Guidance

Vocational quarterly: guide to the data submission process

Updated 1 May 2026

Applies to England

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. This data is used in the publication of the following official statistics reports:

• Vocational and other qualifications quarterly
• Annual qualifications market report

as well as the following interactive visualisations:

• Vocational and other qualifications over time
• Vocational and Technical Qualifications Landscape
• All Regulated Qualifications Landscape

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 the number of certificates awarded for each qualification, for the time period, qualifications and countries in scope of the collection.

Qualifications in scope

All Ofqual-regulated qualifications are in scope of this collection, with the exception of the below qualification types.

Data Portal will automatically send you a pre-populated template of qualifications in scope. The pre-populated template contains an extract of your qualifications from the Ofqual Register of Regulated Qualifications.

The following qualification types are not in scope of this collection:

• GCSE

• AS

• A level
• Advanced Extension Award (AEA)

• Apprenticeship EPA

• T Level

Countries in scope

Data should be included for all students in:

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

Time period in scope

Data is collected in January, April, July and October with each return covering a specific quarter in the academic year. For detail on the months in 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.

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. Numeric values must not have any formatting.

2. All fields are mandatory unless otherwise specified. Registration and regional certification data should be provided if possible, but this is not currently mandatory. Submit -2 where you cannot provide the data. Only submit 0 where there are zero registrations or zero certificates were issued.

3. Report registrations and certificates per month, per qualification.

4. Report certificates according to the certification date.

5. A certificate represents a student completing a qualification. Only include the certificate once in cases where the physical certificate was issued multiple times but represents the same student’s completion of the qualification (for example, cases where an administrative error was made).

6. Only include certificates issued during the time period in scope. Certificates in dispute or under review should only be included in the period during which they are finally issued.

7. Registration numbers represent the total number of students registered for the qualification during the time period in scope. The point of registration is when a student indicates an intention to gain the qualification. For modular qualifications this may be the point where a student requests the qualification, having completed the component units.

8. Quarter 1 covers January to March, quarter 2 covers April to June, quarter 3 covers July to September and quarter 4 covers October to December.

9. Certification data at country level (England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Other UK and non-UK) is compulsory. Registration and regional certification data should be provided if possible but is not currently compulsory.

10. The certificate location should be based on where the student is primarily assessed. If assessments are taken at a registered centre, use that centre’s address. If the registration centre differs from the assessment centre, use the assessment centre’s location. For example, a student registered in England but assessed in Wales should be considered located in Wales. For distance learners registered directly with an awarding organisation, use the address held for the student. Where students take assessments in multiple locations, use the locations where the majority of assessments were taken. We do not usually expect certificates to be issued in locations where the qualification is not available. For example, for a qualification only available in Northern Ireland we expect certificates to be reported for Northern Ireland only.

11. English geographical regions are determined by the location of the assessment or examination centre, according to region (formerly Government Office Region). The Office for National Statistics (ONS) provides guidance and datasets to define region, including a description of the English Geographic Structure and lists of administrative geographies. The administrative geographies are also available as a dataset and as regional maps to describe the areas in each of the regions and the postcode directory allows Region to be derived from postcode.

12. The Isle of Man and Channel Islands should be included in the ‘Other UK’ country category. Whilst these islands are not part of the UK for administrative purposes they are grouped as such for our reporting in line with the approach taken by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) and other education organisations.

13. Data Portal will automatically send you a pre-populated template of qualifications in scope. The pre-populated template contains an extract of your qualifications from the Ofqual Register of Regulated Qualifications.

14. Include all qualifications of the pre-populated template in the submission. Populate with all 0 if there are no certificates or registrations to report for a qualification. For optional fields you may also enter -2.

