National statistics

Vocational and other qualifications quarterly: January to March 2016

This bulletin covers all vocational and other types of qualifications (excluding GCSEs, GCEs and the Diploma and its components) in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Applies to England, Northern Ireland and Wales

Documents

Vocational and Other Qualifications Quarterly: January to March 2016

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email publications@ofqual.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Tables - Vocational and Other Qualifications Quarterly January to March 2016

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email publications@ofqual.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Table of revisions

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email publications@ofqual.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Pre-release access list - Vocational and other Qualifications quarterly January to March 2016

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email publications@ofqual.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Details

Main findings

  1. Just under 1.3 million certificates were awarded, a decrease of 5% on the same quarter of 2015 and the lowest number of certificates awarded during quarter 1 since 2011.
  2. The number of available qualifications this quarter decreased by 1% from 21,924 in the previous quarter to 21,676.
  3. The qualification with the most certificates this quarter was Cambridge International Level 1/ Level 2 certificate in First Language English with 37,700 certificates awarded.
  4. The number of certificates issued for Level 1 qualifications decreased by 8% (from 325,500 to 299,750) and Level 2 qualifications decreased by 9% (from 629,000 to 571,100) on the same quarter in 2015; the number of certificates issued for Level 3 qualifications increased by 2% (from 187,400 to 191,300).
  5. The number of certificates awarded for qualifications at Level 4 and above has decreased by 2% on the same quarter in 2015 (from 26,250 to 25,600); the decrease was mainly in qualifications in the sector of Education and training.
  6. The highest number of certificates awarded by Sector Subject Area of qualification in this quarter was for Preparation for Life and Work (374,500 certificates).

Survey

We are running a series of surveys to find out how we can improve our statistical publications. We would like to hear your views on this publications.

Our survey takes only a few minutes to complete.

Datasets

The datasets used to produce this release are available for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and for each individual country.

Published 7 July 2016
Last updated 15 August 2016 + show all updates
  1. Figure 5 (page 14) in the report updated with correct figure for the number of certificates issued in the 12 months to March 2016 for level 8 qualifications.

  2. First published.