Guidance

Component codes: guide to the data submission process

Published 8 September 2026

Applies to England and Wales

Introduction

In order to fulfil our regulatory and accreditation functions as set out in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, we require awarding organisations to provide the following data for regulated qualifications.

This data will be used to undertake our regulatory activities, publish reports, and to fulfil our responsibility as a government department. For example, this data is used to support the production of some official statistics reports.

Northern Ireland data will also be shared with CCEA Regulation to fulfil their own purposes as a regulator.

What data will be collected?

Data should relate to all available components for qualifications available to students in the countries and time period in scope.

Qualifications in scope

The following qualification types are in scope of this collection:

• GCSE (including GCSE short course)
• AS
• A Level

Data should include both exam and non-exam assessments, including endorsements.

Countries in scope

Data should be included for all available components for qualifications available in:

• England
• Northern Ireland (also on behalf of CCEA Regulation)
• Wales
• Other UK regions
• Non-UK

Time period in scope

Data for the summer and November exam series.

When data will be collected

Data will be collected according to the reporting schedule which is updated regularly.

How to submit your data

Your data must be submitted to us in CSV format. Please refer to the Connecting to Ofqual’s data portal and uploading data document for more information. If you need to ask us about a data submission, please contact the Data Services team.

Please do not send your data files via email or via Contact the Regulator in the Portal.

Uploaded data

Once files have been successfully uploaded, the data will be validated against a set of validation rules.

If validation is successful, the data is automatically transferred into Ofqual’s internal systems and you will receive email confirmation. If the file is unsuccessful at any stage of validation you will receive an email with details of the validation failure. Please correct your file and resubmit it.

The specific validation rules which are in place for this template are detailed in the ‘validation rules’ and ‘file format’ sections below.

Amendments to data

Errors or omissions in the data

Once the data has been successfully uploaded, it will be checked by Ofqual staff. If an error or omission is spotted, the data may be queried, and you may be requested to resubmit it. We will need to reject your existing submission ahead of a resubmission.

If you find an error or omission after you’ve had a successful upload, please notify Data Services by email. We need to reject the existing submission before you can upload a new file.

If you wish to see your latest submission of a data return, for example to check the submission if it has been queried, please know it is available to download in the data portal.

Scheduled revisions of data

Each submission of this data is intended to show a snapshot in time. Therefore, there will be no resubmissions required to reflect any further updates to the data already submitted, unless an error or omission is spotted.

General completion guidelines

1. 1. Numeric values must not have any formatting.

2. 2. All fields are mandatory unless otherwise specified.

3. 3. Submit 1 row of data per ComponentCode per specification option (identified by the unique combination of SpecificationCode and CertificationCode and Tier).

4. 4. All individual components and the total number of components associated with each specification option must be explicitly identified.

5. 5. Include all available specifications for the exam series. Also include specifications with no entries.

6. 6. There are 2 exceptions to the general requirements above:

   1. For A Level further mathematics: submit 1 row for each ComponentCode that contributes to the final specification grade for a specification option (identified by the unique combination of SpecificationCode and CertificationCode). Do not include ComponentCodes of other available components that students may have taken but that did not contribute to the specification grade. In each row, enter the minimum number of components required to certificate in the specification in the NumberRequiredComponents field.

   2. For OCR A Level history: specification options without entries in the series do not have to be included, if only options with entries are identifiable by the CertificationCode. Include all specification options that are identified by a CertificationCode. As per general guidance, submit 1 row of data per ComponentCode per specification option and enter the minimum number of components required to certificate in the specification in the NumberRequiredComponents field. This also applies where the CertificationCode covers multiple combinations of components.

7. 7. For tiered specifications, the components for each tier must be uniquely identified. The tier (higher or foundation) must be recorded in the Tier field for each component. Tier information can additionally be included in CertificationCode. Tier should refer to the specification as a whole. For example, for a higher tier specification, all associated components should be recorded as higher tier. If a component is associated with both the higher and lower tier specifications, it should be recorded under each SpecificationCode and Tier.

8. 8. For specifications that include an NEA/endorsement component:

   1. • count all NEA and endorsement components towards the number of components required to certificate in the specification submitted in the field NumberRequiredComponents

   2. • if the component can also be a carried forward component which has a different ComponentCode to that assessed in the current exam series, only count the component once in the NumberRequiredComponents

9. 9. The field CarryForward only applies to Pearson and Cambridge OCR. Other awarding organisations should submit -2.

10. 10. Specification codes must be consistent with those submitted in the Specification code data collection. Where specification codes include an option or tiering code (for example, J567F, 4000GU, 4365H), this value can be repeated in the certification code field where appropriate.

