Academic year 2023/24

Further education and skills

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See all updates (8) for Academic year 2023/24

  1. Minor update to add additional achievement rate data by provider type and learning aim title.

  2. Updated to add links to the interactive data visualisation tool

  3. Updated with data covering the first three quarters of 2023/24

  4. Minor update to improve usability of some data files and added Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) areas to summary geography

  5. Minor update to improve usability of some data files

  6. Updated to add links to the interactive data visualisation tool

  7. Updated with data covering the first two quarters of 2023/24. Achievement rate data also added covering 2022/23

  8. Updated to add links to the interactive data visualisation tool

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Introduction

This release shows provisional in-year data on adult (19+) further education (FE) and skills in England reported for the academic year 2023/24 (August 2023 to April 2024) based on data returned by providers in June 2024. This includes apprenticeships in the overall FE and skills numbers, but for detailed statistics relevant to apprenticeships and traineeships please see the ‘Apprenticeships release’. 

Future changes to the structure of the release

We are proposing to make changes to this release from January 2025 and we invite users to feedback on what aspects users find most useful. Please use our contact details at end of the release to get in touch.

The 2024/25 academic year introduces the Adult Skills Budget and other changes such as replacing Community Learning (CL) with tailored learning, which incorporates other non-regulated learning not previously categorised under CL. This causes a discontinuity to the time series meaning our long-running Education and Training, and CL series will no longer be viable for 2024/25. We are therefore proposing to simplify our classification of adult Further Education and Skills (FES) to just two categories - Apprenticeship and non-apprenticeship provision. For further details and how to provide feedback please see the about these statistics section.

Please note that the ‘Explore data and files’ section contains the underlying files  and featured tables that underpin this release. You can also view featured tables or create your own table using the ‘create your own tables' functionality.

Related information

Releases in this series

View releases (10) for Further education and skills

Methodologies

Headline facts and figures - 2023/24

Explore data and files used in this release

  • 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

  • Data catalogue

    Browse and download open data files from this release in our data catalogue

  • Data guidance

    Learn more about the data files used in this release using our online guidance

  • Download all data (ZIP)

    Download all data available in this release as a compressed ZIP file

Additional supporting files

All supporting files from this release are listed for individual download below:

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View related dashboard(s)

The interactive data visualisation tool (opens in a new tab) has been developed to complement the Further education and skills statistics.

The tool provides an interactive presentation of Education & Training and Community Learning data, which allows users to investigate the data by level, subject, provider, learner characteristics and geographical area.

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About these statistics

This statistical release presents provisional information on adult (19+) FE and skills participation and achievements in England for the 2023/24 academic year (covering August 2023 to April 2024).

The data includes Apprenticeships, Community Learning, and Education and Training provision taken at General Further Education Colleges (including Tertiary), Sixth Form Colleges, Special Colleges (Agricultural and Horticultural Colleges, and Art and Design Colleges), Specialist Colleges and External Institutions.

A separate release covers apprenticeships data, please see ‘Apprenticeships release’, but note that apprenticeships are included in the overall FE and skills numbers in this release.

Individualised Learner Record (ILR) administrative data

The ILR is an administrative data collection system designed primarily for operational use in order to fund training providers for learners in FE and on apprenticeship programmes. We publish a high volume of FE statistics using provisional, in year data and use latest data as soon as available despite not being ‘final’. This enables us to provide the earliest picture of FE performance and allows users to assess the impact of government-funded provision and hold the ‘system’ to account.

The FE and skills data in this release are based on the tenth ILR data return from FE and apprenticeship providers for the 2023/24 academic year, which was taken in June 2024.

Quarterly release schedule:

  • Quarter 1: Data from August to October published in January
  • Quarter 2: Data from August to January published in March
  • Quarter 3: Data from August to April published in July
  • Full Year: Data from August to July published in November

Note: The academic year in the FE publications covers August to July.

National achievement rate tables data

Figures in the ‘national achievement rate tables’ section are as published in March 2024. These official statistics cover achievement rates for the 2022/23 academic year and would have been previously released as part of the standalone National achievement rate tables publication.

