The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), the governing body for professional snooker, first published official world rankings for players on the main tour for the 1976–77 season. Before this, for each tournament the defending champion was seeded first, and the previous year's runner-up second.
Players' performances in the previous three World Snooker Championships (1978, 1979 and 1980) contributed to their points total. For each of the three years, the World Champion gained five points, the runner-up received four, losing semi-finalists got three, losing quarter-finalists got two, and losers in the last-16 round received a single point. The 1980 World Champion, Cliff Thorburn, was ranked second, and Eddie Charlton was placed third, as he had been for each year since the 1976/1977 list. Karnehm criticised the ranking system for not taking into consideration players' performances at tournaments other than the world championship and, because the points were accumulated over three years, having a bias against new players.
{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center"
|+Snooker world rankings 1980/1981
! scope=col| Ranking
! scope=col| Name
! scope=col| 1978
! scope=col| 1979
! scope=col| 1980
! scope=col| Total
|-
! scope=row | 1
|data-sort-value="Reardon, Ray" align=left| || 5 || 2 || 2 || 9
|-
! scope=row | 2
|data-sort-value="Thorburn, Cliff" align=left| || 2 || 1 || 5 || 8
|-
! scope=row | 3
|data-sort-value="Charlton, Eddie" align=left| || 3 || 3 || 2 || 8
|-
! scope=row | 4
|data-sort-value="Higgins, Alex" align=left| || 1 || 2 || 4 || 7
|-
! scope=row | 5
|data-sort-value="Griffiths, Tery" align=left| || – || 5 || 1 || 6
|-
! scope=row | 6
|data-sort-value="Taylor, Dennis" align=left||| 1 || 4 || 1 || 6
|-
! scope=row | 7
|data-sort-value="Mans, Perrie" align=left| || 4 || 1 || 1 || 6
|-
! scope=row | 8
|data-sort-value="Davis, Fred" align=left||| 3 || 2 || 1 || 6
|-
! scope=row | 9
|data-sort-value="Taylor, David" align=left| || 1 || 1 || 3 || 5
|-
! scope=row | 10
|data-sort-value="Werbeniuk, Bill" align=left| || 2 || 2 || 1 || 5
|-
! scope=row | 11
|data-sort-value="Stevens, Kirk" align=left||| – || 1 || 3 || 4
|-
! scope=row | 12
|data-sort-value="Virgo, John" align=left||| 0 || 3 || 1 || 4
|-
! scope=row | 13
|data-sort-value="Davis, Steve" align=left||| – || 1 || 2 || 3
|-
! scope=row | 14
|data-sort-value="Mountjoy, Doug" align=left| || 1 || 1 || 1 || 3
|-
! scope=row | 15
|data-sort-value="Spencer, John" align=left| || 1 || 1 || 1 || 3
|-
! scope=row | 16
|data-sort-value="Miles, Graham" align=left||| 2 || 1 || 0 || 3
|-
! scope=row | 17
|data-sort-value="Wych, Jim" align=left||| – || – || 2 || 2
|-
! scope=row | 18
|data-sort-value="Fagan, Patsy" align=left||| 2 || 0 || 0 || 2
|-
! scope=row | 19
|data-sort-value="Pulman, John" align=left| || 1 || 0 || 0 || 1
|-
! scope=row | 20
|data-sort-value="Thorne, Willie" align=left| || 1 || 0 || 0 || 1
|-
! scope=row | 21
|data-sort-value="Houlihan, Pat" align=left||| 1 || 0 || 0 || 1
|-
! scope=row | 22
|data-sort-value="Williams, Rex" align=left| || 0 || 0 || 0 || 0
|-
! scope=row | 23
|data-sort-value="Meadowcroft, Jim" align=left| || 0 || 0 || 0 || 0
|-
! scope=row | 24
|data-sort-value="Dunning, John" align=left||| 0 || 0 || 0 || 0
|-
! scope=row | 25
|data-sort-value="Anderson, Ian" align=left||| – || 0 || 0 || 0
|-
! scope=row | 26
|data-sort-value="Bennett, Bernard" align=left| || 0 || 0 || 0 || 0
|-
! scope=row | 27
|data-sort-value="Morgan, Paddy" align=left| || 0 || – || 0 || 0
|}