Here is the English version of the article, rewritten for a Hong Kong–focused study-abroad audience while retaining all factual points, data, sources, and the original structure.
Over the past three years, the disciplinary rankings of Hong Kong’s higher education institutions have formed a shifting map — one that reflects not only academic competition but also the real-world movement of talent and labour market demand. Using the QS World University Rankings by Subject as the primary timeline, this analysis tracks the positional changes of Hong Kong’s eight publicly funded universities across four fields — Accounting & Finance, Computer Science & Information Systems, Medicine, and Communication & Media Studies — from 2023 to 2025.
According to data from the Immigration Department (ImmD) of Hong Kong, the number of visas issued under the Immigration Arrangements for Non‑local Graduates (IANG) increased by 14% in 2024 compared with the previous statistical year. In the same year, applicants approved through the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme (QMAS) were concentrated in financial services, information technology, and healthcare professions, together accounting for close to 60% of the approved pool. Each shift in subject ranking therefore projects directly onto the landscape of talent cultivation and circulation.
Accounting & Finance: A three‑institution sequence and the gravitational pull of faculty
In Accounting & Finance, the University of Hong Kong (HKU), the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) form the first tier, but their relative positions have not been static over the past three years. Referencing the QS Accounting & Finance subject rankings, HKU stood at 31st globally in 2023, dipped slightly to 32nd in 2024, and rebounded to 30th in 2025, re‑securing a place among the world’s top 30. HKUST slipped from 34th in 2023 to 36th in 2024 and further to 37th in 2025, showing a consecutive retreat. CUHK rose from 45th in 2023 to 44th in 2024, then jumped sharply to 41st in 2025, advancing four ranks over the three‑year window and narrowing the gap with HKUST from 11 places to just 4.
Behind these ranking shifts, research output and faculty composition serve as two key explanatory variables. According to the Research Assessment Exercise 2020 (RAE 2020) published by the University Grants Committee (UGC) in 2021, within the “Accounting & Finance” unit of assessment, 40% of HKU’s research outputs were rated four‑star (world‑leading), compared with 38% for HKUST and 35% for CUHK. While CUHK’s proportion was slightly lower, its cases rated for research impact grew markedly between 2017 and 2020, building momentum for subsequent international ranking performance. Citation data provide corroboration: in 2023, HKU’s business school recorded an average of 2.8 highly cited papers per capita in Accounting & Finance, and CUHK’s business school 2.1; by 2025, HKU had edged up to 3.0, while CUHK had climbed to 2.9, significantly closing the gap.
Faculty gravity also participates in this process. Between 2022 and 2024, HKU recruited three chaired professors in finance from North America, directly strengthening research capacity in asset pricing and corporate finance. CUHK, for its part, established the Accounting AI Lab in 2023 and collaborated with London Business School on a series of journal papers applying machine learning to audit judgement, two of which were flagged by Clarivate’s Essential Science Indicators as top‑1% highly cited papers globally. HKUST, while maintaining its traditional strengths in quantitative finance and fintech research, saw two finance professors move to overseas institutions in 2023–24, causing a partial dilution of existing research capacity — an effect that registers in the International Research Network (IRN) indicator component of the ranking.
On the demand side, the number of approved employment visas for accounting‑related positions under ImmD’s General Employment Policy recorded steady increases for three consecutive years. In 2024, the median monthly salary for such roles reached HK$38,000, a 5.3% rise from 2023. The rise and fall of Accounting & Finance rankings not only shape prospective students’ perceptions of institutions, but also indirectly shift the industry’s expectations of graduates’ capabilities.
Computer Science & Information Systems: The alternating duopoly of CUHK and HKUST
Computer Science is among the most intensely contested disciplines in Hong Kong’s university rankings landscape. Over the past three years, the positional alternation between CUHK and HKUST in the QS Computer Science & Information Systems subject ranking has carried significant signalling weight. In 2023, HKUST ranked 40th globally and CUHK 42nd; in 2024, HKUST moved up to 38th while CUHK advanced to 41st, maintaining a three‑place gap. By 2025, CUHK climbed further to 39th, while HKUST slipped to 40th, marking the first time CUHK edged ahead of HKUST in this subject within the observation period.