Provider reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic

Historic data in this publication covers periods affected by varying COVID-19 restrictions which will have impacted on further education including apprenticeship learning. Therefore, extra care should be taken in comparing and interpreting data presented in this release. It is likely to have impacted on provider behaviour in terms of the reporting of FE and apprenticeship learning during the affected period, and this could vary by provider.

Future changes to this release

The main purpose of this release is to present data on adult further education and skills. The presentation has historically focused on offering non-overlapping windows onto activity based on the budget and type of training. Our proposal is to simplify our classification of adult Further Education and Skills (FES) to just two categories - Apprenticeship and non-apprenticeship provision. We will provide different windows onto types of training, which may potentially overlap, but still best serve current needs as well as maintain some consistency of change over time.

Exact details have yet to be worked through, but some alterations need to occur to accommodate changes to the data collection.  We welcome feedback on what aspects of releases users find most useful. Please use our contact details at end of release to get in touch.

In practice the headlines and tables presenting counts of adult Further Education and Skills (FES) will not change as we continue to incorporate all that is included now. Nor would there be any change to how we present any apprenticeship data in this release or within the dedicated apprenticeship release we link out to from this release.

The Education and Training sections will change to incorporate all non-apprenticeship activity using similar tables as these sections have now. This means estimates will incorporate all provision currently shown in the community learning sections.

We also propose to introduce a new section to the release that will cover non-apprenticeship adult learning on non-regulated learning aims and how this has changed over time. Within this would be a sub-section providing tailored learning breakdowns, with a similar level of detail as currently reported for community learning. This will be a new series, starting from 2024/25 with no comparable figures available for earlier years.

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How to find data and featured tables in this release

The content of the publication contains charts and tables which highlight key figures and trends that give an overview of the national picture.

At relevant points within each commentary section there are links to “featured tables” that offer the next level of detail behind each of the tables embedded within the release. The table builder tool “featured tables” sit within, also enables the user to amend content, reorder and take away to meet their needs.

The user can also choose just to explore the data within this release by using the 'Explore data and files used in this release' section. Here the user can either select “view or create your own tables” to view all of the ready-made “featured tables” in a single list, or build their own table by selecting a datafile that underpins the release, or use one of the featured tables as a starting point.

There is also a dashboard that provides interactive presentation of our published data, with a number of different views on to data and ‘drilldown’ capability to allow users to investigate different types of FE provision. It is particularly helpful in viewing data across different geographical areas and providers. See the Interactive data visualisation tool accordion for the dashboard link.

This release also contains an ‘Additional supporting files’ accordion containing mainly csv files that can be downloaded, which provide some additional breakdowns including unrounded data. They are provided for transparency to enable analysts to re-use the data in this release. A metadata document is available in the same location which explains the content of these supporting files. Please note some of the files are too large for proprietary software such as Excel and may need specialist analysis software such as R, SQL, etc.

Feedback

We continually look to improve our data and statistics and your feedback is important to help us further improve and develop. To provide feedback on this release, please email us at FE.OFFICIALSTATISTICS@education.gov.uk.

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Full year Further Education and Skills data

The figures in this section cover adult (19+) further education and skills and relate to full-year final data up to and including the 2022/23 academic year, originally published in November 2023. This is a summary of all adult further education activity including Apprenticeships, Community Learning, and Education and Training provision.

Type of further education

Adult participation in further education and skills has declined in the last decade. From the most recent peak of nearly 3.3 million learners in 2012/13, participation fell to 1.6 million in 2020/21. However, the last two academic years have seen a reverse of this trend with participation rising to 1.7 million in 2021/22 and then 1.8 million in 2022/23.

Education and training, the largest component of FE & Skills participation, has shown a similar pattern, declining to 870,000 in 2020/21 from nearly 1.8 million in 2012/13 before rising to 954,000 in 2022/23.

Participation in community learning has seen a steady fall in most years. During the years affected by the pandemic, numbers dropped at a faster rate in 2019/20 and 2020/21, with recovery seen in 2021/22 and 2022/23.

In 2022/23, participation in all strands was up slightly on the previous years.

