Provisional Summer 2025 entries for Wales
An annual report which presents provisional data on entries for GCSE, AS, A level, Advanced Skills Baccalaureate Wales and Skills Challenge Certificate for Wales.
Key Points
GCSE
- 312,545 GCSE entries were made in Wales for summer 2025. This is 3.5% lower than in summer 2024.
- Year 11 learners are the most likely to enter for GCSEs in the summer series, making up 89.5% of entries in summer 2025.
- The number of Year 11 entries decreased by 3.9% this summer compared to summer 2024.
- Year 10 entries made up 5.7% of all GCSE entries this summer. There were 17,820 entries for Year 10 learners in summer 2025, 4.0% lower than in summer 2024.
- Year 12 or above entries increased this summer, making up 4.6% of total GCSE entries.
AS
- There were 40,830 AS level entries for summer 2025 in Wales, 4.2% fewer than in summer 2024.
- There were 33,840 entries for Year 12 learners in summer 2025, a decrease of 5.6% compared to 2024.
- The number of Year 13 entries increased by 7.0% this summer compared to 2024.
A level
- There were 31,980 A level entries for summer 2025, 1.6% fewer than in summer 2024. A level entries have been decreasing annually since a peak of 36,420 in summer 2022.
- Compared to summer 2024, there was a decrease of 1.7% in entries for Year 13 learners. Year 13 learners accounted for 90.1% of all A level entries this summer.
- Year 14 and above entries have decreased by 2.4% between summer 2024 and summer 2025, but made up the same proportion of total entries in both years.
There are a number of factors that can influence why entries for year groups change over time, such as changes to
- Population size;
- Entry behavior e.g. when learners are entered for their GCSEs;
- The number of qualifications of each type being taken on average;
- The types of qualifications being taken in post-16.
Entry figures in this release will have been affected by different approaches to awarding grades between 2020 and 2023, as well as by other disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Further information can be found in the background notes.
As this release is based on counts of entries at qualification level it is not possible for us to quantify the impact of such factors. We have commented on factors influencing changes in entries only where we are confident that these factors are likely to be associated with a change.
Previous releases
Provisional Entries for Summer 2024: GCSEs, AS, A levels and Skills Challenge Certificate for Wales
Provisional Entries for Summer 2023
Provisional Entries for Summer 2022
Contact
Statistician
Tel: 01633 373 292
Email: statistics@qualifications.wales
Press
Tel: 01633 373 222
Email: media@qualifications.wales