Research infrastructure and publication scale help explain the convergence. CUHK’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering expanded its academic staff from 43 in 2022 to 48 in 2024, while increasing its annual output of top‑tier conference papers — defined as those accepted at Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group conferences in artificial intelligence, computer vision, and data management — from an average of 26 to 34 per year. HKUST’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering maintained a stable faculty count of around 39 during the same period, with top‑tier conference output remaining at approximately 29 papers per year.
On the specific indicator of citations per paper — one of the QS subject ranking components — CUHK Computer Science moved from 4.2 in 2023 to 4.9 in 2025, while HKUST saw a more modest increase from 5.1 to 5.3 over the same period, a narrowing of the gap from 0.9 to 0.4. The discipline‑level H‑index, as compiled by Scopus, showed CUHK at 68 and HKUST at 72 in 2023; by 2025, the figures stood at 74 and 75 respectively, effectively neck‑and‑neck.
Talent circulation data confirm the discipline’s professional premium. Among IANG visa holders in the “information and communications” sector category in 2024, those with Computer Science or Information Systems backgrounds accounted for 31%, and their median monthly salary reached HK$42,000 — the second‑highest among non‑local graduate employment sectors, behind only financial services. The alternating positional leadership between CUHK and HKUST in the ranking has a direct bearing on applicant preference formation each admission cycle.
Medicine: Institutional inertia and specialised ascendancy
The QS Medicine subject ranking involves a different institutional configuration. The University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong — the city’s two comprehensive universities with full medical schools — dominate the field, but a parallel ascendancy of specialised institutions has reshaped the three‑year map.
HKU Medicine ranked 31st globally in 2023, moved to 29th in 2024, and reached 27th in 2025, a consistent three‑year ascent. CUHK Medicine ranked 44th in 2023, rose to 42nd in 2024, and advanced to 39th in 2025, posting an aggregate gain of five ranks. The Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at HKU maintained a clear lead, yet the margin of separation — measured by rank difference — narrowed from 13 places in 2023 to 12 in 2024 and further to 12 in 2025, with CUHK closing the gap on a trajectory basis.
A notable third force emerged from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), which does not operate a traditional medical school. Driven by its Faculty of Health and Social Sciences and the School of Optometry, PolyU entered the top 100 of the QS Medicine subject ranking for the first time in 2024, at 98th, and climbed to 91st in 2025. This progression reflects the QS ranking’s integration of “Life Sciences & Medicine” into a broad subject category, within which PolyU’s rehabilitation sciences, nursing, and optometry research outputs — particularly in gerontechnology and community‑based care — contributed to measurable gains in citations per paper and academic reputation indicators.
Workforce pipeline data from Hong Kong’s Hospital Authority indicate that among medical graduates entering public hospital service, HKU alumni accounted for 54% and CUHK alumni for 46% in 2023; by 2025, the split stood at 52% versus 48%. This gradual rebalancing aligns directionally with the narrowing rank differential. The Medical Council of Hong Kong’s 2024 licensing examination statistics showed that 218 non‑locally trained doctors passed the exam, the highest number in five years, with Hong Kong’s two medical schools acting as clinical attachment hosts for the majority of candidates. The connection between subject ranking, clinical training capacity, and workforce absorption is structurally embedded.