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
Awarding Body ID	Awarding organisation acronym as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated organisations	1	1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$
QAN	The unique identifier for the qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications, for example 123/1234/1	2	Valid qualification number. 10 characters accepted.	^.{10}$
Qualification Title	Title of qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications	3	1 to 255 characters accepted	^.{1,255}$
Level	Level of qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications	4	1 to 20 characters accepted	^.{1,20}$
Type	Type of qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications	5	1 to 255 characters accepted	^.{1,255}$
Certification End Date	The date when certificates are no longer issued for the qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications	6	The date in the following format: day-of-month (2 digits) forward slash, month (2 digits), forward slash, year (4 digits) Format accepted dd/mm/yyyy	^(0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])[\/](0[1-9]|1[012])[\/](20)\d\d$
Quarter	The calendar quarter	7	The quarter of the current data collection Format accepted yyyy.q (e.g. 2024.1)	^(20)[2-9][1-9][.]([1-4])$
Month	The calendar month in the reporting quarter	8	The calendar month	^(January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December)$
Registrations Total	Number of registrations received in the month This field is not mandatory	9	Up to 8-digit integer accepted -2 accepted where number of registrations is not provided	^(?:-2|\d{1,8})$
Certificates Totals	Number of certificates awarded in the month	10	Up to 8-digit integer accepted	^\d{1,8}$
England Certificates	Number of certificates awarded in England for the month	11	Up to 8-digit integer accepted	^\d{1,8}$
Wales Certificates	Number of certificates awarded in Wales for the month	12	Up to 8-digit integer accepted	^\d{1,8}$
Northern Ireland Certificates	Number of certificates awarded in Northern Ireland for the month	13	Up to 8-digit integer accepted	^\d{1,8}$
Other Uk Certificates	Number of certificates awarded in other UK regions for the month. This includes: Scotland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands	14	Up to 8-digit integer accepted	^\d{1,8}$
Non-Uk Certificates	Number of certificates awarded in non-UK regions (including BFPO) for the month	15	Up to 8-digit integer accepted -2 accepted where not provided	^(?:-2|\d{1,8})$
England (North East) Certificates	Number of certificates awarded in England (NE region) for the month	16	Up to 8-digit integer accepted -2 accepted where not provided	^(?:-2|\d{1,8})$
England (North West) Certificates	Number of certificates awarded in England (NW region) for the month	17	Up to 8-digit integer accepted -2 accepted where not provided	^(?:-2|\d{1,8})$
England (Yorkshire and the Humber) Certificates	Number of certificates awarded in England (Yorkshire and Humberside region) for the month	18	Up to 8-digit integer accepted -2 accepted where not provided	^(?:-2|\d{1,8})$
England (West Midlands) Certificates	Number of certificates awarded in England (WM region) for the month	19	Up to 8-digit integer accepted -2 accepted where not provided	^(?:-2|\d{1,8})$
England (East Midlands) Certificates	Number of certificates awarded in England (EM region) for the month	20	Up to 8-digit integer accepted -2 accepted where not provided	^(?:-2|\d{1,8})$
England (Eastern Region) Certificates	Number of certificates awarded in England (Eastern region) for the month	21	Up to 8-digit integer accepted -2 accepted where not provided	^(?:-2|\d{1,8})$
England (South West) Certificates	Number of certificates awarded in England (SW region) for the month	22	Up to 8-digit integer accepted -2 accepted where not provided	^(?:-2|\d{1,8})$
England (South East) Certificates	Number of certificates awarded in England (SE region) for the month	23	Up to 8-digit integer accepted -2 accepted where not provided	^(?:-2|\d{1,8})$
England (London) Certificates	Number of certificates awarded in England (London region) for the month	24	Up to 8-digit integer accepted -2 accepted where not provided	^(?:-2|\d{1,8})$
Status	Current status of qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications	25	1 to 255 characters accepted	^.{1,255}$

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
‘Awarding Body ID’ is valid acronym	Fail and rejected
‘QAN’ is a valid qualification number in Ofqual register and does not belong to AEAs, GCSEs, AS or A levels	Fail and rejected
‘Certification End Date’ for the QAN is not within the last six months	Pass with warning
For qualifications in Wales, only ‘Wales Certificates’ reports non-zero values	Fail and rejected
‘Certificates Totals’ equals the sum of ‘England Certificates’, ‘Wales Certificates’, ‘Northern Ireland Certificates’, ‘Other UK Certificates’ and ‘Non-UK Certificates’	Fail and rejected
‘England certificates’ equals the sum of certificate numbers across England regions where non-zero values were submitted for regions.	Fail and rejected
‘Month’ is in reporting quarter	Fail and rejected

Recent changes to this guidance

Date of change	Description of change
01/05/26	Updated the document template and clarified aspects of the text. Requirement change for optional fields to be submitted as -2 if data cannot be provided. Only submit 0 for zero certificates Requirement change to include all qualifications of the pre-populated template in the submission. Populate with all 0, instead of dropping rows for qualifications with all zero certificates.
14/08/2023	‘Month’ field was added

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