Official Statistics

Annual qualifications market report: academic year 2016 to 2017

Overview of the qualifications market and a single reference point about participants in the market.

• From: Ofqual
• Published: 22 February 2018
• Last updated: 2 March 2018 — See all updates

Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales

Documents

Annual Qualifications Market Report 2016 to 2017

Ref: Ofqual/18/6350/1

PDF, 1.38 MB, 25 pages

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Annual Qualifications Market Report: Background information 2016 to 2017

Ref: Ofqual/18/6350/2

PDF, 492 KB, 12 pages

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Annual Qualifications Market Report 2016 to 2017: England data tables

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 176 KB

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Annual Qualifications Market Report 2016 to 2017: Wales data tables

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 144 KB

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Annual Qualifications Market Report 2016 to 2017: Northern Ireland data tables

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 121 KB

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Pre-release access list for 'Annual Qualifications Market Report 2016 to 2017'

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Details

Main trends

• 12.5 million certificates were awarded in GCSE, AS, A level and vocational and other qualifications available for award in England over the academic year 2016 to 2017 (October 2016 to September 2017).
• The organisations with the largest market shares in these qualifications were AQA (27%), Pearson (23%), OCR (10%) and City and Guilds (7%); the rest of the awarding organisations accounted for 33% market share.
• The overall number of certificates fell by 7% compared to the previous year, continuing the trend seen over several years.
• AS levels had the biggest percentage drop in the number of certificates (down by 43% compared to academic year 2015 to 2016).
• 6.1 million certificates were awarded in vocational and other qualifications, a drop of 10% compared to the previous year.
• 10% of the vocational and other qualifications certificates were in technical qualifications.
• 4% of the vocational and other qualifications certificates were in Applied General Qualifications.
• 22.2K qualifications were available in academic year 2016 to 2017, a 2% decrease on the previous year.

Geographical coverage

The report presents data on qualifications available for award in England Reports published in previous years included data for learners in Wales and Northern Ireland as well. As such, historical figures in this year’s report reflect data for England and may differ from previously published figures.

For all statistical releases for the academic year 2016 to 2017, Ofqual will publish separate data tables for learners in Wales and Northern Ireland, without commentary.

Responsibility for publishing data for learners in Wales and Northern Ireland has been passed to Qualifications Wales and CCEA respectively for the academic year 2017 to 2018 and beyond.

User feedback

We are publishing our statistical releases in a new format and would really like to hear your views on it. Please send any comments on this statistical release and how to improve it to meet your needs to statistics@ofqual.gov.uk.

Published 22 February 2018
Last updated 2 March 2018 + show all updates

1. 2 March 2018

   Added part of data relating to the November 2016 exam series which was not included in the original release in error. This has led to a small increase in the number of GCSE and Level 1/Level 2 certificates as well as the overall number of certificates for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

2. 26 February 2018

   Erratum notice added.

3. 22 February 2018

   First published.