Data set from Education and training statistics for the UK

Pupils

Latest data

Published 12 November 2026

Last updated 12 November 2026

This file contains information on the number of pupils in the UK, by age, sex and school type.

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On this page

Data set details

• Theme: UK education and training statistics
• Publication: Education and training statistics for the UK
• Release: Reporting year 2026
• Number of rows: 3,831
• Geographic levels: National, Regional
• Indicators:
  • Number of pupils
• Filters:
  • Age
  • Gender
  • School type
• Time period: 2015/16 to 2025/26

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Data set preview

Table showing first 5 rows, from underlying data

time_period	time_identifier	geographic_level	country_code	country_name	region_code	region_name	phase	age	gender	t_pupils
201516	Academic year	National	E92000001	England			Non-maintained mainstream	Total	Female	285065
201516	Academic year	National	E92000001	England			Non-maintained mainstream	Total	Male	301885
201516	Academic year	National	E92000001	England			Non-maintained mainstream	Total	Total	586945
201516	Academic year	National	E92000001	England			Nursery	Total	Female	20800
201516	Academic year	National	E92000001	England			Nursery	Total	Male	22930

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Variables in this data set

Table showing all 4 variables

Variable name	Variable description
age	Age
gender	Gender
phase	School type
t_pupils	Number of pupils

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Footnotes

1. Primary and secondary figures include middle schools as deemed. Secondary schools include all-through schools.
2. In England, special schools include alternative provision schools.
3. In Scotland, nursery figures include all providers of funded Early Learning and Childcare, except childminders.
4. Figures for independent schools in Scotland are unavailable.
5. Figures for independent schools in Wales are unavailable for 2019/20.
6. Independent schools includes non-maintained special schools.
7. In Scotland, Early Learning and Childcare pupil numbers by sex are unavailable.
8. In Northern Ireland, independent school pupil numbers by sex are not available due to figures being too small to publish
9. Figures below the UK level are rounded to the nearest 5.
10. Northern Ireland's pupil data collection for the 2023/24 academic year was impacted by Action Short of a Strike (ASOS). Although data has been received from all schools, for 25% of schools (primary, post primary and special schools) pupil level information has not been received in electronic format.  The result of this is that the Department has been unable to obtain all the information usually received via electronic census returns, for example sex, age, religion and ethnicity, and has not been able to fully undertake the normal validation processes

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Using this data

• Download the underlying data as a compressed ZIP file

• View or create your own tables

  View tables that we have built for you, or create your own tables from open data using our table tool

Download this data using code

Access this data using common programming languages using the URL below.

Example code

Python

import pandas as pd

pd.read_csv("https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-catalogue/data-set/ad71891f-485e-4fb1-8013-5a5f26ad1e5a/csv")

R

read.csv("https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-catalogue/data-set/ad71891f-485e-4fb1-8013-5a5f26ad1e5a/csv")

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Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about Pupils statistics and data:

International evidence and statistics team

Email: InternationalEvidence.STATISTICS@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Amal Abdullahi

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