16 to 19 funding: large programme uplift for academic year 2026 to 2027
Published 1 October 2025
Applies to England
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1. Purpose
The large programme uplift contributes funding for the costs of specific larger than normal maths and high value A level programmes to support the progression of students into priority sectors.
We expect full-time study programmes for 16- and 17-year-olds to be, on average, 640 hours. However, we recognise that some programmes must be larger to prepare students for further study or work.
2. Definition of the large programme uplift
The large programme uplift reflects that some specific programmes are larger than the usual size in terms of hours, and supports maths and high value subjects.
The large programme uplift is only available where the student is taking 4 or more full A levels (not including General Studies or Critical Thinking), which include maths, further maths and at least one more A level attracting the High Value Courses Premium – that is, biology, chemistry, computer science, design and technology, electronics, physics, or statistics.
Students must achieve a minimum grade of C in further maths and B or higher in the other three qualifying A levels to be eligible for the uplift.
We will apply an uplift of 10% to the full-time national funding rate per student to specific large programmes that meet the criteria set out on this page.
We calculate the uplifts based on the national funding rate for full-time programmes (bands 5 and 4a) for the relevant academic year.
We will double the uplift in your allocation to reflect the 2 years of delivery for the programmes that attract this funding.
Large programmes that take longer than 2 years do not get any additional uplift.
3. Uplift calculation
To identify students who have earned the large programme uplift, we will use attainment data from the latest full year. We will use the learning aims and associated grades at the end of each student’s qualifying programme.
We apply the total uplift value after we have applied retention, programme cost weighting and disadvantage to the national funding rate per student. The uplift will attract the area cost uplift where it applies.
Allocations will show the numbers for those who get the uplift.
As the criteria for implementing the uplift includes student attainment, which comes from data matched in from the National Pupil Database, there will be a three-year lag. This means that for allocations for the academic year 2026 to 2027, we will use attainment data from 2023 to 2024.
4. Data collection
There are no additional data collection requirements for the large programme uplift. Institutions must accurately record the specific large programmes that meet the criteria for the uplift to be paid in future funding allocations.
Institutions can submit business cases in the business case window (announced each year) if they believe this methodology does not reflect their delivery. Successful challenge to a large programme uplift must demonstrate that we have not correctly interpreted historical attainment data. Incorrect recording of data is not grounds for a successful challenge.
5. Contact us
If you have questions after reading our guidance, or if there’s anything else you need help with, you can find more support in our customer help centre.