Reporting year 2021

National pupil projections

Data guidance

Published

Description

This document describes the data included in the ‘National pupil projections – future trends in pupil numbers: update to 2020 model, published July 2021’ Official Statistics release’s underlying data file. This data is released under the terms of the Open Government License (opens in a new tab) and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for Open Data (opens in a new tab).

The methodology document for this subject should be referenced alongside this release. It provides information on the data sources, their coverage and quality and how the data is produced.

Coverage

This publication contains actual and projected figures for the pupil population up to the age of 15 (at the start of the academic year) for most school types within England. 

Figures from the main (principal) projection are provided by the school types of:

  • Maintained nursery
  • State primary
  • State secondary
  • State special
  • AP settings
  • Independent
  • Non maintain special

For the under 5 age group figures are provided as the full time equivalent (FTE) and headcount due to the number of part time pupils. All other ages, or age groups as appropriate, are provided as FTE only. 

File formats and conventions

Rounding

Figures in the variant projection data file are provided, and rounded, to the nearest thousand. 

Conventions

The following convention is used throughout the underlying data.

‘c’         Suppressed (under 500) 

‘:’         Not applicable.

Data files

All data files associated with this releases are listed below with guidance on their content. To download any of these files, please visit our data catalogue.

Pupil projections - 2021 update to 2020 principal projection

Filename
pupilprojprincipal_2021updateof2020.csv
Geographic levels
National
Time period
2021
Content

Actual and projected pupil projection by school type, pupil status and age or age group

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable nameVariable description
2005_actualactual population in 2005
2006_actualactual population in 2006
2007_actualactual population in 2007
2008_actualactual population in 2008
2009_actualactual population in 2009
2010_actualactual population in 2010
2011_actualactual population in 2011
2012_actualactual population in 2012
2013_actualactual population in 2013
2014_actualactual population in 2014
2015_actualactual population in 2015
2016_actualactual population in 2016
2017_actualactual population in 2017
2018_actualactual population in 2018
2019_actualactual population in 2019
2020_actualactual population in 2020
2021_projectionprojection for 2021
2022_projectionprojection for 2022
2023_projectionprojection for 2023
2024_projectionprojection for 2024
2025_projectionprojection for 2025
2026_projectionprojection for 2026
2027_projectionprojection for 2027
2028_projectionprojection for 2028
2029_projectionprojection for 2029
2030_projectionprojection for 2030
pupil_agesingle year of age or age group - age range
pupil_statusHeadcount or FTE - headcount or full time equivalent count
school_typetype of school - school type
Footnotes
  1. The data provided is an update to the 2020 principal projection model with additional actual data added. No new projection has been produced in 2021. This data is labelled as 2021 reporting year.