Reporting year 2023

Funded early education and childcare

Annual January statistics on children under 5 registered for government funded entitlements in England, and on providers and staff delivering them.

Release type
Published
Last updated
1 updatefor Reporting year 2023
UK statistics authority quality mark

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11 data sets available for download

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  • Headline figures

    National

    Number and percentage of eligible children registered for and number of providers delivering government-funded early years provision, by age and entitlement type. National timeseries back to 2015 for the 15-hour entitlement for 2-year-olds, 2011 for the 15-hour entitlement for 3 and 4-year-olds, and 2018 for the 30-hour entitlement for 3 and 4-year-olds.

    Number of rows
    39
    Indicators
    • Number of registered children
    • Estimate of eligible children
    • Estimated percentage of eligible children registered
    Filters
    • Age and entitlement type
    Time period
    2011 to 2023
    Create table using Headline figures
  • 1 Children registered and take-up rates

    Local authority, National, Regional

    Number and percentage of eligible children registered for government-funded early years provision by age.

    Number of rows
    4,910
    Indicators
    • Number of registered children
    • Estimate of eligible children
    • Estimated percentage of eligible children registered
    Filters
    • Age
    Time period
    2018 to 2023
    Create table using 1 Children registered and take-up rates
  • 2 Children registered and providers by provider type

    Local authority, National, Regional

    Number of children registered for and number of providers delivering government-funded early years provision by age, year group, and provider type.

    Number of rows
    196,400
    Indicators
    • Number of registered children
    • Number of providers
    Filters
    • Entitlement type and year group
    • Type of provider
    • Age
    Time period
    2018 to 2023
    Create table using 2 Children registered and providers by provider type
  • 3 Children registered by disadvantaged status

    Local authority, National, Regional

    Number of disadvantaged children registered for government-funded early years provision, by age, disadvantage type and basis for funding.

    Number of rows
    70,704
    Indicators
    • Number of registered children
    • Percentage of registered children
    Filters
    • Age
    • Disadvantage type
    • Basis for funding
    Time period
    2018 to 2023
    Create table using 3 Children registered by disadvantaged status
  • 4 Children registered by ethnicity and SEN provision

    Local authority, National, Regional

    Number of children registered for government-funded early years provision by age, year group, ethnicity and SEN provision.

    Number of rows
    218,920
    Indicators
    • Number of registered children
    • Percentage of registered children
    Filters
    • Entitlement type and year group
    • Age
    • Major ethnic group
    Time period
    2018 to 2023
    Create table using 4 Children registered by ethnicity and SEN provision
  • 5 Children registered by Ofsted judgement at provider

    Local authority, National, Regional

    Number of children registered for government-funded early years provision by age, year group and provider's Ofsted inspection judgement.

    Number of rows
    137,480
    Indicators
    • Number of registered children
    • Percentage of registered children
    Filters
    • Entitlement type and year group
    • Age
    • Ofsted inspection judgement
    Time period
    2018 to 2023
    Create table using 5 Children registered by Ofsted judgement at provider
  • 6 Registrations by hours per week

    Local authority, National, Regional

    The proportion of registrations for government-funded early years provision by age, provider type, and number of funded hours per week. Unlike for the other data files, a child who has multiple registrations across different providers is counted for each separate registration, as opposed to only at the provider where they spend the majority of their time.

    Number of rows
    549,920
    Indicators
    • Percentage of registrations
    Filters
    • Age and entitlement type
    • Provider type
    • Number of funded hours per week
    Time period
    2018 to 2023
    Create table using 6 Registrations by hours per week
  • 7 All PVI providers

    National

    Number of private, voluntary and independent providers delivering any amount of government-funded early years provision by age and provider type.

    Number of rows
    522
    Indicators
    • Number of providers
    Filters
    • Entitlement type and age
    • Type of PVI provider
    Time period
    2018 to 2023
    Create table using 7 All PVI providers
  • 8 PVI staff by highest qualification

    National

    Number of staff delivering government-funded early years provision at private, voluntary, and independent providers, by highest qualification and provider type.

    Number of rows
    232
    Indicators
    • Number of staff
    • Percentage of staff
    Filters
    • Type of PVI provider
    • Highest level of qualification
    Time period
    2018 to 2023
    Create table using 8 PVI staff by highest qualification
  • 9 PVI providers with at least one accredited graduate staff member

    Local authority, National, Regional

    Number of private, voluntary, and independent providers delivering government-funded early years provision with at least one accredited graduate staff member, and number of children registered at these providers, by entitlement and provider type (national only).

    Number of rows
    2,084
    Indicators
    • Number of providers
    • Number of providers with at least one accredited graduate staff member
    • Percentage of children registered at providers with at least one accredited graduate staff member
    Filters
    • Type of entitlement
    • Type of PVI provider
    Time period
    2018 to 2023
    Create table using 9 PVI providers with at least one accredited graduate staff member
  • Commentary - Children registered by age and provider type

    National

    Number of children registered for government-funded early years provision by age and provider type. Underlying data for Figure 2 in the statistical commentary.

    Number of rows
    12
    Indicators
    • Number of registered children
    Filters
    • Age and type of entitlement
    • Type of provider
    Time period
    2023
    Create table using Commentary - Children registered by age and provider type

Data guidance

Description of the data sets included in this release, including information on data sources, coverage, quality and any data conventions used.

Description

This document describes the data included in the ‘Education provision: children under 5 years of age in England, January 2023’ National Statistics release.

This data is released under the terms of the Open Government Licence (opens in new tab) and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for Open Data (opens in new tab)

The methodology page should be referenced alongside this data. It provides information on the data sources, their coverage and quality as well as explaining the methodology used in producing the data.

Coverage

This release provides statistics on government-funded early years provision for children aged 2 to 4 in state-funded schools (including nurseries), and private, voluntary, and independent providers (including childminders) in England.

The information is based on data collected via the early years census, school census, and school level annual school census. 

The underlying data files include national, regional, and local authority level information for the position during census week in January for the years 2018 to 2023.

Symbols

The following symbols are used in the underlying data files as follows: 

     c           to protect confidentiality - secondary suppression may also be applied to figures to protect confidentiality

     u           low reliability

     z           data not applicable 

     low      used when a result that is not 0 (zero) would appear as 0 (zero) due to rounding

Where any number is shown as zero, the original figure submitted was zero.  


Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about Funded early education and childcare statistics and data:

Early Years Statistics Team

Email: earlyyears.statistics@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Jay Morris

Press office

If you have a media enquiry:

Telephone: 020 7783 8300

Public enquiries

If you have a general enquiry about the Department for Education (DfE) or education:

Phone: 0370 000 2288

Opening times

Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 5.30pm (closed on bank holidays)