Students set new records for A-level grades in bumper year

Sixth-formers have basked in a summer of record-breaking exam results in academic and vocational subjects, allowing more than a quarter of a million 18-year-olds to go on to higher education.

The proportion of students in England gaining the highest grade of A* in A-level subjects rose to 9.7%, up from 9.4% last year, setting a new record outside the pandemic era, when exams were scrapped.

Northern Ireland was the best-performing country, with 30.7% of grades being As and A*s, followed by 29.6% in Wales and 28.7% in England.

The A-level results followed last week’s improved results in Scotland, where the proportion of students awarded Highers and Advanced Highers qualifications rose above 2019 pre-pandemic levels, and a record 18,000 Scottish school-leavers gained higher education places.

The bumper crop of results means nearly 263,000 UK pupils have already been accepted on to university courses starting this autumn, driven in part by the rising number of 18-year-olds in the population.

The results were boosted by improved results across the board, but mathematics in particular showed a strong improvement despite a rise in the number of candidates taking the subject.

Among the most striking trends this year was the surge in popularity of economics, which jumped from 10th most popular position last year to fifth, with more than 47,000 exam entries.

Myles McGinley, the managing director of the Cambridge OCR exam board, speaking at a briefing by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), said: “The students getting their A-level results today were born around 2008.

“So they’re the children of the financial crisis [and they] will have experienced the implications and impacts of that through Covid and beyond, and those forces that really shape the world.

“So I think it feels natural that they should be interested in that. And of course we know that economics provides excellent career options.”

As the Andy Burnham government focuses more closely on vocational subjects, examination boards published detailed results for level 3 qualifications, including BTecs and Cambridge Technicals, showing that just under 10% of the 300,000 candidates gained top grades.

Ian Bauckham, the head of England’s Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual), said the improved results could be trusted by employers.

“A-levels are trusted because they are awarded to rigorous and consistent national standards. Universities, employers and students can have confidence that an A-level grade represents what students know and can do.

“Vocational and technical qualifications are equally important. They help students develop the knowledge and skills needed for apprenticeships, employment and further study.

“When an employer or university sees these qualifications, they can be confident they demonstrate students’ genuine achievement.”

Vivienne Stern, the chief executive of Universities UK, said: “A record 262,820 of UK 18-year-olds have earned a place at a university this year, including an increase in students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. These students will go on to gain new skills and experiences that will benefit them throughout their whole lives.

“To those who have not got the results they were hoping for, don’t panic. There are still 26,000 courses available through clearing.”

The improvements in maths and further maths helped boys carry off a higher proportion of top grades. McGinley said: “The gap between boys and girls has widened: at A* and A grades in England boys are now a full percentage point ahead. However, with more girls taking A-levels the absolute number of girls achieving these grades is higher.”

But substantial regional disparities persist, with the East Midlands in particular missing out on the otherwise positive national trend. While nearly a third of candidates in London gained A*s and As in their A-level subjects, only 23.1% in the East Midlands did so, dropping to last place among England’s regions alongside the north-east.

Pepe Di’Iasio, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “These results are clearly affected by relative levels of socioeconomic disadvantage and reflect the structural inequalities which exist in our nation. Every year we say that we cannot go on like this and that as a society we must do more to support communities which often feel abandoned and neglected. When will we actually do that?”

Exam boards pushed back on any suggestion of grade inflation. Presenting the results at the JCQ briefing, Richard Harry, the director of qualifications and assessment at the Welsh exam board, WJEC, insisted grades could be trusted.

“What grade inflation really means is not outcomes going up. It really means that the grades no longer mean what they used to mean in terms of the level of attainment. The methods that we use to award qualifications are designed to ensure that those grades do mean the same thing.

“So that a learner in 2026 getting an A or an A* or a C can be confident that means the same thing in terms of the underlying knowledge, skills and understanding that those learners have, compared to those learners in previous years.”

Reporting from The Guardian contributed to this story.