THE/Emerging Employability Ranking 2025: American top 3 but "it is starting to be challenged"

Methodology

For this 2025 edition, the Global Employability University Ranking and Survey made some changes: “With higher education becoming more global and new employability topics emerging, we expanded our survey to include 13,240 employers from 33 countries, making it the largest group ever surveyed by Emerging", explains Sandrine Belloc.

"To enhance graduates’ learning and training, we selected increasingly relevant topics in higher education, including green skills, interdisciplinarity, and 100% online learning. We directly consulted the market to gauge how these themes impact graduates' employability. Additionally, we refined our employability evaluation framework by validating key criteria with recruiters."

"We're finding it less difficult to get quality answers on employability because it's now a well-known concept. We don't have to explain what it's all about, and it's easier to start a series of questions on the subject."

"We wanted it to be a very operational sample: there are managers and team leaders who recruit young people and, above all, who work with them, in addition to HR. We also try to have one-third from Europe, America and Asia in our respondents."

World ranking of universities with the most employability

"The top 10 is not necessarily set in stone, with the arrival of Caltech, which dethroned MIT last year. The National University of Singapore is very well ranked, better than in any other ranking", states Sandrine Belloc.

"There are disrupters, generally from the tech world or from small countries that have decided to create the country's brand around their education system, like Singapore, whose university has a huge number of international partnerships."

She specifies that Oxford or Cambridge, which have already dropped below the top 10 before, might be challenged more easily than other institutions.

English-speaking domination: The new lingua franca

The first seven schools of the global ranking are in English-speaking countries, which makes sense, according to Sandrine Belloc, as "language is very important: English is now a lingua franca like Latin was in the Middle Ages".

"It's not even a need any more, it's just necessary, it's no longer a foreign language. English is part of the profile of the ideal young graduate."

A polarisation between the U.S. and China?

"This polarisation is now evident in other areas, such as research, according to other international rankings, but as far as employability and the internationalisation of higher education are concerned, we still have some way to go before we know what the panorama of the next few decades will look like", declares Sandrine Belloc.

American universities saw a decline in popularity during Covid, like their British counterparts, but it is now slowing down.

"There are also debates about the employability effectiveness of the American model, it has taken a hit, even if the UK and US United States remain the two most attractive countries, they've lost ground and things are slowing down."

European ranking of universities with the most employability

Apart from British universities, which lead the European ranking, the continent counts many countries that stand out: "The German model benefits from a reputation of solid engineering. It's a vocational model, which integrates the company into the training, and is very strong in terms of employability, as is the case in Switzerland. It's becoming a driving force, and Germany is the most dynamic in continental Europe", states Sandrine Belloc.

"Spain also has some good universities, and the Scandinavians have strong systems of collaboration between companies and universities and powerful international partnerships. Often, the best performances are achieved in small countries: Estonia, Switzerland, Singapore, Chile, Finland and Sweden."

Ranking of countries with the most entries in the employability ranking

African institutions are still scarcely present in the ranking. According to Sandrine Belloc, this is because "they lack international recognition through academic excellence, but Africa has other levers to pull: specialisation, digitalisation and, very importantly, entrepreneurship".

On this continent, Morocco seems to stand out: " Moroccan universities have come a long way over the years, as they are not far from the top of the rankings (300^th-350^th) and have a strong community of alumni who are increasingly working abroad in the specialities they are promoting.

Mohamed 6 University is positioning itself very well in AI Artificial intelligence and tech, creating soft power in artificial intelligence and seeking to position itself as the driving force behind Moroccan development in this sector, but it is so far the most advanced."

On the other side of the world, India seems to catch up: "It was surprising to see such a large country so poorly represented in the international rankings. Especially as it is a country that is very well known for its technological profiles, this trademark carries them through.

However, they have a major challenge in terms of university-company collaboration. They have more and more Indian students abroad, which makes them a little better known. That said, you have to keep an eye on them because they are extremely responsive", indicates Sandrine Belloc.

Perspectives: "We may see a Chinese institution come in"

"I don't see a big change in the top 10 in the next 2-3 years, but we may see a Chinese institution come in, especially Beijing University, which is approaching the top", says Sandrine Belloc.

"The interest in this ranking starts once you get past the top 10. Already in the top 50, and then in the top 100, we can see that the competition is open: there is a large number of countries represented, and the typology of institutions is very varied - much more than in other rankings that focus on academic performance or research."

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