Top universities for engineering and technology in South Africa

The University of Cape Town and the University of Pretoria are the two best tertiary institutions for studying engineering and computer science in South Africa.

That is according to the fourteenth edition of the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings released on Wednesday, 10 April 2024.

The independent comparative rankings analysed over 16,000 programmes at 1,500 universities in 95 countries and territories across 55 academic disciplines.

The rankings are based on five indicators:

1. Academic Reputation — based on the expert opinion of 144,000 university faculty members
2. Employer Reputation —based on the opinion of 98,000 hiring managers, HR and Talent manager
3. Citation per Paper as indexed by the bibliometric database Scopus/Elsevier
4. H Index — The number of publications for which an author has been cited by other authors at least that same number of times.
5. International Research Network

When it comes to Engineering and Technology disciplines, only five South African universities qualified for the ranking criteria.

The top South African university in this discipline and for all measured fields was the University of Cape Town.

It placed 290th of all 1,500 universities in Engineering and Technology, down 20 spots from its 2023 ranking.

Second-placed University of Pretoria has also slid down the rankings from #284 to #334.

For universities outside the top 300 in each discipline, the rankings are in brackets of 50.

The University of Johannesburg was the only South African university that climbed in the rankings, jumping into the 401-450 bracket from the 451-500 bracket.

The University of Witwatersrand and Stellenbosch University rounded off the top five, ranking in the 401-450 and 451-500 brackets, respectively.

The tables below show the top South African universities in Engineering, Technology, and Computer Science in South Africa, according to the QS) World University Rankings 2024.

The University of Cape Town also had the highest single-discipline ranking of the South African universities, placing 15th in the world out of 130 universities in Development Studies.

The University of Witwatersrand also ranked 16th out of 70 universities offering Mineral and Mining engineering.

On an international level, highlights of the latest rankings include:

• US universities lead in 32 subjects. Harvard University is the world’s strongest-performing institution, first in 19 disciplines. MIT follows, leading in 11 subjects.
• UK institutions lead in 16 subjects. The University of Oxford tops four, followed by the University of Cambridge, UCL, Royal College of Art and Royal College of Music with two.
• Switzerland boasts the highest concentration of #1 programs (4) proportionally to its ranked universities. ETH Zurich offers three, making it Continental Europe’s strongest institution.
• Australia’s Universities of Melbourne and Sydney boast the world’s most top-100 subjects, 53 and 52.
• France is the most internationally collaborative research hub, with 23 entries among the top 10 for International Research Network.
• Japan reverses more than five years of decline. 26% of its previously-ranked entries climb,
  21% drop and 42% remain stable – an overall improvement of 5%.
• China is the third most represented country. It ranks in the top 10 for eight subjects. Tsinghua University achieves its three highest ranks, including top-performer, History of Art (5th).
• India’s ranked entries and overall performance soared by 19% and 17%, respectively.
• Brazil is Latin America’s most-represented country overall and among the top 100. Mexico boasts the region’s most top-20 entries (4).
• Saudi Arabia’s KFUPM offers the Arab Region’s highest-ranked programmes, Petroleum Engineering (5th) and Mineral & Mining Engineering (8th).