News story

Yellow Label Service moratorium

Moratorium in place for any new technical and applied qualifications entering the Yellow Label Service (YLS).

A moratorium has been put in place on new technical and applied qualifications entering the 16 to 18 performance tables. This will remain until the post-16 qualifications review at level 3 and below has concluded.

The review may lead to significant changes in the qualifications offered by awarding bodies to students. It may also be the case that some qualifications continue to be offered, but are no longer funded by the Department for Education, in which case it would not be appropriate for them to be covered by the YLS contract.

Given the uncertainty about future changes to the system, a moratorium has also been imposed on including new technical and applied qualifications in the YLS until the review ends. This means that those technical and applied qualifications exams will still take place, but they won’t be eligible for the YLS.

This moratorium does not apply to GCSE, GCE, T Levels and Functional Skills qualifications, which will still be included in the YLS.

Key stage 4 Technical Awards

A list of key stage 4 Technical Award qualifications approved for inclusion in 2024 and 2025 performance tables can be found at Key stage 4 qualifications, discount codes and point scores.

From September 2023, the YLS will collect papers for Technical Award qualifications included in 2024 or 2025 performance tables.

Published 13 February 2019
Last updated 13 September 2023 + show all updates
  1. Updated for the academic year 2023 to 2024

  2. updated information for 2022/2023

  3. First published.