Today’s A-level results for England show a small rise in both top grades and the pass rate, but a widening of the regional divide.
Overall, entries awarded As and A*s increased from 27.6 per cent in 2024 to 28.2 per cent in 2025.
The A*-E pass rate also increased from 97.1 per cent to 97.4 per cent in England.
Ofqual said standards would be comparable to 2023 and 2024 after it completed its plans to return to normal grading after the Covid pandemic. This morning Ofqual chief regulator Sir Ian Bauckham said that this year’s cohort was “slightly smaller and slightly stronger”.
Below are today’s A-level results, broken down by subject.
A-level results 2025 by subject
Maths and English
There was a small drop in maths entries graded A or A* to 41.3 per cent from 41.5 per cent in 2024. This year’s figure still represents an increase from 41 per cent in 2023 and 40.5 per cent in 2019.
The proportion of grades A* to C in maths has remained fairly steady at 76 per cent in 2023 and 76.1 per cent in 2024, rising to 77.9 per cent this year.
Maths remains the most popular A level, according to provisional Ofqual entry data, with 104,580 entries for summer 2025 - a 4.5 per cent increase on 2024 (100,052).
This summer complaints were raised about Pearson Edexcel’s A-level maths paper two. Students who signed a petition complained that the paper was missing content they had learned. Ofqual has been looking into the complaints after the matter was referred to the regulator.
Speaking to Tes today, the chief regulator said Ofqual was confident in the reliability of A-level grades, but said student views on the coverage of different topics was an “open matter”.
In English literature in 2025, 24.6 per cent got the top grades (A* or A), compared with 25.2 per cent in 2024 and 25.4 per cent in 2023. In both of the previous two years, 82.9 per cent of English literature entries were graded A* to C; this year, that fell to 81.7 per cent.
More on A-level results:
In English language, 12.8 per cent of entries received an A* or A. Language had seen a very slight drop-off in the proportion of top grades achieved from 2023 to 2024, from 12.2 to 11.5 per cent.
For grades A* to C, the figures were 79.1 per cent in 2023 and 76.4 per cent in 2024, and now a slight improvement to 78.6 per cent in 2025.
Sciences
The proportion of top grades awarded in each of the sciences had risen from 2019 to 2024 (not taking into account the years when pandemic assessment arrangements were in place, 2020-22 inclusive). This year biology and physics saw a very small increase in top grades again, but chemistry saw a tiny fall.
All three of the main sciences rank among the 10 most popular A-level subjects, according to Ofqual’s latest data. Biology is the most popular of the three, with more than 65,000 entries in 2025, though this was lower than in 2024.
Last year 27.1 per cent of entries in biology received an A* or A, rising to 27.6 per cent this year. For chemistry, this was 32.2 per cent in 2024, falling to 32 per cent in 2025; in physics, it was 31.5 per cent in 2024, rising to 31.9 per cent this year.
In terms of the top A* or A grades, boys outperformed girls in chemistry and physics. However, girls were more likely to get the top grades in biology.
This year, the OCR exam board body issued an apology to students and teachers affected by errors in its A-level physics papers, and said it would investigate why these were not detected.
The Institute of Physics (IOP) told Tes it would be contacting OCR to ask about its plans to address the mistakes, and also AQA, to ask about its plans to address negative responses to “obscure and convoluted” aspects of its A-level papers.
The IOP had also said that one of AQA’s papers in 2024 was “unreasonably difficult”, but after a close look from Ofqual, Sir Ian Bauckham said the regulator was confident that the grade outcomes fairly represented students’ achievements.
Social sciences and others
In psychology, the proportion of those achieving the top A* or A grades remained at 19.3 per cent.
Psychology, sociology, business and economics all rank in the top 10 most popular A-level subjects, with psychology having the most entries of these in 2025. It had nearly 73,000 entries this year, though this was fewer than in 2024.
In sociology, there was an increase in the proportion of top grades awarded in 2025, up to 18.8 per cent from 17.9 per cent last year. Economics saw a slight fall (30.2 per cent in 2024 to 29.6 per cent in 2025), while business saw top grades awarded increase from 15.5 per cent in 2024 to 16.1 per cent in 2025.
Languages
Entries for languages remain low at A level. They were up slightly from 7,665 in 2024 to 7,771 this year in Spanish, but fell in both French and German, by 8.5 per cent and 6.9 per cent respectively.
In Spanish, there was a small drop in A* or A grades awarded this year, from 36.6 per cent to 35.8 per cent. There was, however, an increase in those achieving a C or above to 86 per cent from 84.2 per cent.
In French, those achieving a C or higher dropped off slightly from 86.6 per cent in 2024 to 84.7 per cent in 2025. The proportion getting top grades also very slightly fell from 39.1 per cent to 38.8 per cent.
And in German, the proportion of As and A*s stayed almost exactly the same at 47 per cent, compared with 47.1 per cent last year. Those getting a C or above rose slightly to 88.9 per cent from 88.1 per cent.
Arts
In 2024 the proportions of top A* or A grades across art and design, music and drama had increased from the year before, to 32 per cent of entries, 24.2 per cent and 21.8 per cent respectively.
This year music continued to increase (to 24.9 per cent), as did art and design (35.4 per cent) and drama (22.9 per cent).
Those achieving A* to C had also been increasing, and 85.9 per cent of 2024 entries were awarded these grades in art, alongside 86.4 per cent in drama and 76.9 per cent in music. All of these subjects also saw an increase this year in those achieving a C or above: 77.3 per cent in music, 89.1 per cent in drama and 88.6 per cent in art and design.
Drama and music are still struggling in attracting A-level entries: drama entries were down 7.1 per cent year-on-year, and there were fewer than 5,000 entries for music A level this year, continuing a downward trend.
On the rises in grades for arts subjects, Ofqual chief Sir Ian said: “Many of these arts subjects are quite small in entry - where you have changes in student performance or student entry, you’re going to get natural variation in grade outcomes, and I think that’s what we’re seeing.
“I would be very cautious about extrapolating a trend from that.”
Humanities
History saw a very small increase in top A* or A grades, up to 24.9 per cent of entries in 2025.
The subject has seen very similar levels of top grades in consecutive years, with 24.3 per cent in 2024 and 24.1 per cent in 2023.
Those achieving a C and above had increased slightly from 80.3 per cent in 2023 to 81.2 per cent in 2024, and the figure increased again this year to 83.9 per cent.
Geography saw top A* or A grades rise from 23.7 per cent in 2023 to 24.2 per cent in 2024, and remain very similar this year at 24.1 per cent. It also saw a small increase in those achieving a C or above from 78.7 per cent in 2024 to 79.8 per cent in 2025.
Both subjects took a hit in entries at A level this year, with a 5.6 per cent year-on-year fall for history and a 6.4 per cent drop for geography. However, history retained its place in the top 10 most popular subjects.
Girls outperformed boys in both subjects: 30.7 per cent of entries from girls were awarded the top grades in geography compared with 18.3 per cent of boys; in history, 26.9 per cent of girls got the top grades, compared with 22.6 per cent of boys.
In response to the 2025 results, Steve Brace, chief executive of the Geographical Association, said geography had retained its good gender balance in terms of entries.
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