11. 11. Values for fields that also appear in the Awarding data collection, specifically those identifying component, specification and certification codes must be consistent with those submitted across templates of the Awarding data collection.

File format

The file must be CSV format and the first row must be headers as displayed in the ‘Name’ column of the table below. The subsequent rows must have the values of the data to be reported which must match the format and validation rules below.

Name	Description	Position	Description of Regular Expression	Validation Regular Expression
ReportingDate	Date the file was due to be submitted to Ofqual regardless of when it was actually uploaded (this date will be made available by Ofqual)	1	The date in the following format: year (4 digits), a dash, month (2 digits), a dash, day-of-month (2 digits) Format accepted yyyy-mm-dd	^(20)\d\d[-](0[1-9]|1[012])[-](0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$
ExamSeries	Exam series data relates to, for example, June 2024	2	Full month name of exam series and year.	^(June|November)([ ][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])$
AwardingOrganisation	Awarding organisation acronym as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated organisations	3	Valid awarding organisation acronym. 1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$
QualificationType	Type of qualification	4	Accepted values: •GCSE •AS •A level	^(GCSE|AS|A level)$
QualificationNumber	The unique identifier for the qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications, for example, 123/1234/1	5	Valid qualification number. 10 characters accepted	^.{10}$
SpecificationCode	Specification code, also known as Subject Award Code and Cash-in Code.	6	1 to 7 characters accepted.	^.{1,7}$
CertificationCode	Entry or option code to which candidates certificate.	7	1 to 7 characters accepted	^.{1,7}$
SpecificationTitle	Specification title, also known as subject title	8	1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$
Tier	To indicate the tier if applicable. F for Foundation H for Higher	9	Accepted values: •F •H -2 accepted where not applicable	^(F|H|-2)$
NumberRequiredComponents	Minimum number of components required to certificate in the specification. See general completion guidelines for detail.	10	Up to 2-digit integer accepted	^\d{1,2})$
ComponentCode	Component code as designated in the specification	11	1 to 10 characters accepted	^.{1,10}$
ComponentTitle	Title of the component as designated in the specification	12	1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$
AssessmentMethod	Standard method of assessment for the component. See Appendix A for definitions	13	Accepted values: •Exam •NEA •Endorsement	^(Exam|NEA|Endorsement)$
CarryForward	To indicate if the row of data relates to a carry forward option	14	Accepted values for Cambridge OCR and Pearson: •1 for yes •0 for no For all other awarding organisations: -2	^(1|0|-2)$

Validation rules

A data submission is only considered complete once it has successfully passed the validation rules.

If the file is unsuccessful at any stage of validation you will receive an email with details of the validation failure. Please correct your file and resubmit it. A file may be successful but with warnings. Warnings will not cause failure in the validation process but will highlight entries which may need to be checked. You will receive an email with details of the warning in an attached “Data Validation Warnings Report”. If you receive this, please review the report and contact Data.Services@ofqual.gov.uk should the data require any amendment.

The validation rules for this template check that each field is correctly formatted. The correct formatting of the fields are detailed in the ‘file format’ section. Failure to format the fields in line with the validation regular expression will result in unsuccessful validation. Additional validation rules are also in place for this template and may include cross-referencing with other templates. These validation rules along with whether they result in failure or a warning are detailed in the following table.

Validation rule	Result if not met
ExamSeries values in scope of the return	Fail and rejected
All ReportingDate values match date the file was due to be submitted to Ofqual regardless of when it was actually uploaded (this date will be made available by Ofqual)	Fail and rejected
Awarding Organisation is valid acronym	Fail and rejected
QAN is a valid qualification number in Ofqual register	Fail and rejected
QualificationLevel and QAN match Ofqual register	Fail and rejected
Specification codes must be consistent with those submitted in the Specification code data collection.	Fail and rejected

Appendix A: Accepted values for AssessmentMethod

Value	Definition
Exam	Assessment by Examination An assessment which is: •set by an awarding organisation, and •designed to be taken simultaneously by all relevant students at a time determined by the awarding organisation, and •taken under conditions specified by the awarding organisation
NEA	Non-exam Assessment An assessment which is not an Assessment by Examination. For example: coursework, practicals, performances, orals and similar. This includes both internally and externally marked NEAs.
Endorsement	An assessment which is not an exam and does not contribute to the final qualification mark but is a required component of the specification. For example: •GCSE Science Practical Endorsements •GCSE English Language Spoken Language Endorsement

Recent changes to this guidance

Date of change	Description of change
9 September 2026	Introduced the data collection and first published the template

Contacts

For all queries or feedback relating to the data collection process, amendments to data previously provided, or for general guidance, please contact:

Data services

Ofqual
2nd floor, 1 Friargate
Station Square
Coventry
CV1 2GN

Email data.services@ofqual.gov.uk