Responding to today’s Level 3 results and university acceptances data, Carl Cullinane, Director of Research and Policy at the Sutton Trust, said: 

‘Students receiving their results today have endured significant disruption to their education since Year 8, and they should all take pride in what they’ve achieved. However, the overall rise in top grades this year masks growing regional inequalities, reflecting findings from the Sutton Trust’s Opportunity Index earlier this year.

‘The gap between London, the highest performing region, and the lowest has increased again this year, and is now significantly above pre-pandemic levels. The North East and West Midlands saw a fall in the proportion of top grades achieved this year. If the government is going to break down barriers to opportunity, the growth in regional inequalities must be reversed.

‘It’s positive that increasing numbers of young people from the most deprived areas are getting into university. This is important, because gaining a university degree remains the surest route to social mobility. However, today’s figures show the gap between the most and least deprived areas remains wide, and worse than before the pandemic in 2019.’

Sutton Trust analysis of today’s data:

A LEVEL RESULTS

  • OVERALL: In the UK the proportion of A level grades at A and A* is 28.3%. This is still above the 25.5% of 2019, three years after Ofqual had first aimed to return to pre-pandemic grading levels. It’s up from 27.8% last year. Overall passes were up very slightly with 97.5% of entrants receiving A* to E grades compared to 97.2% in 2024.
  • GEOGRAPHY: In England, London and the South East remain the regions most likely to secure the top grades. All regions except the North East and West Midlands saw an increase in the proportion of A*/A grades. In the South East, 31.2% of entrants received A*/A grades, up 0.4pp on 2024 and 2.9pp on 2019. In London this was even higher at 32.1%, up 0.8pp on 2024, and 5.2% on 2019. However, in the North East and West Midlands the proportion of top grades dropped by 1pp and 0.6pp to 22.9% and 24.2% respectively. This means the gap between London and the lowest performing region has increased to 9.2 percentage points, from 8.8pp last year, and 5.9pp in 2019.
  • SCHOOL TYPE: The proportion of grammars getting A*/A is up 6.6% (2.7pp) from 41% to 43.7% and private schools were down 1pp from 49.4% to 48.4%. Independent schools still had the highest proportion of A*/A grades, but the gap between comprehensives and private schools at 25.8pp shrank slightly compared to last year (27.1pp). However, it was still larger than in 2023 (25.4pp).

UNIVERSITY ACCESS

  • OVERALL: 255,130 18-year-olds from the UK have been accepted, compared to 243,650 in 2024 (+4.7%). UK 18-year-old entry rate on results day stands at 32.0%, an increase of 0.3 percentage points.
  • The number of students gaining a place at university from the most disadvantaged areas (IMD quintile 1) has risen by 6.4 percentage points. However, the gap in entry rate between the most and least deprived areas remains wide. It rose slightly to 22.5% this year, compared to 22.3% in 2024 and 20.7% pre-pandemic in 2019.
  • The 18-year-old entry rate has gone down 1pp for the North East this year whilst in London and the North West the entry rate has risen by 1pp. Comparing this year to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, the entry rate has gone up by 8pp in London whilst only 1pp in the North East.
  • SELECTIVE UNIVERSITIES: This year a higher proportion of students have been placed at medium-tariff institutions, at 44.3% compared to 42.8% last year. Acceptances to high tariff institutions have gone down from 31.3% last year to 30.9% this year. Lower tariff institutions have seen the largest drop to 24.8%, from 25.9% last year.

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