Further education and skills participation has changed over the years and has included different types of provision, including Apprenticeships, Community Learning, and Education and Training. Some provision and data sources are now more historical in nature such Workplace Learning (which had around 455,000 adults participating in 2011/12, dropping to 59,000 in the last year of reporting in 2015/16) and that relating to the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers, as well as data relating to pilots such as the Employer Ownership Pilots. 

Additionally, learners can participate at more than one level in different types of learning during an academic year and also on different types of provision, therefore it is not possible to sum individual levels or strands to obtain the overall total. For more detail on how we count different measures please see the Further education and skills statistics: methodology

Of the 1,818,480 adult learners participating in 2022/23:

  • The number on below Level 2 courses (excluding Essential skills) was 286,110.
  • The number on a Essential skills course was 438,440.
  • The number on Level 2 courses was 538,620 (on Full Level 2, there were 121,890 learners).
  • The number on Level 3 courses was 404,950 (on Full Level 3, there were 308,420 learners).
  • The number on Level 4 or above courses was 264,650.


Adult essential skills

Adult essential skills including digital skills participation reported for 2022/23 was 448,060 – an increase of 0.9% since 2021/22. Of these:

  • Participation on an English course was 222,990.
  • Participation on a Maths course was 242,230.
  • Participation on an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) course was 144,560.
  • Participation on an Essential Digital Skills course was 17,510.

Adult essential skills excluding digital skills participation increased by 1.0% to 438,440 in 2022/23 compared to 2021/22.


Multiply

Multiply is a new government-funded programme, introduced from April 2022, to help adults improve their numeracy skills. It includes both regulated and non-regulated courses up to Level 2.

There were 67,040 total enrolments on Multiply courses in academic year 2022/23 with 52,740 learners participating. There were also 45,990 achievements in 2022/23 (qualifications obtained on regulated courses and completions of non-regulated courses).

This does not include any activity not recorded on the Individualised Learner Record (ILR). People who participate in engagement events funded by Multiply do not need to be recorded in the ILR unless they participate in actual courses.

These figures include only learners funded by Multiply. There is a small overlap between these figures and those in the Essential Skills section above which captures participation in Essential Skills courses across all further education and skills provision types - apprenticeships, education and training and community learning.


Demographics

Three-in-five learners participating in FE & Skills were female in 2022/23 (60.6%). This share has increased slightly from 58.1% in 2017/18 and has fluctuated around the 61% mark in the last few years.

The proportion of learners aged 50 and above reduced from 20.1% in 2017/18 to 14.7% in 2020/21. However, this age-group has seen large growth in the last two years with nearly a third more learners in 2022/23 compared to 2021/22, increasing the share to 17.5%.

The proportion of learners declaring a learning difficulty or disability increased to 18.5% in 2022/23 – one percentage point greater than in 2021/22 and 2.2 points greater than in 2020/21.


Ethnicity

The proportion of learners participating in FE & Skills who are white has declined in recent years. 72.6% of learners were white in 2022/23 compared to 77.5% in 2017/18. Over the same period:

  • Asian learners increased from 9.4% to 11.1%
  • Black learners increased from 7.3% to 8.1%
  • Learners from mixed/multiple ethnic groups increased from 2.8% to 3.8% and
  • Learners from other ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities) increased from 2.9% to 4.5%


Learners in receipt of benefits

In 2022/23, the number of adult (19+) learners in receipt of benefits when they started their learning was 288,820. Based on self-reporting through the ILR, these are defined as those learners reporting that they were in receipt of Employment and Support Allowance - Work Related Activity Group (ESA WRAG), Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) or Universal Credit (if unemployed and looking for work).
 

Further information can be found in the following featured tables : 

Further education and skills participation and achievements by learning difficulty/disability
Further education and skills learner characteristics by sex and ethnicity group
Further education and skills participation by age and IMD quintile
Essential skills participation and achievements by subject
AEB - Adult education budget full year comparisons by level
Further education and skills participation and achievements per 100,000 of population by region

A new geography file has been produced containing parliamentary constituency breakdowns based on the new 2024 boundaries. This can be accessed in the following featured table: 

Further education and skills participation by new parliamentary constituencies

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Full year Education and Training data

The figures in this section cover adult (19+) education and training and relate to full-year final data up to and including the 2022/23 academic year, originally published in November 2023.

