PTQ Outcomes: Qualification Maximum Marks and Grade Boundaries
Updated 1 May 2026
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2026
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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 and to fulfil our responsibility as a government department. In particular, this data is used in the publication of the statistics: summer qualification results in England
as well as the following interactive visualisations:
What data will be collected?
Data should relate to maximum marks, grades and grade boundaries set at qualification level for the time period and qualifications in scope of the collection.
Qualifications in scope
The following qualification types are in scope of this collection:
- Vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs) that are included in the Department for Education’s performance tables (PTQs) for the academic year being submitted. These are:
- Technical Awards
- Technical Certificates
- Tech Levels
- Applied Generals
Countries in scope
Data should be included for all qualifications available to students in centres in:
- England
Time period in scope
Data is collected at multiple points during the year with each return covering the full academic year. For detail on the scope of each return please see the reporting schedule.
When data will be collected
Data will be collected according to the reporting schedule which is updated regularly. Please submit templates in order specified in the reporting schedule and on the collection page.
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
- Numeric values must not have any formatting.
- All fields are mandatory unless otherwise specified.
- This template is designed to capture data on maximum marks, grades and grade boundaries set at qualification level.
- Submit 1 row of data per unique set of qualification grade boundaries per qualification grade.
- Where grades are issued in the absence of marks and grade boundaries, please still submit a row for each grade. ‘-2’ can be used for the boundary and/or maximum mark fields as appropriate. Submitting a row for each grade is useful as it allows us to determine the qualification’s grade scale.
- The ‘MaxMarkAndBoundaryID’ field would be a unique code for a particular set of qualification grade boundaries and maximum mark information, intended to act as a linking field between the outcomes and maximum marks/grade boundaries templates. For example, for sessional or series-based qualifications it could be the name of the series, or for on-demand qualifications a unique code specific to that version of the assessments taken. ‘-2’ would be accepted for qualifications where the boundaries and maximum marks don’t change throughout the academic year. Where grade boundaries and/or maximum marks change for a qualification number, please use a common value for this field in both the qualification outcomes and qualification grade boundaries templates.
- For fields referring to raw marks (‘MaximumRawMark’ and ‘RawMarkGradeBoundary’), this would be the summed number of marks available to a student without any weighting, scaling or other conversion applied.
- For fields referring to scaled scores (‘MaximumScaledScore’ and ‘ScaledScoreGradeBoundary’), this would be any numerical score applied to the qualification that would not be considered a raw mark (see definition above) or a grade. This can include, for example, percentage scores, Uniform Mark Scale (UMS) marks or Grade Points or Grade Credits
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])$ |
| AcademicYear | The academic year which this data submission relates to (defined as 1 September to 31 August). For example: 2021-2022 |
2 | The academic year in the following format: start year (4 digits), a dash, end year (4 digits) Format accepted: yyyy-yyyy |
^(20)\d\d[-](20)\d\d$ |
| 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}$ |
| QualificationNumber | The unique identifier for the qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications, for example 123/1234/1 | 4 | Valid qualification number. 10 characters accepted. |
^.{10}$ |
