Computer Science & Information Systems in Australia: All 24 Ranked Universities, QS 2026 Data

Australia places 24 universities in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 for Computer Science & Information Systems. That is the entire Australian presence in a subject table that lists 850 institutions worldwide, drawn from 79 countries and territories. No Australian university reaches the global top 30. The country’s best result is 31st, held by The University of Melbourne.

For a reader who has already decided on Australia and is now choosing a field, those two facts frame the whole picture: this is a subject where Australia fields a broad, evenly spread group rather than a single dominant name.

How deep is the Australian field?

Depth, here, means how many institutions sit at each level rather than how high the top one climbs.

Three Australian universities are inside the global top 50. Eight are inside the top 100. Ten are inside the top 150, and 12 are inside the top 200. The count inside the top 300 is 13.

The largest single block sits in the 51–100 band, which holds 5 institutions. The 31–50 band holds 3. Below that, the field thins quickly: 2 institutions fall in the 101–150 band and 2 more in the 151–200 band.

Beyond the top 200, the remaining Australian entries are published as rank ranges rather than exact positions. One sits in the 251–300 range, 2 in the 351–400 range, 4 in the 401–450 range, and 1 each in the 451–500, 551–600, 651–700, 701–750 and 751–850 ranges.

That tail matters for how you read the headline number. All 24 are ranked; they are simply not all ranked to the same precision.

What the top of the table looks like

The three Australian institutions in the global top 50 have published overall scores between 73.3 and 76.6. Extending to the top 100, the eight institutions with published scores run from 67.6 to 76.6.

Those figures come with an important boundary. QS publishes an overall score only for a leading subset of ranked institutions. In Australia’s case, 12 of the 24 ranked universities have a published overall score, and 12 do not. The lowest-ranked Australian institution with a published score sits at 172. Globally, 200 institutions in this subject have a published score, and the lowest-ranked of those is at 200.

A missing score is not a verdict. An institution without a published overall score is still ranked; it has not been scored below some cut-off and it has not been removed from the table. It simply sits outside the group QS scores.

Among the 12 Australian universities with a published score, 6 score 70 or higher on the cumulative count, and all 12 score 60 or higher. The band breakdown is even: 6 institutions fall in the 70–79 band and 6 in the 60–69 band. No Australian institution in this subject has a published score of 80 or above.

Where Australia sits internationally

Australia’s 24 ranked institutions place it ninth on the country list for this subject, level with Spain, which also has 24.

The countries ahead of it are the United States with 106, the United Kingdom with 59, China (Mainland) with 57, India with 44, Germany with 33, France with 31, Italy with 26 and Canada with 25.

Country/Region	Ranked Institutions
United States of America	106
United Kingdom	59
China (Mainland)	57
India	44
Germany	33
France	31
Italy	26
Canada	25
Australia	24
Spain	24

Read that table as a measure of how many institutions each country places in the ranked list, not as a measure of quality per institution. A country with a long tail of ranked universities will look strong here even if none of them reaches the top of the table — which is broadly Australia’s position in this subject.

The institutions themselves

The table below carries the subject rank, institution name, country, and the component scores QS publishes for each entry: academic reputation, employer reputation, citations, and overall score. Where an institution has no published overall score, that cell is empty rather than zero.

Subject Rank	Institution	Country/Region	Academic Reputation	Employer Reputation	Citations	Overall Score
31	The University of Melbourne	Australia	69.4	79.6	86.8	76.6
38	The University of Sydney	Australia	64.2	76.3	94.5	75.1
48	Australian National University (ANU)	Australia	65.9	75	91.3	73.3
51	Monash University	Australia	59.5	74.5	93.5	72.6
54	The University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney)	Australia	59.3	74.8	91	72.4
55	University of Technology Sydney	Australia	62.1	67.1	94.9	72
73	Adelaide University	Australia	54.1	72.3	95.2	69.6
99	The University of Queensland	Australia	55.3	69.9	89	67.6
101	Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia)	Australia	58.4	66.6	88	67.4
117	RMIT University	Australia	55	65.4	85.7	65.4
160	Queensland University of Technology (QUT)	Australia	53.7	58	88.7	62.9
172	Deakin University	Australia	50.7	57.1	91.2	62.5
251-300	The University of Western Australia	Australia	45	62.3	89.8	—
351-400	Swinburne University of Technology	Australia	39.2	51.9	93.8	—
351-400	University of Wollongong	Australia	37.8	57.5	87.4	—
401-450	Curtin University	Australia	37.1	57.1	84.7	—
401-450	The University of Newcastle, Australia (UON)	Australia	36.9	53.7	90.7	—
401-450	La Trobe University	Australia	39.9	52.3	89	—
401-450	Griffith University	Australia	37.7	48.2	94.1	—
451-500	Western Sydney University	Australia	38.3	54	83.3	—

Two cautions apply when reading it. First, the component scores and the overall score are only published for the leading subset of institutions, so a blank is an absence of publication, not a low result. Second, some institutions appear with a rank range such as 251–300 instead of an exact position. A range cannot be used to compute a median, an average, or a year-on-year movement.

What the score bands do and do not tell you

The score counts above describe only the 12 Australian universities with a published overall score. They say nothing about the other 12, and they cannot be used to claim that no Australian institution falls below any particular score.

The same applies to the top-50 and top-100 score ranges: those cover the 3 and 8 institutions respectively that sit in those groups, all of which have published scores. They are not a statement about Australian computer science as a whole.

Data notes

The figures in this article come from the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026, published by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), with a data reference date of 3 April 2026. The ranking covers 60 subject tables and includes component scores for academic reputation, employer reputation, citations, the H-index and international research network.

The counts here were produced by taking the complete ranked list for Computer Science & Information Systems, filtering it to Australia, and counting institutions by rank band. Where an institution is published with a rank range rather than an exact rank, it was compared using the start of its range. An institution counts as inside the top N only where the upper bound of its range is at most N — a 51–100 range is inside the top 100. Where a range straddles the threshold, the institution is counted in neither group.

Overall scores are published by QS only for a leading subset of ranked institutions. The score bands above cover only those institutions with a published score; institutions without one are not assigned any score and are not treated as falling below any threshold. They remain ranked.

No median rank is given for Australia in this subject. The institution at the median position carries only a published rank range of 251–300, so a single median figure cannot be derived.

Readers who want to check individual entries, component scores and the full country list can consult the QS World University Rankings by Subject pages directly.