Subject and Level

Adult participation in Education and training increased by 8.6% to 953,840 compared to 2021/22 but has fallen by 15.7% since 2017/18. Achievements have increased in each of the last three academic years to 745,550 in 2022/23 but remain 17% below 2017/18 achievements. For 2022/23, participation and achievements in Multiply courses are contributing to these totals for the first time and explain much of the increase seen in this academic year (see the 'Full year Further Education and Skills data’ section for further information on enrolments, participation and achievements on the Multiply programme). 

Level 2 courses remain the most popular (430,400 learners participating), followed by Essential skills (285,690). There has been a large rise in participation on courses that have no level associated with them – 115,840 in 2022/23 compared to 42,100 in 2021/22. Much of this rise is due to the Multiply programme.

Out of 1,827,410 education and training learning aim enrolments in 2022/23:

  • Science, technology engineering and maths (STEM) subjects represent 14.2% of enrolments where sector subject area is known - a slight decrease from 14.6% in 2021/22.
  • Just under half of all enrolments (867,850) are in the Preparation for life and work sector subject. Courses in Health, public services and care had the second highest number of enrolments (296,070).
  • Entry and Level 1 courses together make up 51.1% of enrolments – 932,920 in total. The majority of these are in preparation for life and work (73.3%).
  • Level 2 courses account for 30.8% overall (562,720) – just over a third of which are in health, public services and care (200,690).
  • At Level 4 or above, the largest proportion of enrolments are in health, public services and care (41.9%) followed by business, administration and law (19.2%). Business, administration and law has seen a fall in its share of level 4 enrolments, dropping from 26.9% in 2020/21 to 21.4% in 2021/22.


Demographics

Of the 953,840 learners participating in adult education and training: 

  • Females account for 63.2% (602,560). The rate of female participation in 2017/18 was lower at 55.7%.
  • Learners aged 19-24, 25-49, and 50 and over accounted for 19.5% (186,440), 62.7% (598,300) and 17.7% (169,070) respectively - broadly in line with the previous year.
  • Those declaring a learner learning difficulty and/or disability (LLDD) account for 21.3% (197,480) - an increase from 20.5% in the previous year.
  • The proportion of White learners dropped to 64.0% from 65.3% in the previous year. All ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities) increased their proportion of education and training participants compared to 2021/22.

Further information can be found in the following featured tables : 

Education and training learner participation and achievement by age
Education and training participation by ethnicity and sex
Education and training learner characteristics by IMD quintile and age
Education and training learner characteristics by LLDD
 

Region

The North East consistently has the highest rates of education and training participation among adults when population size is taken into account and the South East and East of England the lowest.


Advanced Learner Loans

Of the 51,440 learners participating with an advanced learner loan in 2022/23:

  • Most of the learners were at Level 3 (43,650).
  • Of those at Level 3, the highest participation was from the 31-40 age group (13,630) followed by the 24-30 age group (11,120).
  • Level 4 or above participation was 8,200.

Further information can be found in the following featured tables : 

Education and training provider breakdowns
Education and training provider aims enrolments
Education and training subject aims enrolments by detailed level
Advanced learner loans applications by age

A new geography file has been produced containing parliamentary constituency breakdowns based on the new 2024 boundaries. This can be accessed in the following featured table: 

 Education and training participation by new parliamentary constituencies

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Full year Community Learning data

The figures in this section cover community learning and relate to full-year final data up to and including the 2022/23 academic year, first published in November 2023.

Community learning participation increased by 8.0% to 328,690 in 2022/23 and is over a third higher than in 2020/21. Prior to this, there was a period of continual decline since 2012/13 when the number participating was 684,700.
 


Demographics

In 2022/23: 

  • 74.5% (244,780) of learners were females compared to 74.4% (226,580) in 2021/22. Whilst 25.5% (83,910) of learners were male compared to 25.6% (77,840) in 2021/22. 
  • 21.2% (65,770) of learners declared themselves as having a learning difficulty and/or disability LLDD in 2022/23 compared with 20.5% (58,910) in 2021/22.
  • 29.4% (92,670) of learners declared themselves as from ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities) in 2022/23 compared with 28.7% (83,690) in 2021/22.
     

