More than 880,000 A and AS Level results have been issued today to students in England, with another 221,000 results for vocational and technical qualifications.
These results open doors for students to move on to the next stage in their lives, whether that be university, employment or apprenticeships. And they serve as recognition of – and reward for – the effort and quality of work displayed by those students. I offer my congratulations to everyone receiving results today.
Here are some key details about today’s A Level and level 3 results
- More than 1.1 million results have been issued across all level 3 qualifications.
- A Level outcomes are stable, with small changes only, largely driven by subject entry patterns.
- We have seen an increase in students taking T Levels as these qualifications, still relatively new, become more established and grow to cover more subjects.
What are the trends behind the results?
This year’s results picture is one of stability.
Small changes in grade distributions year-on-year are normal. Looking across A Level subjects with large enough entries to compare meaningfully, most show only small movements up or down. Some rising, some falling, typically by less than a percentage point either way.
This kind of variation happens every year and largely reflects the different mix of students taking each subject. The standard of work required to gain a particular grade remains constant.
There are noteworthy patterns and trends in the popularity of subjects at A Level. Maths was the subject studied by more students than any other, accounting for about one in 8 of the A Level results released today. Maths A Level has increased in size as a proportion of entries in recent years, and that trend has continued this year. Further maths A Level too has again seen strong growth this year.
After maths, the most commonly-taken A Level subjects were psychology and biology – the same as in 2025 – and chemistry and economics complete this year’s top 5.
The popularity of maths at A Level means outcomes have a significant effect on national trends.
The very small rise in the proportion of students achieving A* or A at A Level overall (from 28.2% in 2025 to 28.3% this year) has been largely driven by a small increase in those grades in maths (from 41.6% in 2025 to 42.1% this year).
The standard of work required to achieve any grade in maths this year was the same as previous years, so this rise reflects a slightly stronger cohort of students.
While subject level changes such as this are important, the overall national picture for A Level results in 2026 is one of stability.
What do I need to know about AS and A Level results?
- 835,950 A Levels have been awarded to 320,505 students, from 2,835 different schools and colleges, in 57 different subjects.
- This is an increase of 2.7% on 2025; the population of 18-year-olds has increased by 4.3% on 2025, according to ONS projections.
- About two-thirds of A Level students took 3 subjects.
- 7,245 18-year-olds achieved an A* grade in every subject they took – and 25 of those took 5 or more A Levels.
- The regions with the highest percentage of A Level results at A or A* were London and the South East.
- 48,835 AS Level results have been issued, across 35 subjects.
What do I need to know about level 3 vocational and technical qualification results?
- 19,665 results for T Level have been awarded, up from 11,980 last year.
- 18.3% of students taking the occupational specialism in the second year of their T Level course achieved a distinction.
- 221,095 VTQ results have been awarded overall, with 195,190 of those for applied generals.
- The most widely taken subject sector areas were business, administration and law; social sciences; and leisure, travel and tourism.
Where to find more details about A Level and level 3 results
Ofqual has published a statistical report on this year’s results. This is the place to go if you want more in-depth analysis of the results and outcomes for A Levels, AS, applied generals, tech levels and technical qualifications within T Levels.
We have also published interactive visualisations of level 3 results on Ofqual Analytics. This gives detailed breakdowns of outcomes according to types of school or college, by sex, for subject combinations, and more. This year is the first time you will be able to see results and subject uptake broken down geographically at local authority level.
Results day each August represents the culmination of hard work and commitment by students, teachers and many others. Congratulations to all students collecting their results this week.
Amanda Swann, Executive Director for Delivery, Ofqual
Recent Comments