Qualifications market 2021-2022: the stats
24 March 2023
11 million certificates were issued for GCSE, A and AS Level, vocational and other qualifications in England in the academic year 2021-2022, an increase of 2.1% on the previous year according to Ofqual’s latest annual qualifications market report.
Other trends emerging from the report include:
- There were 11,400 active qualifications (available qualifications with certificates) - a 2.9% decrease on the previous year.
- 6.1 million GCSE, AS and A Level certificates were awarded - down by 0.8% compared to the previous year. Of this figure, 5.2 million were GCSE (47% of the total number of certificates awarded) and 767,875 were A Level (7% of total).
- 4.9 million certificates were awarded for vocational and other qualifications (figure does not include apprenticeships or T Levels as detailed below) - up 5.8% compared to the previous year. The Health, Public Services and Care sector accounts for 25% of all vocational and other certificates awarded.
- There were 229 Ofqual-recognised Awarding Organisations (AOs) including 38 who delivered only End Point Assessments for apprenticeship standards and 46 AOs with no active qualifications. The 20 AOs that reported the highest volume of all certificates awarded nearly 90% of all certificates.
Alternative arrangements for many assessments were in place in the 2020 to 2021 academic year due to continuing disruption caused by the pandemic. This may have had an impact on trends, particularly when compared with the previous year.
T Levels
Ofqual regulates the Technical Qualification included in the T Level which is not certificated in itself so T Level figures are not included in Ofqual’s qualifications market report. The Department for Education (DfE) issued T Level certificates for the first time in 2021-2022 year with
figures showing 1,029 learners received a result with 90% achieving a pass or above in their overall T Level grade.
Apprenticeships end-point assessments
The AOs that conduct apprenticeships end-point assessments (EPAs) do not issue certificates. Instead, they request certificates on behalf of apprentices which are issued by the DfE so apprenticeship figures are not included in Ofqual’s qualifications market report. DfE
figures show nearly 350,000 new apprenticeships were started in 2021-22 (up 8% on the previous year) with over 137,000 achievements (down 12%). Under 19s accounted for 22.2% of all new starts (77,500).