Data set from 16-19 destination measures

16-18 study leavers national level destinations

Not the latest data

Published 23 April 2026

Last updated 23 April 2026

16 to 18 study leavers national level destinations data by student characteristics, provider type and qualification level

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Data set details

• Theme: Destination of pupils and students
• Publication: 16-19 destination measures
• Release: Academic year 2023/24
• Number of rows: 49,078
• Geographic levels: National
• Indicators:
  • Number of institutions
  • Number of pupils completing 16-18 study
  • Sustained education, apprenticeship or employment
  • Sustained education destination
  • Sustained apprenticeships
  • Sustained employment destination
  • Not recorded as a sustained destination
  • Activity not captured
  • UK higher education institution
  • Further education
  • Other education destinations
  • FE entry level and no identified level
  • FE Level 2
  • FE Level 3
  • Independent schools
  • School sixth form - state funded
  • Sixth form college
  • Specialist provision
  • Sustained education combination destination
  • Intermediate apprenticeships (level 2)
  • Advanced apprenticeships (level 3)
  • Higher and degree apprenticeships (level 4 and above)
  • Education or employment not sustained
  • Education or employment not sustained and known to be in receipt of out of work benefits
  • No participation and known to be in receipt of out of work benefits
  • Identified as DWP/HMRC customer
  • Not identified in any data
• Filters:
  • Data type
  • Institution group
  • Qualification levels
  • Student characteristics
• Time period: 2016/17 to 2022/23

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Data set preview

Table showing first 5 rows, from underlying data

time_period	time_identifier	geographic_level	country_code	country_name	institution_group	institution_type	cohort_level_group	cohort_level	breakdown_topic	breakdown	data_type	version	inst_count	cohort	overall	education	he	fe	fel3	fel2	fel1	other_edu	ind	ssf	sfc	spec_prov	edu_combo	appren	appl4	appl3	appl2	all_work	all_notsust	notsust	notsust_ben	only_ben	all_unknown	unknown_id	unknown
201617	Academic year	National	E92000001	England	All schools	Total	All other qualifications	Level 1 or entry level	Total	Total	Number of students	Revised	z	4298	3058	2589	11	1056	13	72	971	1522	5	18	19	1474	6	199	0	22	177	270	938	228	236	474	302	193	109
201617	Academic year	National	E92000001	England	All schools	Total	All other qualifications	Level 1 or entry level	Total	Total	Percentage	Revised	z	4298	71.1	60.2	0.3	24.6	0.3	1.7	22.6	35.4	0.1	0.4	0.4	34.3	0.1	4.6	0.0	0.5	4.1	6.3	21.8	5.3	5.5	11.0	7.0	4.5	2.5
201617	Academic year	National	E92000001	England	All schools	Total	All other qualifications	Other qualification or unknown	Total	Total	Number of students	Revised	z	6037	3640	1435	56	242	60	68	114	1137	7	82	9	1029	10	974	3	272	699	1231	1508	786	302	420	889	610	279
201617	Academic year	National	E92000001	England	All schools	Total	All other qualifications	Other qualification or unknown	Total	Total	Percentage	Revised	z	6037	60.3	23.8	0.9	4.0	1.0	1.1	1.9	18.8	0.1	1.4	0.1	17.0	0.2	16.1	low	4.5	11.6	20.4	25.0	13.0	5.0	7.0	14.7	10.1	4.6
201617	Academic year	National	E92000001	England	All schools	Total	All other qualifications	Total	Total	Total	Number of students	Revised	z	10335	6698	4024	67	1298	73	140	1085	2659	12	100	28	2503	16	1173	3	294	876	1501	2446	1014	538	894	1191	803	388