Further information can be found in the following featured tables : 

Community learning participation and achievements by primary learning difficulty/disability
Community learning participation and achievements by sex and age
Community learning provider breakdowns
Community learning by ethnicity

A new geography file has been produced containing parliamentary constituency breakdowns based on the new 2024 boundaries. This can be accessed in the following featured table:

Community learning participation by new parliamentary constituencies 

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Latest in year Further Education and Skills data

The figures in this section cover adult (19+) further education and skills in the first three quarters of the 2023/24 academic year (August to April) and show corresponding data at the same time point for the previous three years. 

  • Adult participation in Further Education and skills reported to date has increased by 0.9% to 1,627,320 compared to 2022/23 (1,612,130).
  • Level 2 courses had the highest volumes across the first three quarters (447,780 learners participating), followed by Essential skills (391,440).
     

Further information can be found in the following featured tables : 

Further education and skills in year comparisons by provider type and level
Further education and skills in year comparisons by region
Further education and skills in year comparisons by sector subject area
AEB - Adult education budget in year participation comparisons by level

A new geography file has been produced containing parliamentary constituency breakdowns based on the new 2024 boundaries. This can be accessed in the following featured table:

Further education and skills in year participation by new parliamentary constituencies 

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Latest in year Education and Training data

The figures in this section cover adult (19+) education and training in the first three quarters of the 2023/24 academic year (August to April) and show corresponding data at the same time point for the previous three years.

  • Adult participation in Education and training reported to date has increased by 4.6% to 863,790 compared to 2022/23 (825,950).
  • Level 2 courses had the highest volumes the first three quarters (361,640 learners participating), followed by essential skills (272,410). 
  • There has been a large rise in participation on courses that have no level associated with them – 131,180 reported to date compared to 86,520 in 2022/23. Much of this rise is due to the Multiply programme.

Further information can be found in the following featured tables : 

Education and training participation by provider type in year comparisons
Education and training achievements by provider type in year comparisons
Education and training in year participation by English devolved area

A new geography file has been produced containing parliamentary constituency breakdowns based on the new 2024 boundaries. This can be accessed in the following featured table:

Education and training in year participation by new parliamentary constituencies

Level 3 Free Courses for Jobs

 Eligible adults can access free level 3 qualifications through the Free Courses for Jobs (opens in a new tab) offer.  

A level 3 qualification (opens in a new tab) is equivalent to an advanced technical certificate or diploma, or A levels. 

From April 2021, adults aged 19 or over who did not already have a level 3 qualification could use the offer to access a course from the list of qualifications approved for funding (opens in a new tab). 

At the beginning of the offer, there were 387 qualifications approved for funding and the number of eligible qualifications has fluctuated over time as some have been added and removed from the list. Previously, learners aged 24 or over would have had to pay the course fee for these qualifications, normally through an Advanced Learner Loan. 

Since April 2022, the offer has been extended to adults in England who are earning under the National Living Wage annually (£20,319 from April 2023) or are unemployed, regardless of whether they have a full level 3 or higher qualification. 

Figures reported up to the third quarter of the 2023/24 academic year show; 

  • The cumulative number of enrolments on the offer, reported between April 2021 and April 2024, stands at 75,550; with 26,330 of these reported in the 2023/24 academic year so far. This includes those taking up free courses for jobs under the extended offer from April 2022. 
  • The number of enrolments based on the eligibility criteria before it was extended (i.e. excluding those already holding full level 3 qualifications) stands at 63,600. 
  • Free courses for jobs enrolments are 69% higher than on equivalent courses in 2018/19, for adults who would have been able to access the offer before eligibility was extended. This is comparing enrolments in each year of the offer, under the original eligibility criteria and the qualifications valid within that year, with enrolments in the same or very similar courses that were also operational in the 2018/19 academic year. 
  • Level 3 qualifications can take longer than a year to be completed and for learners to receive achievement status - especially if, for example, learners are balancing study with employment. We calculate that there have been 35,780 achievements by learners enrolled and funded through Free Courses for Jobs since April 2021. 

