Guidance

VTQ Information Hub: 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. In particular, this data is used for the VTQ Information Hub.

What data will be collected?

Data should relate to key dates and deadlines to support centre staff in the delivery of Key Stage 4 level 1/2 and level 2, and Key Stage 5 level 3 VTQ qualifications for students expecting a result in August for the purposes of progression.

Qualifications in scope

The following types of qualifications are in scope of this collection:

• Applied Generals
• Vocationally Related qualifications
• Technical Qualifications (TQs) within T Levels
• Performing Arts Graded qualifications
• Occupational qualifications 
• Other Vocational qualifications

Countries in scope

Data should be included for all qualifications delivered in:

• England

Time period in scope

Data for the current, full academic year (1 September to 31 August).

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.
3. Templates can be submitted in any order.
4. To ensure Ofqual can match the data in templates 1, 2 and 3, the ‘AOQualificationGroup’ must be spelled and formatted identically in each.
5. To ensure centres understand clearly what is required, qualifications must only fall into a single group.
6. To ensure centres can access key information quickly and clearly where deadline dates are different within a group you should create a new group, for example “Qualification Group Name: Art and Design”.

Template 1: Key dates

Specific Completion Guidelines

1. Dates will be set out under qualification types and groupings so where multiple qualification groupings have same date, please include a new entry for each.
2. Qualification level data, such as individual exam dates, is not required in this submission.
3. Submit one row of data per event per qualification type per AO qualification group.
4. Key dates (also referred to as events) should include the title of the key event, milestone or date for qualification group that centres must be aware of to ensure that students using qualifications for progression to higher education or further education are certificated as planned. See appendix A for what these dates could include.
5. Where you use different terms that your centres understand for term time checkpoint and release of results to centres, please ensure that the Ofqual term is included in brackets in addition to your term.
6. The ‘AdditionalDescription’ field allows you to expand on the title and include more detail about the key date, including URL links to further information.
7. ‘AOQualificationGroup’ refers to the title of the qualification group that this event relates to. Groups should be commonly understood by centres you work with and reflect your own naming conventions and communications with centres. Ofqual understands that awarding organisations will communicate with their centres about qualifications by group and will have naming conventions to ensure that customers understand which suite of qualifications is being referred to.

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
Event	Title of the key event, milestone or date for qualification group that centres must be aware of. See Template 1: Key dates specific completion guidelines for more detail	1	1 to 250 characters accepted	^.{1,250}$
QualificationType	Type of qualification.	2	Accepted values: • Applied General Qualification • Other General Qualification • Vocationally Related Qualification • Technical Qualification • Performing Arts Graded Qualification • Occupational Qualification • Other Vocational Qualification	^(Applied General Qualification|Other General Qualification|Vocationally Related Qualification|Technical Qualification|Performing Arts Graded Qualification|Occupational Qualification|Other Vocational Qualification)$
AOQualificationGroup	Title of qualification group that this event related to. Where multiple qualification groups have the same date, include a new entry for each See Template 1: Key dates specific completion guidelines for more detail	3	1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$
StartDate	Start date of the event	4	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[19]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$
EndDate	Date that event ends	5	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[19]|[12][0-9]|3[01])$
AdditionalDescription	Additional information (text or webpage) about the event. The description will not be displayed on main information hub page but will be available as part of CSV download and calendar.	6	1 to 250 characters accepted	^.{1,250}$

Template 2: Qualification groupings

Specific Completion Guidelines

1. Submit one row of data per qualification per AO qualification group.
2. ‘AOQualificationGroup’ refers to the title of the qualification group that this qualification relates to. Groups should be commonly understood by centres you work with and reflect your own naming conventions and communications with centres. Ofqual understands that awarding organisations will communicate with their centres about qualifications by group and will have naming conventions to ensure that customers understand which suite of qualifications is being referred to.

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
QualificationNumber	The unique identifier for the qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications, for example 123/1234/1	1	Valid qualification number. 10 characters accepted	^.{10}$
QualificationTitle	Title of qualification as it appears in Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications	2	1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$
QualificationType	Type of qualification	3	Accepted values: • Applied General Qualification • Other General Qualification • Vocationally Related Qualification • Technical Qualification • Performing Arts Graded Qualification • Occupational Qualification • Other Vocational Qualification	^(Applied General Qualification|Other General Qualification|Vocationally Related Qualification|Technical Qualification|Performing Arts Graded Qualification|Occupational Qualification|Other Vocational Qualification)$
AOQualificationGroup	Title of qualification group that this qualification belongs/relates to and whose key dates are included in Template 1: Key dates Where multiple qualification groups have same date include a new entry for each. See Template 2: Qualification groupings specific completion guidelines for more detail	4	1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$

Template 3: Links to information pages

Specific Completion Guidelines

1. Submit one row of data per qualification type per AO qualification group.
2. ‘AOQualificationGroup’ refers to the title of the qualification group that this webpage relates to. Groups should be commonly understood by centres you work with and reflect your own naming conventions and communications with centres. Ofqual understands that awarding organisations will communicate with their centres about qualifications by group and will have naming conventions to ensure that customers understand which suite of qualifications is being referred to.

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
QualificationType	Type of qualification	1	Accepted values: • Applied General Qualification • Other General Qualification • Vocationally Related Qualification • Technical Qualification • Performing Arts Graded Qualification • Occupational Qualification • Other Vocational Qualification	^(Applied General Qualification|Other General Qualification|Vocationally Related Qualification|Technical Qualification|Performing Arts Graded Qualification|Occupational Qualification|Other Vocational Qualification)$
AOQualificationGroup	Title of qualification group that this webpage belongs/relates to and whose key dates are included in Template 1: Key dates Where multiple qualification groups have same date include a new entry for each See Template 3: Links to information pages specific completion guidelines for more detail	2	1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$
InformationURL	URL link to your information page about this group	3	1 to 150 characters accepted	^.{1,150}$

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
‘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: Key dates suggested values

The key dates that would be accepted could include, but are not limited to:

• deadlines for entries for external assessments
• deadline for very late entry when entry amendment fees apply
• deadline for entries/requests for moderation for internal assessments
• deadline for very late entry/requests for moderation when entry amendment fees apply
• deadline for internal assessment mark and/or grade submission
• deadline for submission of evidence for verification/ moderation/quality assurance of assessments
• latest date by which moderation must be complete
• latest date by which external moderation must be competed
• qualification claim date, if applicable
• deadline for applications for special consideration for missed external assessments
• date of release of final results to centres for issue date for results to be issued to candidates
• term time checkpoint(s)

Recent changes to this guidance

Date of change	Description of change
01/05/2026	Updated the document template and clarified aspects of the text. No changes to actual requirements were made.

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