| MaxMarkAndBoundaryID | Identifier used to link information between the outcomes and grade boundaries templates. See general completion guidelines for more detail. -2 accepted where boundaries and maximum marks information do not change throughout the academic year |
5 | 1 to 50 characters accepted -2 accepted where boundaries and maximum marks information do not change throughout the academic year |
^.{1,50}$ |
| MaximumRawMark | Maximum aggregated raw mark for the qualification. See general completion guidelines for more detail. -2 accepted for not applicable |
6 | Up to 3-digit integer accepted. -2 accepted for not applicable |
^(?:-2|\d{1,3})$ |
| MaximumScaledScore | Maximum scaled mark/score for the qualification, where used. See general completion guidelines for more detail. -2 accepted for not applicable |
7 | Decimal value with up to 3 decimal places, between 0-9999. -2 accepted where not applicable |
^(?:-2|\d{0,4}\.?\d{0,3})$ |
| Grade | The grade the boundary relates to. For example, “A” | 8 | See Appendix A for accepted grades | See Appendix A |
| RawMarkGradeBoundary | Raw mark grade boundary for that grade. See general completion guidelines for more detail. -2 accepted for not applicable |
9 | Up to 3-digit integer accepted -2 accepted for not applicable |
^(?:-2|\d{1,3})$ |
| ScaledScoreGradeBoundary | Scaled score grade boundary for that grade. See general completion guidelines for more detail. -2 accepted for not applicable |
10 | Decimal value with up to 3 decimal places, between 0-9999. -2 accepted for not applicable. |
^(?:-2|\d{0,4}\.?\d{0,3})$ |
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 Ofqual Data Services 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 |
|---|---|
| ‘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 |
| ‘AcademicYear’ value is in scope of the return | Fail and rejected |
| ‘AwardingOrganisation’ is valid acronym | Fail and rejected |
| ‘QualificationNumber’ is a valid qualification number in Ofqual register and does not belong to AEAs, GCSEs, AS or A levels | Fail and rejected |
Appendix A: Accepted Grade Values
The following are grades accepted for this collection. Let us know via the Portal as soon as possible if any grades appear to be missing from this list. You will not be able to submit any grades which are not on this list without informing us first.
| Accepted values in ‘Grade’ field |
|---|
| FAIL |
| -2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 |
| *, A*, A, B, C, D*, D, E, F, G, J, K, M, N, P, Q, R, U, X |
| AC1, C1, E1, E2, E3 |
| D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, M1, M2, M3, P1, P2, P3 |
| **, *1, *2, *D, D*D*, D*D, DD, DM, HM, LM, HP, LP, MD, MM, MP, PM, PP |
| ***, D*D*D* , **D, D*D*D, D**, DD*D*, *DD, D*DD, DD*, DDD*, DD*D, DDD, DDM, DMM, MDD, MMD, MMM, MMP, MPP, PMM, PPM, PPP |
| 24B, 25B, 26B, 27B, 28B, 29B, 30B, 31B, 32B, 33B, 34B, 35B, 36B, 37B, 38B, 39B, 40B, 41B, 42B, 43B, 44B, 45B |
| 24D, 25D, 26D, 27D, 28D, 29D, 30D, 31D, 32D, 33D, 34D, 35D, 36D, 37D, 38D, 39D, 40D, 41D, 42D, 43D, 44D, 45D |
| 24F, 25F, 26F, 27F, 28F, 29F, 30F, 31F, 32F, 33F, 34F, 35F, 36F, 37F, 38F, 39F, 40F, 41F, 42F, 43F, 44F, 45F |
Convert any of the following grades to the allowed values listed.
| Grade | Allowed Value |
|---|---|
| Distinction | D |
| Distinction* | D* |
| L1D L1 Distinction |
*1 |
| L2D Distinction L2 L2 Distinction* |
*2 |
| Distinction 1 Distinction L1 L1 Distinction L1D |
D1 |
| Distinction 2 Distinction L2 L2 Distinction L2D |
D2 |
| Distinction 3 | D3 |
| High Merit | HM |
| Merit | M |
| Low Merit | LM |
| Merit 1 Merit L1 L1 Merit L1M |
M1 |
| Merit 2 Merit L2 L2 Merit L2M |
M2 |
| Merit 3 | M3 |
| L1 Adv. Credit | AC1 |
| L1 Credit | C1 |
| High Pass | HP |
| Pass | P |
| Low Pass | LP |
| Pass 1 Pass L1 L1 Pass L1P |
P1 |
| Pass 2 Pass L2 L2 Pass L2P |
P2 |
| Pass 3 | P3 |
| Entry 1 | E1 |
| Entry 2 | E2 |
| Entry 3 | E3 |
| Unclassified | U |
| Queried/pending | Q |
| Disqualified/Absent without good reason | X |
Recent changes to this guidance
| Date of change | Description of change |
|---|---|
| 01/05/2026 | Updated the document template and clarified aspects of the text. Time period in scope changed so data is only collected in August and September and both collections cover the full academic year |
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