Accredited official statistics

Vocational and other qualifications quarterly: April to June 2019

Statistics on vocational and other qualifications (excluding GCSEs, AS levels and A levels).

From:
Ofqual
Published
19 September 2019
Last updated
10 October 2019 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

Vocational and other qualifications quarterly: April 2019 to June 2019

Ref: Ofqual/19/6542/1

MS Excel Spreadsheet, 765 KB

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Background Information Vocational and Other Qualifications Quarterly: April to June 2019

Ref: Ofqual/19/6542/2

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Pre-release access list for Vocational and Other Qualifications quarterly: April to June 2019

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Details

  1. The number of certificates awarded in the second quarter of 2019 was just under 1.4 million certificates, a decrease of 6% compared to the second quarter of 2018.

  2. This fall in the number of certificates reflects a greater trend in the overall decline in certificates for vocational qualifications over time. This may be caused by a tightening in the availability of funding.

  3. Due to the term ‘QCF’ being removed from a large number of qualification titles (after the removal of regulatory arrangements), the figures show a 96% decrease in these qualifications compared to Q2 2018.

  4. Functional Skills also saw a 12% decrease in certificates in the same timeframe, continuing the ongoing trend in the drop in the number of Functional Skills certifications in the past few quarters.

  5. This quarter saw an increase in the number of certificates awarded in several other qualification types, including Performing Arts Graded Examinations, Other General Qualifications, Other Vocational Qualifications, and English For Speakers of Other Languages qualifications.

  6. There was a 13% decrease in the number of certificates awarded in Level 2 qualifications and a 17% decrease in the number of certificates awarded in Level 1/Level 2 qualifications.

  7. The sector subject areas with notable increases in the number of certificates awarded were Construction, Planning and the Built Environment, Arts, Media and Publishing, and Languages, Literature and Culture. There were also notable decreases in the number of certificates in Information and Communication Technology, Preparation for Life and Work, Health, Public Services and Care, Retail and Commercial Enterprise, and Business Administration and Law.

  8. The qualification with the highest number of certificates in Q2 2019 was QA Level 3 Award in Emergency First Aid at Work (RQF), the same as Q2 2018. This was followed by Pearson BTEC Level 1/Level2 First Award in Sport and City & Guilds Level 3 Award in the Requirements for Electrical Installations BS 7671:2018.

  9. The awarding organisation with the highest number of certificates issued in this quarter (as well as for the past 12 months) was Pearson, followed by City & Guilds and NCFE.

  10. In Q2 2019 , QNUK saw a 162% increase in the number certificates awarded compared to Q2 2018, with UAL and IQL also seeing marked increases during this period. TLM saw the largest proportional decrease in the number of certificates from last quarter (at 79%), while Lamda saw a decrease of 58%.

Datasets

The dataset used to produce this release is available separately.

Statistics collection

All our published vocational and other qualifications publications are available at a single collection page.

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Updates to this page

Published 19 September 2019
Last updated 10 October 2019 + show all updates

  1. Republished the release because one of the awarding organisations (Pearson) has resubmitted their data which has increased the number of certificates awarded by them in Q2 2019 by nearly 150K.

  2. Added a user note on resubmission of data by Pearson.

  3. First published.

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