In order to qualify for inclusion in the QS World University Rankings® -Engineering Mechanical 2016, universities must offer a course or the option to specialize in these disciplines, and meet the discipline specific threshold for papers published.
| 2016 | 2015 | Institution | Country | Academic | Employer | Citations | H | Score |
| 1 | 1 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | United States | 100.0 | 97.5 | 93.0 | 99.4 | 98.1 |
| 2 | 2 | Stanford University | United States | 94.5 | 92.9 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 95.7 |
| 3 | 3 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom | 90.8 | 100.0 | 89.5 | 92.8 | 93.7 |
| 4 | 4 | University of California, Berkeley (UCB) | United States | 91.7 | 87.6 | 98.2 | 92.8 | 91.6 |
| 5 | 6 | Imperial College London | United Kingdom | 89.1 | 91.6 | 90.5 | 88.6 | 90.0 |
| 6 | 5 | University of Michigan | United States | 98.3 | 79.5 | 84.4 | 92.0 | 89.6 |
| 7 | 10 | Harvard University | United States | 81.4 | 98.1 | 98.3 | 84.8 | 89.5 |
| 8= | 8 | National University of Singapore (NUS) | Singapore | 84.3 | 93.7 | 91.3 | 92.4 | 89.4 |
| 8= | 9 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom | 83.8 | 98.9 | 88.7 | 86.3 | 89.4 |
| 10 | 7 | Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) | United States | 86.6 | 84.2 | 86.0 | 93.5 | 86.8 |
| 11 | 11 | California Institute of Technology (Caltech) | United States | 89.7 | 83.5 | 86.8 | 85.3 | 86.7 |
| 12 | 14 | The University of Tokyo | Japan | 87.1 | 89.9 | 79.3 | 85.8 | 86.6 |
| 13 | 17= | Nanyang Technological University (NTU) | Singapore | 78.7 | 92.2 | 89.2 | 89.5 | 85.9 |
| 14 | 15 | ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) | Switzerland | 84.2 | 89.2 | 86.6 | 82.7 | 85.8 |
| 15 | 16 | Tsinghua University | China | 81.3 | 92.7 | 79.1 | 89.9 | 85.7 |
| 16 | 17= | Delft University of Technology | Netherlands | 80.6 | 87.9 | 80.7 | 89.1 | 84.1 |
| 17 | 13 | Purdue University | United States | 87.6 | 79.9 | 79.7 | 84.8 | 83.7 |
| 18 | 22 | Politecnico di Milano | Italy | 78.8 | 91.4 | 79.6 | 82.7 | 83.3 |
| 19 | 21 | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | United States | 79.3 | 80.4 | 94.3 | 85.8 | 82.9 |
| 20 | 12 | Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen | Germany | 81.4 | 85.1 | 79.5 | 83.8 | 82.6 |
| 21 | 26 | KAIST - Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology | South Korea | 77.6 | 82.8 | 88.6 | 88.6 | 82.5 |
| 22 | 30 | Seoul National University (SNU) | South Korea | 74.6 | 85.6 | 86.5 | 89.5 | 81.9 |
| 23 | 20 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | United States | 81.4 | 76.3 | 86.0 | 89.5 | 81.8 |
| 24 | 49= | Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) | Switzerland | 74.6 | 83.2 | 92.0 | 85.8 | 81.5 |
| 25 | 25 | KTH, Royal Institute of Technology | Sweden | 82.8 | 81.5 | 78.9 | 78.5 | 81.2 |
| 26 | 24 | Northwestern University | United States | 75.9 | 76.6 | 94.2 | 86.3 | 80.4 |
| 27 | 19 | Technische Universität München | Germany | 79.5 | 83.3 | 79.4 | 77.1 | 80.3 |
| 28= | 40 | Kyoto University | Japan | 75.8 | 87.4 | 77.3 | 79.1 | 80.0 |
| 28= | 46= | Peking University | China | 65.4 | 88.8 | 92.2 | 89.1 | 80.0 |
| 28= | 23 | The University of Melbourne | Australia | 72.5 | 92.7 | 82.5 | 71.8 | 80.0 |
| 31 | 32 | Shanghai Jiao Tong University | China | 73.9 | 84.4 | 78.4 | 88.2 | 79.9 |
| 32 | 34= | Tokyo Institute of Technology | Japan | 79.1 | 85.7 | 75.7 | 72.6 | 79.6 |
| 33 | 28 | Cornell University | United States | 74.5 | 77.2 | 91.2 | 83.8 | 79.2 |
| 34 | 37 | The University of New South Wales (UNSW) | Australia | 66.7 | 90.7 | 81.8 | 86.3 | 79.1 |
| 35 | 34= | Princeton University | United States | 77.1 | 77.6 | 88.8 | 77.1 | 79.0 |
| 36 | 27 | Cranfield University | United Kingdom | 80.2 | 79.4 | 77.2 | 73.4 | 78.5 |
| 37= | 33 | The University of Sydney | Australia | 72.9 | 85.4 | 84.0 | 71.8 | 78.2 |
| 37= | 34= | University of Toronto | Canada | 74.1 | 76.7 | 86.7 | 83.8 | 78.2 |
| 39 | 31 | The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) | Hong Kong | 69.2 | 83.3 | 89.0 | 79.1 | 77.9 |
| 40= | 51-100 | Tohoku University | Japan | 75.7 | 76.7 | 79.9 | 82.1 | 77.6 |
| 40= | Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 | France | 83.1 | 81.2 | 69.6 | 64.0 | 77.6 | |
| 42 | 42= | Universität Stuttgart | Germany | 73.6 | 74.7 | 85.0 | 82.1 | 76.9 |
| 43 | 51-100 | University of Texas at Austin | United States | 67.6 | 75.8 | 91.2 | 88.6 | 76.8 |
| 44 | 46= | University of Hong Kong (HKU) | Hong Kong | 68.0 | 85.0 | 86.5 | 73.4 | 76.7 |
| 45 | 42= | Texas A&M University | United States | 75.1 | 75.2 | 78.2 | 82.1 | 76.6 |
| 46= | 39 | McGill University | Canada | 73.9 | 76.3 | 80.9 | 79.1 | 76.5 |
| 46= | 38 | Pennsylvania State University | United States | 75.1 | 71.0 | 82.7 | 84.8 | 76.5 |
| 48 | 51-100 | National Taiwan University (NTU) | Taiwan | 71.6 | 78.6 | 83.5 | 77.1 | 76.3 |
| 49= | 29 | Monash University | Australia | 61.3 | 89.8 | 84.9 | 79.7 | 76.2 |
| 49= | 41 | The University of Manchester | United Kingdom | 73.2 | 76.6 | 82.7 | 77.1 | 76.2 |