In addition, Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs) and the Greater London Authority (GLA) have had the flexibility to use up to 20 per cent of Free Courses for Jobs funding to deliver selected qualifications in the sector subject areas covered by the offer but not included in the national list. In April 2023 this flexibility increased to 50 per cent for any Level 3 provision. There have been 7,330 starts on such courses between April 2022 and April 2024. 
 

Additional data : Free courses for jobs - cumulative enrolments and achievements by subject and sex

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Latest in year Community Learning data

The figures in this section cover community learning in the first three quarters of the 2023/24 academic year (August to April) and show corresponding data at the same time point for the previous three years

  • Community learning participation reported to date has decreased by 0.3% to 273,240 compared to 2022/23 (274,090).


From 1 August 2023 changes were introduced to how Community learning is recorded. Seven new purpose types have replaced the four Community learning types.
 


Demographics

So far in 2023/24: 

  • 74.3% (202,920) of learners were females
  • 22.3% (58,010) of learners declared themselves as having a learning difficulty and/or disability LLDD
  • 31.8% (82,150) of learners declared themselves as from ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities) 
     

Further information can be found in the following featured tables : 

Community learning in year comparisons by region
Community learning age by purpose type
Community learning LLDD by purpose type
Community learning ethnicity by purpose type
Community learning participation by learner characteristics in year
Community learning in year provider breakdowns and purpose type

A new geography file has been produced containing parliamentary constituency breakdowns based on the new 2024 boundaries. This can be accessed in the following featured table:

Community learning in year participation by new parliamentary constituencies

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National achievement rate tables

The following statistics are classified as official statistics and have been produced in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics, rather than being classed as national statistics and accredited as such by the Office for Statistics Regulation (opens in a new tab). The statistics are included for transparency purposes. 

Data in this section refers to 2022/23 and was first published in March 2024. Data for 2023/24 is planned to be released in March 2025.

The National Achievement Rate Tables (NARTs) present detailed tables of provider level Qualification Achievement Rates (QARs) that we use for performance management and informed choice purposes. Additionally we provide some national summary tables to show overall performance in the sector with a three year time series to enable comparison of change in performance over time. Whilst NARTs provide data on 19+ provision for performance management purposes, 16-18 provision is also included to give a complete view of individual provider performance.

In March 2020, the Secretary of State announced that the summer 2020 exam series in England would be cancelled to help fight the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19). This announcement also stated that Government will not publish any school, college or provider-level educational performance data based on tests, assessments or exams for the 2019/20 academic year. 

In February 2021, given the continued disruption, it was confirmed this would also be the case for the 2020/21 academic year.  As a consequence of the disruption to the assessment process, the government announced a change to its school and college accountability approach (opens in a new tab), stating providers will not be held to account on the basis of exams and assessment data from summer 2020. This release will therefore only contain provider level data for 2021/22 and 2022/23.

Headline figures at a national level are available to provide a three-year time series, showing data from 2020/21 to 2022/23. That historical data has not been re-calculated and is shown as originally published in March 2023. 

Data for years prior to 2019/20 can be found in the Statistics: national achievement rates tables (opens in a new tab) collection.

Apprenticeship achievement rate statistics are available in the Apprenticeships and traineeships statistics publication.
 

Headline facts and figures

Overall achievement rates within the 19+ Education and Training cohort have increased from 86.2% in 2021/22 to 86.8% in 2022/23, an increase of 0.6 percentage points. Compared with 2020/21 they are up by 1.3 percentage points. 
 

Things you need to know about this release

Care should be taken when comparing outcomes with previous years. 

The purpose of releasing national level achievement rate data for 2019/20 and 2020/21 is to maintain the continuity of information and to provide context alongside the achievement volumes found elsewhere in this publication. It is important to maintain transparency by presenting the national level data for this cohort of learners whilst recognising the extraordinary circumstances surrounding 2019/20 and 2020/21 achievement rates, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Care should be taken when comparing with previous years due to the effects of the pandemic such as disruption to exams and assessments. 

