Annual qualifications market report: academic year 2017 to 2018
Overview of the qualifications market and a single reference point about participants in the market.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
Main trends
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11.5 million certificates were awarded in GCSE, AS, A level and vocational and other qualifications available for award in England over the academic year 2017 to 2018 (October 2017 to September 2018).
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The organisations with the largest market shares in these qualifications were AQA (29%), Pearson (22%), City and Guilds (8%) and OCR (7%); the rest of the awarding organisations accounted for 35% market share.
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The overall number of certificates fell by 8% compared to the previous year, continuing the trend seen over several years.
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AS levels had the biggest percentage drop in the number of certificates (down by 59% compared to academic year 2016 to 2017).
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5.8 million certificates were awarded in vocational and other qualifications, a drop of 4% compared to the previous year.
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7% of the vocational and other qualifications certificates were in technical qualifications.
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2% of the vocational and other qualifications certificates were in Applied General Qualifications.
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20.8k qualifications were available in academic year 2017 to 2018, an 8% decrease on the previous year.
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Updates to this page
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Updated data tables 5 and 6 to separate out some of the legacy and reformed qualifications. No change in the report.
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First published.