around the world by SCImago Institutions Rankings.

In 2019 the Times Higher Education placed Birmingham 14th in the 'Best universities in the UK 2019' rankings.

In 2013, Birmingham was crowned 'University of the Year 2014' in the Times Higher Education awards.[109] The 2013 QS World University Rankings places Birmingham University at 10th in the UK and 62nd internationally. Birmingham was ranked 12th in the UK in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise with 16 percent of the university's research regarded as world-leading and a further 41 percent as internationally excellent, with particular strengths in the fields of music, physics, biosciences, computer science, mechanical engineering, political science, international relations and law. Course satisfaction was at 85% in 2011 which grew to 88% in 2012.

In 2015 the Complete University Guide placed Birmingham 5th in the UK for graduate prospects, behind only Imperial, St.George's, Cambridge and Bath.

Data from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) placed the University amongst the twelve elite institutions who among them take more than half of the students with the highest A-level grades.

Owing to Birmingham's role as a centre of light engineering, the university traditionally had a special focus on science, engineering and commerce, as well as coal mining. It now teaches a full range of academic subjects and has five-star rating for teaching and research in several departments. It is widely regarded as making a prominent contribution to cancer studies, hosting the first Cancer Research UK Centre, and making notable contributions to gravitational-wave astronomy, hosting the Institute of Gravitational Wave Astronomy.

The School of Computer Science ranked 1st in the 2014 Guardian University Guide, 4th in the 2013 Sunday Times League Table and 6th in the 2014 Sunday Times League Table.

The Department of Philosophy ranked 3rd in the 2017 Guardian University League Tables,[120] below the University of Oxford and above the University of Cambridge, the first being the University of St Andrews.

The combined course of Computer Science and Information Systems, titled Computer Systems Engineering was ranked 4th in the 2016 Guardian University guide.

The Department of Political Science and International Studies (POLSIS) ranked 4th in the UK and 22nd in the world in the Hix rankings of political science departments. The sociology department also ranked 4th by the Guardian University guide. The Research Fortnight’s University Power Ranking, based on quality and quantity of research activity, put the University of Birmingham 12th in the UK, leading the way across a broad range of disciplines including Primary Care, Cancer Studies, Psychology and Sport and Exercise Sciences. The School of Physics and Astronomy also performed well in the rankings, being ranked 3rd in the 2012 Guardian University Guide and 7th in The Complete University Guide 2012. The School of Chemical Engineering is ranked second in the UK by the 2014 Guardian University Guide.