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Guidance

Financial benchmarking tool for colleges

A tool to help colleges compare their financial performance with others in the sector.

Updates to this page

From:
Department for Education
Published:
10 April 2017
Last updated:
27 May 2026
Show all updates

  1. Added 'College benchmarking tool for the financial year 2024 to 2025'.

  2. Added 'College benchmarking tool for the financial year 2023 to 2024' and updated the guidance.

  3. Updated 'College benchmarking tool for the financial year 2022 to 2023' to include more providers.

  4. Added 'College benchmarking tool for the financial year 2022 to 2023'.

  5. We have published a revised version of the college benchmarking tool for the financial year 2021 to 2022.

  6. We have published the college benchmarking tool for the financial year 2021 to 2022.

  7. Added the latest version of the tool in for the year 2020 to 2021 and updated guidance.

  8. We have updated the college financial benchmarking tool with data for 2019 to 2020.

  9. We have updated the college financial benchmarking tool with data from 2017 to 2018 and 2018 to 2019.

  10. We have published an updated version of the college financial benchmarking tool and have updated the accompanying guidance.

  11. We have updated the college financial benchmarking tool with improved data accuracy.

  12. Page updated for 2017 to 2018.

  13. First published.

Applies to England

Documents

College financial benchmarking tool: guidance

HTML

College benchmarking tool for the financial year 2024 to 2025

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 8.72 MB

Details

This financial benchmarking tool and accompanying guidance is for:

  • sixth-form and further education college corporations
  • institutions designated under Section 28 of the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 as being in the further education sector

For the purposes of this guidance, these are collectively referred to as ‘colleges’.

Bodies funded by the Department for Education (DfE) as ‘special post-16 institutions’ (sometimes described as ‘colleges’) are not in scope, unless they are a subsidiary of one of the previously listed organisations.

You can filter the benchmark population based on certain criteria. The tool provides several benchmarking reports, trend analysis and access to the underlying datasets.

The latest version of the tool includes data submitted in colleges’ finance records for the years:

  • 2024 to 2025
  • 2023 to 2024

Additional information on DfE’s financial reporting requirements for colleges is set out in our college accounts direction.

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