Historical rankings of prime ministers of the United Kingdom

Academic opinion

In December 1999, a BBC Radio 4 poll of 20 prominent historians, politicians and commentators for The Westminster Hour produced the verdict that Churchill was the best British prime minister of the 20th century, with Lloyd George in second place and Clement Attlee in third place. As Blair was still in office he was not ranked. The worst prime minister in that survey was judged to be Anthony Eden.

In 2004, the University of Leeds and Ipsos Mori conducted an online survey of 258 academics who specialised in 20th-century British history and/or politics. There were 139 replies to the survey, a return rate of 54% – by far the most extensive survey done so far. The respondents were asked, among other historical questions, to rate all the 20th-century prime ministers in terms of their success and asking them to assess the key characteristics of successful ones. Respondents were asked to indicate on a scale of 0 to 10 how successful or unsuccessful they considered each prime minister to have been in office (with 0 being highly unsuccessful and 10 highly successful). A mean of the scores was calculated and a league table based on the mean scores. The five Labour prime ministers were, on average, judged to have been the most successful, with a mean of 6.0 (median of 5.9). The three Liberals averaged 5.8 (median of 6.2) and the twelve Conservatives 4.8 (median of 4.1).

In a 2006 issue of BBC History, historian Francis Beckett ranked the 20th-century prime ministers with points out of five in 2006, based on how well the leaders implemented their policies – not on the policies themselves. Margaret Thatcher and Clement Attlee shared the highest ranking.

In 2010, the University of Leeds and Woodnewton Associates carried out a survey of 106 academics who specialised in British politics or British history, to rank the performance of all 12 prime ministers who served between 1945 and 2010. Churchill's ranking was thus determined from his second term only.

In October 2016, the University of Leeds, in conjunction with Woodnewton Associates, surveyed 82 academics specialising in post-1945 British history and politics, following the Brexit referendum. Due to the date range, Churchill's oft-lauded war ministry and caretaker ministry were not in contention and he was judged solely on his second premiership.

In June 2021, the University of Leeds, again with Woodnewton Associates, surveyed 93 academics specialising in British politics and modern British history to rank the performance of post-war prime ministers from Churchill to Theresa May.

The following table collects these surveys, although they are not all comparable.

Key:

• blue background indicates a rank within the first quartile of its respective ranking
• green background indicates a rank within the second quartile of its respective ranking
• yellow background indicates a rank within the third quartile of its respective ranking
• orange background indicates a rank within the fourth quartile of its respective ranking
• split background indicates a median which does not fall into any quartile, used when the total number of figures ranked is not a multiple of four

Seldon, Meakin, Thoms and Egerton

In the book The Impossible Office?: The History of the British Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Seldon, Jonathan Meakin, Illias Thoms and Tom Egerton categorised premiers into six tiers:

• Agenda Changers: Walpole, Pitt Jr., Peel, Palmerston, Gladstone, Lloyd George, Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher
• Major Contributors: Pitt Sr., Liverpool, Disraeli, Grey, Asquith, Baldwin, Macmillan, Wilson, Heath and Blair
• Positive Stabilisers: Pelham, Newcastle, Perceval, Wellington, Salisbury, Balfour, Campbell-Bannerman, MacDonald, Callaghan, Major, Brown, Cameron and Sunak
• Noble Failures: North, Russell, Derby, Chamberlain and May
• Ignoble Failures: Grenville Sr., Portland, Addington, Melbourne, Eden, Johnson and Truss
• Left on the Starting Line: Devonshire, Shelburne, Compton, Bute, Grafton, Rockingham, Aberdeen, Rosebery, Grenville Jr., Canning, Goderich, Bonar Law and Douglas-Home.

The latter category is for prime ministers whose tenures were too short to be properly evaluated (though Truss, with the shortest tenure of all, was not placed here).