Significant change in the way some assessments happened in 2019/20, and to a lesser extent in 2020/21, compared to previous years. Additionally, a significant change in some qualifications with the size of the cohort participating. As a result, care should be taken when comparing data with previous years. 
 


19+ Education and Training achievement rates by sector subject area

Different sectors have been affected in different ways and as a result, care should be taken when comparing data with previous years.

The largest sector is Preparation for Life and Work (710,600) making up 49.0% of the total. 88.1% of this activity is below level two.

The sector with the highest achievement rate in 2022/23 is Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies with 92.0%.

The sector showing the highest increase in achievement rate since last year is Leisure, Travel and Tourism with an increase of 8.9 percentage points from 78.9% in 2021/22 to 87.8% in 2022/23. 

The sector with the largest decrease is History, Philosophy and Theology, decreasing by 1.7 percentage points from 87.7% in 2021/22 to 86.0% in 2022/23. 

Use our table tool to explore this data further by level and qualification type, by pressing the green “Explore Data” button.


19+ Achievement Rates by  ethnicity

The figures in this section cover the achievement rates for those learners who are from ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities). Please note the figures for “White ethnic groups” includes white minorities. 

In 2022/23, learners aged 19+ from ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities) had an overall education and training achievement rate of 86.6%, an increase of 0.7 percentage points from 85.9% in 2021/22.

The number of learners from ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities) was 614,600 which represents 42.4% of all learners. The take up of education and training for learners from ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities) varies according to the sector subject area.

The sector with the highest proportion of learners from minority ethnic groups (excluding white minorities) was Preparation for Life and Work where 54.7% of learners were from ethnic minorities (excluding white minorities). The sector with the lowest proportion was Agriculture, Horticulture and Animal Care at 13.5%. 

Caution should be used interpreting simple averages because differences in provision mix across sectors will lead to change in overall averages. Press the green ‘Explore data’ button above to look at the data by age, level, sector subject area, qualification type.

Achievement rates by provider

Data for individual providers can be found here :  19+ Education and training achievement rates by Provider

Background information 

National achievement rate tables are based on underlying Qualification Achievement Rates (QAR) data. Information about the process surrounding QARs can be found here: 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/introduction-to-qualification-achievement-rates-qars (opens in a new tab)

How rates are calculated 

Information about how QARs are calculated can be found here: 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/qualification-achievement-rates-2022-to-2023 (opens in a new tab)

 

Redactions

We have redacted no providers for 2022/23 and three providers from 2021/22 from our formal performance tables (NARTs) where we are unable to form a reliable QAR. This is done where the data we hold does not allow us to calculate a reliable estimate and therefore provides an unfair measure of performance. We publish headline information for these providers separately for transparency, but they do not constitute a formal QAR and should not be used to compare performance. The underpinning data is included in our national achievement rates to provide a complete view of performance. 

Details can be found in the ‘Education and Training Achievement Rates – Transparency Redactions.pdf’ supporting file in the Additional supporting files accordion.

 

Further information can be found in the following featured tables : 

19+ Education and training achievement rates by Demographics
19+ Education and training achievement rates by Ethnicity
19+ Education and training achievement rates by Learners with a Learning Difficulty and or Disability
19+ Education and training achievement rates by Sex
19+ Education and training achievement rates for essential skills
19+ Education and training achievement rates for essential skills by provider

To view achievement rates by provider, with provider type, please see the supporting 'Education and Training Achievement Rates - By Provider with Provider Type’ file in the Additional supporting files accordion.

 

 

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Methodology

Find out how and why we collect, process and publish these statistics.

Accredited official statistics

These accredited official statistics have been independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

Accreditation signifies their compliance with the authority's Code of Practice for Statistics which broadly means these statistics are:

  • managed impartially and objectively in the public interest
  • meet identified user needs
  • produced according to sound methods
  • well explained and readily accessible

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).

OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about Further education and skills statistics and data:

FE Statistics Production and Dissemination Team

Email: FE.OFFICIALSTATISTICS@education.gov.uk
Contact name: FE Statistics Production and Dissemination Team

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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:

Telephone: 037 0000 2288

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