Communication & Media Studies: CUHK’s consolidating lead and CityU’s penetration
In Communication & Media Studies, the positional architecture of Hong Kong institutions has been reconfigured over the three‑year window. The Chinese University of Hong Kong — home to the city’s oldest and largest communication school — ranked 20th globally in 2023, maintained that position in 2024, and rose to 18th in 2025. City University of Hong Kong (CityU), leveraging its Department of Media and Communication and the School of Creative Media, ranked 35th in 2023, advanced to 32nd in 2024, and broke into the top 30 at 29th in 2025. Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), long associated with journalism and communication education, ranked 51–100 (banded) in 2023, remained banded in 2024, and entered the top 50 — at 48th — in 2025.
CUHK’s lead consolidation rests partially on the School of Journalism and Communication’s intensified output in health communication and computational social science. Between 2022 and 2024, the school’s faculty published 11 articles in journals ranked within the top 10% by Journal Citation Reports (JCR) in the communication field, up from 7 in the preceding three‑year period. CityU’s trajectory, by contrast, was propelled by the integration of media research with data science: the Department of Media and Communication’s laboratory on computational communication generated 14 SCI/SSCI‑indexed journal papers in 2024 alone, 9 of which involved cross‑institutional collaboration with mainland Chinese and European universities, strengthening the IRN indicator relevant to the QS ranking methodology.
Employment data from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department’s Quarterly Survey of Employment and Vacancies show that the “information and communications” sector — within which media, public relations, and digital content professionals are counted — recorded a 6.1% year‑on‑year increase in employment in Q4 2024. IANG visa data for communication and media graduates indicated a 9% rise in successful employment visa applications compared with 2023. The upward movement of CityU and HKBU in the subject ranking occurs in tandem with an expanding absorption capacity in the sector, creating a dual pull of academic prestige and occupational opportunity.
FAQ
Which Hong Kong university performed most consistently across all four subjects from 2023 to 2025?
No single institution showed uniform improvement or decline across all four fields. HKU maintained a solid trajectory in Accounting & Finance and Medicine, while CUHK advanced in all four subjects tracked here — Accounting & Finance, Computer Science, Medicine, and Communication & Media Studies — with particularly notable gains in Accounting & Finance (four ranks) and Communication & Media Studies (two ranks).
Do subject ranking changes directly affect IANG visa approval?
ImmD does not publish data linking IANG approvals to specific QS subject rankings. However, sector‑level visa statistics indicate that fields with strong or improving ranking profiles — notably Computer Science and Communication — also recorded rising median salaries and employment visa volumes in 2024, suggesting a directional alignment between academic reputation and labour market demand.
What weighting does the International Research Network (IRN) indicator carry in the QS rankings referenced here?
In the 2025 QS World University Rankings by Subject, the IRN indicator accounts for a weighting of between 5% and 10%, depending on the subject. For Accounting & Finance and Computer Science, it stands at 5%; for Medicine, 5%; and for Communication & Media Studies, 10%. IRN measures the diversity and intensity of an institution’s international research collaborations, as captured through cross‑border co‑authorship data in the Scopus database.
Are the RAE 2020 outcomes still relevant to the 2025 rankings?
Yes. The RAE 2020 outcomes inform the academic reputation component of multiple ranking systems, and the research environment and output data it provides remain a reference point for international peers evaluating Hong Kong institutions. The next RAE cycle, scheduled for 2026, will generate updated data, but until then RAE 2020 remains a functional benchmark.
Which data source is most authoritative for Hong Kong graduate employment trends?
The Immigration Department’s visa statistics, the Census and Statistics Department’s Quarterly Survey of Employment and Vacancies, and the Hospital Authority’s manpower reports are the primary official sources cited here. Each serves a different scope: ImmD covers visa‑based employment for non‑local graduates; the Census and Statistics Department covers sector‑level employment trends; the Hospital Authority covers public‑sector medical manpower.
Should prospective students factor these ranking shifts into their subject and institution choices?
Ranking shifts provide a directional signal of a department’s research momentum and, by extension, the academic environment a student may enter. They should be read alongside other indicators: faculty stability, research centre activity, and the sector‑level employment data that map onto each discipline’s graduate outcomes.