Indicator
Inequalities in level 3 attainment
Published
29 April 2025
Last updated
11 May 2026
Time to read
About 2 mins
About 2 mins
Key points
- Attainment of level 3 qualifications has increased for all groups since 2007/08. However, there are persistent inequalities between different groups of young people.
- Boys, young people living in more deprived areas, young people eligible for free school meals and young people with special educational needs continue to be less likely to have a level 3 qualification.
Education plays an important role in shaping people’s health by influencing factors such as income and employment. It can also support better health literacy, making it easier for people to understand health information and allow more informed health choices as a result.
This chart shows the percentage of young people with a level 3 qualification by the age of 19, from 2007/08 to 2023/24, grouped by sex, deprivation, free school meal eligibility, and special educational needs.
- Girls have higher level 3 qualification attainment than boys. 62.9% of girls have a level 3 qualification compared with 52.4% of boys in 2023/24. This gap is slightly narrower than in 2007/08.
- In the least deprived areas, 69.6% of young people have a level 3 qualification in 2023/24 compared with 46.2% of young people from the most deprived areas. This gap has narrowed from 33.3 percentage points in 2007/08 to 23.4 percentage points in 2023/24.
- In 2023/24, 62.4% of young people who were not eligible for free school meals have a level 3 qualification compared with 36.8% of young people who were eligible. The attainment gap in 2023/24 is very similar to that in 2007/08.
- In 2023/24 more than twice as many young people without SEN have a level 3 qualification than young people with SEN (62.6% compared to 29.4%). The attainment gap slightly decreased from 38.3 percentage points in 2007/08 to 33.2 percentage points in 2023/24.
- Data refer to academic years and include all educational institutions.
- Level 3 qualification refers to two A-levels at grades A*–C or equivalent and includes school, college and apprenticeship qualifications.
- Income deprivation refers to income deprivation affecting children index (IDACI). Areas are grouped into quartiles by their score on the IDACI. This is a subset of the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) and uses the Income Deprivation Domain to measure the proportion of children up to the age of 15 that live in low-income households. The least deprived quartile consists of the areas with the fewest children living in households experiencing income deprivation and the most deprived quartile consists of areas with the most.
- A child is defined as having Special Educational Needs (SEN) if they have ‘a learning difficulty or disability which calls for special education provision to be made for him or her’ (Section 20 Children and Families Act 2014).
- School-aged children are eligible for free school meals if their families receive other qualifying benefits such as Income Support or Universal Credit.
Source: Department for Education, Level 2 and 3 attainment by young people aged 16-–25, England, 2023/24 • Note: Income deprivation refers to income deprivation affecting child index (IDACI).
