Results day reaction: Encouraging signs for industry

This week (Thursday 15^th August) saw hundreds of thousands of UK students receive their A-Levels with 27.8 of all grades marked at A* or A; top grades now back above pre-covid levels; and 82 per cent of applicants getting into their first-choice university.

Most encouragingly for an engineering and manufacturing sector crying out for an injection of fresh skills, this year’s results saw a big increase in crucial engineering gateway subjects. Maths exceeded 100,000 entries for the first time (whilst further maths saw a 19.9 per cent increase in entries to 18,082) and the number of students passing physics and computer science A-levels also saw a big jump, with these subjects up by 12 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.

Lydia Amarquaye, Education & Skills Policy Lead at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers

Commenting on these figures the IET’s Head of Education David Lakin said: “It’s really positive to see the increase in engineering related results this year, showing that there is a real appetite for STEM learning within young people.”

Lydia Amarquaye, Education & Skills Policy Lead at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers added: “It is especially encouraging to see STEM subjects featuring prominently among the top 10 most popular A Level subjects this year. This reflects a growing interest and recognition of the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics in shaping our future.”

Nevertheless, despite the broadly positive picture this year’s results do point to some areas of concern; not least a growing gap between different regions. For instance, whilst more than 30 per cent of A-level entries in London and the South East achieved A or A* grades, just 22.5 per cent of entries achieved top grades in the East Midlands.

And despite some encouraging signs, the results also point to continuing concerns over the STEM gender balance. Whilst this year saw a slight uptick in the numbers of girls sitting A levels in computing (17 per cent, up from 15 per cent in 2023) and D&T (32 per cent, up from 30 per cent in 2023), maths and physics remain much the same at 37 per cent and 23 per cent respectively. 

“Our research earlier this year indicated that girls in years 7-9  are switching off from science,” commented EngineeringUK’s Head of Research Becca Gooch, “It’s therefore important to redouble efforts to consolidate and increase girls’ interest in the key STEM subjects, something we’ll be working on with educators, industry and policy makers.

Dr Laura Norton, IET Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and WISE Managing Director, added: “The results this year show persistent gender gaps across STEM subjects including maths, physics and computing. This gap must be addressed by showing first-hand what careers in the sector can be like….We need to keep on challenging outdated perceptions that engineering is just for boys and keep highlighting and celebrating women engineers as role models.”

This year also saw 7,380 students receive T Level results - twice as many as last year  - with 89 per cent receiving a pass and around half of these students studying an engineering related course. However, drop out rates for this new qualification – which introduced in 2020 continue to remain high - with just 71 per cent of students completing their course.  Gooch called for a concerted effort to build boost the uptake of this new qualification, and expand this pathway - “T Levels are still very new,” she said, “but more needs to be done to make employers and young people themselves aware of them and their benefits and we need to grow the  nine per cent of females taking engineering and tech-related T Levels”