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Variables in this data set

Table showing all 31 variables

Variable name	Variable description
all_notsust	Not recorded as a sustained destination
all_unknown	Activity not captured
all_work	Sustained employment destination
appl2	Intermediate apprenticeships (level 2)
appl3	Advanced apprenticeships (level 3)
appl4	Higher and degree apprenticeships (level 4 and above)
appren	Sustained apprenticeships
breakdown	Student characteristics
cohort	Number of pupils completing 16-18 study
cohort_level	Qualification levels
data_type	Data type
edu_combo	Sustained education combination destination
education	Sustained education destination
fe	Further education
fel1	FE entry level and no identified level
fel2	FE Level 2
fel3	FE Level 3
he	UK higher education institution
ind	Independent schools
inst_count	Number of institutions
institution_type	Institution group
notsust	Education or employment not sustained
notsust_ben	Education or employment not sustained and known to be in receipt of out of work benefits
only_ben	No participation and known to be in receipt of out of work benefits
other_edu	Other education destinations
overall	Sustained education, apprenticeship or employment
sfc	Sixth form college
spec_prov	Specialist provision
ssf	School sixth form - state funded
unknown	Not identified in any data
unknown_id	Identified as DWP/HMRC customer

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Footnotes

1. All schools includes all local authority maintained mainstream schools, sponsored academies, converter academies, free schools, university technical colleges (UTCs), studio schools, special schools and independent schools. Also includes city technology colleges (CTCs). Alternative provision is not included.
2. Non-selective schools in highly-selective areas includes all non-selective schools in local authorities with a high level of selection (where 25% or more of state-funded secondary places are in state-funded selective schools). These local authorities are Bexley, Buckinghamshire, Kent, Lincolnshire, Medway, Poole, Slough, Southend-on-Sea, Sutton, Torbay, Trafford and Wirral. See technical note for further details.
3. State-funded mainstream colleges includes sixth-form colleges and other further education colleges.
4. State-funded mainstream schools also includes city technology colleges (CTCs). Figures for this institution type are not shown separately in the table. Excludes pupil referral units (PRUs), alternative provision (AP), hospital schools, maintained and non-maintained special schools, independent schools, independent special schools and independent schools approved to take pupils with special educational needs (SEN).
5. Other non-selective schools includes all non-selective schools that are not in highly selective areas, including those in areas with some selection.
6. 'Not recorded as a sustained destination' includes pupils who were captured in the source data and had some participation in the academic year but did not complete the required six months sustained participation.
7. Other education destinations include school sixth forms, sixth-form colleges, independent schools, specialist post-16 institutions, special schools and education combination destinations.
8. State-funded mainstream schools include local authority maintained schools, academies, free schools and city technology colleges.
9. Selective schools admit pupils wholly or mainly with reference to ability. These schools are formally designated as grammar schools. The schools status is based on admission policy in the secondary phase (i.e. age 11).
10. Special schools group include all types of special schools due to the small numbers of schools.
11. Activity not being captured means the student was not found to have any participation in education, apprenticeship or employment nor recorded as receiving out-of-work benefits at any point in the year. Possible reasons for this could be that the pupil was living, working or studying abroad or was attending a Scottish or Welsh college or school.
12. Total state-funded mainstream schools and colleges covers all state-funded mainstream schools, academies, free schools, city technology colleges (CTCs), sixth-forms and other and FE sector colleges. Excludes alternative provision, special schools, other government department funded colleges and independent schools.
13. Other FE sector colleges excludes other government department funded colleges.
14. Please note data for independent schools has much lower coverage than state-funded schools. This is likely to be due to difficulties linking their education records to employment data.
15. Total for all schools and colleges includes all mainstream and special schools and colleges
16. Local authority maintained includes community, voluntary aided, voluntary controlled and foundation schools.
17. State-funded mainstream colleges excludes other government department funded colleges.
18. Reforms to technical and applied qualifications mean that the makeup of level 3 and level 2 approved qualification groups differ significantly between destination years 2017/18, 2018/19 and 2019/20. Comparisons across years and approved/other qualification groups should therefore be made with particular caution.
19. 'Other qualifications' are qualifications that are not included elsewhere in the 16-18 attainment performance tables

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read.csv("https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-catalogue/data-set/28cc87b6-ddbf-4bd3-8c62-fca3075dfbaf/csv")

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Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about 16-18 study leavers national level destinations statistics and data:

Destination measures

Email: Destination.MEASURES@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Daniel Brown

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