Students in England gained record levels of top grades in this year’s A-level exams, driven by young men producing their strongest performances outside the pandemic years.
Ofqual, the exam regulator for England, shrugged off any suggestions of grade inflation, pointing to the lower proportion of 18-year-olds taking A-levels and saying that fewer low-achieving students had entered.
Despite the overall improvement, regional variations remain, with students in the West Midlands and north-east England recording lower grades overall than in 2024. The north-east remains the only region of England with average grades below pre-pandemic levels.
Among the more than 1.1m entries in England, 28.2% gained an A or A* grade, while 9.4% gained the top A* grade, both higher than in 2024 when 27.6% of entries got A and A*s and 9.3% gained A*s. In 2019, before the pandemic, 25.2% of entries received top grades.
Mazvita Hlubanyana (left) receives his results with his friends at Latimer Arts College in Barton Seagrave, Northamptonshire. Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA
Across all students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, 28.3% of entries were awarded an A or A* grade, up by 0.5 percentage points on last year. Wales was the only country of the three to see a drop in the proportion of top grades awarded compared with last year, falling from 29.9% to 29.5%.
Other than in 2020, 2021 and 2022, when awards were affected by changes to assessments caused by Covid-19, the proportion of top grades in England was higher than any year since the A* grade was introduced in 2010, and before that going back to 2001.
Top grades chart
Ian Bauckham, Ofqual’s chief regulator responsible for overseeing England’s results, said: “Standards have been maintained for another year, with grades determined by students’ performance in exams using exam boards’ strict marking and grading processes.”
Bauckham noted that the number of entries were down compared with last year, despite the increased numbers of 18-year-olds in the population, and said a “smaller, smarter cohort” was taking A-levels this year.
A-level students in south London. Young men outpaced women in the proportion of entries with the two top grades. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA
“We can be absolutely confident that the standard of work required to get any grade at A-level is the same this year as it was last year, and as it was in 2023,” he said after results were announced.
“Of course different students entering for exams and undertaking their qualifications will mean that outcomes will vary from year to year. This year we see some significant cohort differences. The cohort is slightly smaller and slightly stronger in terms of its attainment when it started A-levels that it has been for the past few years.
“And it’s not surprising, given that the grading standard stays the same, that different students, slightly stronger students, will achieve very fractionally higher outcomes, and that’s what we’re seeing playing out this year.”
Popular subjects chart
Young men outpaced young women in the proportion of entries with the two top grades, with 28.4% compared with 28% for women in England, reversing the positions of previous years. The improved performance – which belies recent complaints of boys being “left behind” by the school system – was more extreme among 18-year-olds, where 9.9% of entries by male students gained A*s compared with 9.1% for female students.
Experts cautioned, however, that many more female students took A-levels than male students, with nearly 440,000 entries from the former this year, compared with fewer than 380,000 from the latter. Male students were more concentrated in subjects such as maths, physics and economics, where they tended to do well.
Maths remained the most popular A-level this year, up by more than 4% to 112,000 entries. But only 37% of entries were from female students. Subjects such as economics, meanwhile, have overtaken academic mainstays such as history.
Ark academy pupils in Wembley, London. Photograph: Lucy North/PA
The director of regulation and compliance at the AQA exam board, Claire Thomson, said the popularity of social media influencers could explain some of the increases in entries for economics and business studies.
“They’re clearly relevant for lots of career opportunities, whether it’s finance, marketing or management. I also wonder if there’s a little bit about the social media phenomenon these days and the amount of influencers people see making what seems like lots of money,” she said.
The gap between the highest- and lowest-performing regions widened further, with 32.1% of entries in London gaining A* or A, compared with 22.9% in north-east England.
Regional disparities chart
The chief executive of the OCR examination board, Jill Duffy, said: “Regional inequalities are getting worse, not better. The gap at top grades [A* or A] has grown again. London is once again the top-performing region and is now 9.2 percentage points ahead of the north-east.
“The north-east is the only region in England where the proportion of A* and A grades is down on both last year and 2019. The picture is slightly brighter at A*-C, with a smaller gap between regions. These regional inequalities need more attention.”
Celebrations at Solihull school, West Midlands. Photograph: Jacob King/PA
The Ucas university admissions administrator said record numbers of 18-year-olds in the UK got a place at university or college for this autumn. The A-level, BTec and T-level results showed 255,130 had been accepted, compared to 243,650 in 2024, a rise of 4.7%.
