The universities of Bath and Warwick are the darlings of the educational establishment, according to two exclusive Sunday Times surveys conducted for this University Guide.

Both institutions score significantly above their overall ranking in our league table, and finish in fourth place respectively in our head teachers’ and academics’ surveys of degree quality.

As last year, Cambridge is voted top university by head teachers, with Oxford in second place. The positions are reversed in our peer assessment survey, the only one of its kind in the UK. In both surveys, Imperial College London ranks third.

Bath’s strong performance in the heads’ survey in particular helps lift it back into our elite top 10 overall. It is ranked by heads as the top institution in Britain for four subjects: civil engineering, computer science, electrical and electronic engineering and psychology. Only Cambridge gets more top billings (nine).

Head teachers were asked to identify high-quality undergraduate provision across 30 subject areas. More than 1,000 of Britain’s most academically successful state and independent schools were contacted. They were asked to cite only those institutions and subjects with which they felt comfortable, from their own and former pupils’ personal experiences. More than 3,500 opinions were expressed.

The results demonstrate the impact specialist universities and colleges are able to have, punching far above their overall rankings. The University of the Arts London ranks seventh among head teachers, compared with 67 overall. Harper Adams University College, arguably Britain’s leading agricultural institution, ranks 11 compared with 44= overall, while another debutant in our guide, the University College for the Creative Arts, is 17 among heads (88 overall).

The University of the Arts, which topped the heads’ rankings for fashion and art and design last year, adds performance arts to its repertoire of leading roles this year. Its performance matches Oxford, which topped the subject tables for European languages, history and politics, the latter jointly with the London School of Economics.

The LSE finishes top outright in business and economics.

Imperial College London is top for medicine and mechanical engineering, while a further eight institutions each top a single subject: Harper Adams (agriculture), Bristol (geography), University College London (law), Goldsmiths, London (media studies), King’s College London and Birmingham (nursing), Loughborough (sports science) and Bournemouth (tourism).

Cambridge tops the heads’ ratings for biological sciences, chemistry, English, maths, philosophy, physics, sociology, teacher training and veterinary science.

As well as highlighting the strength of specialist institutions, the subject tables from our heads’ survey also reward many modern universities whose lack of a significant research profile holds back their overall ranking in our league table.

These institutions have built their name on the quality of teaching they can offer, in often strongly vocational subjects. The top for fashion, for example, include the University of the Arts London, Bournemouth, Brighton and Leeds Metropolitan, together with the university colleges for the Creative Arts and Falmouth.

However, older universities totally dominate in the more traditional subjects. The politics top five features LSE, Oxford, Bristol, Durham and University College London.

For our peer assessment survey, we contacted more than 2,200 heads of department or admissions tutors across the university sector covering the same 30 subjects on which the opinion of head teachers had been sought.

Academics were asked to rate on a five-point scale the undergraduate provision of others in their field: 220 took part.

By including the views of academics, head teachers and the students themselves (through the results of the latest national student survey published on September 12), our league table distinguishes itself as the only one in Britain to include the opinions of both those delivering and experiencing higher education.

The heads’ and peers’ surveys combined account for 100 points in the main league table out of at least 1,100 available.

For the third year running, Oxford was ranked above Cambridge in academic circles, the only factor in our league table where Oxford enjoys a consistent lead over its principal rival.

Edinburgh and Manchester both gained top 10 rankings, in eighth and ninth respectively, from academics, despite both lying outside the top 10 overall (14 and 19= respectively). Manchester shares with Cambridge the distinction of having had the most subjects – 36 – rated excellent for the quality of teaching during more than a decade of assessments carried out by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.

Some universities performed well above their overall ranking in both our heads’ and peers’ surveys. These include Bristol, ranked fifth by heads and seventh by academics; the University College for the Creative Arts (17 and 11); Leeds (18 in both); and Birmingham (9 and 24).

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