T Levels are not yet a technical education success story

The government has been eager to talk up one of the big stories of this year’s results day: an increase in the number of learners awarded a T Level, up 65 per cent from 2025.  Government voices heralded the increase as progress towards parity of esteem between academic, vocational and technical routes. The Prime Minister called the figures “brilliant”, with the education secretary saying the rise was “very encouraging”.

The 65 per cent increase in T Level entries does sound big. But percentage increases do tend to sound impressive when working with very small numbers.

In reality, T Levels accounted for a mere 1.8 per cent of overall level 3 entries. The number of students taking T Levels did rise – but from 11,989 last year to 19,665 in 2026.

For context, 321,000 students in England took at least one A Level this year, 16 times as many as gained a T Level. There were 195,000 applied general qualifications awarded, including BTECs, even though the latter faced funding withdrawal limbo. Strikingly, there were more than twice as many AS levels awarded in England this year than T Levels – despite AS levels’ steep decline in relevance since AS levels separated from A Levels a decade ago. With 56,800 16 and 17-year-olds now not in education, employment or training (NEET), there are now three times as many NEET young people as gained a T Level this summer.

We all want T Levels to be a success story. Ideally, T Levels’ success would legitimise a wider expansion of exactly the sort of high-quality technical routes everyone is calling for, including new plans for Year 10 pupils to combine technical education and ‘real world’ experience with core academic subjects – all part of Burnham’s plans to “value the hard hat as much as the graduation cap”.

But T Level figures are not yet a success story. They may even be a cautionary tale. The government is betting big that there is real demand for technical routes, from learners and from employers. The numbers suggest this is far from a safe assumption.

One of the biggest barriers to T levels’ success – as with apprenticeships, as with most attempts to integrate industry placements with formal education – is that on-the job training is terrific in theory but hard to deliver in practice. Offering learners industry placements relies on a placement actually existing, and strong employer buy-in remains elusive. This does not bode well for expanding technical routes to younger learners. If 16-year-olds are struggling to find placements, it is hard to imagine 14-year-olds will fare much better.

There is also a real risk that the government is taking learner demand for technical routes for granted. Taking on employers is hard; compelling young people to take qualifications they do not want to take is harder still. Policymakers have little understanding – and even less control – over learner appetite for technical qualifications. What little research exists into learner attitudes to T Levels suggests relatively low satisfaction.

T Levels’ size also means learners must pigeon-hole themselves early, committing to a specific trade track at 16. New technical routes for younger learners will sit alongside core academic subjects like ‘English, maths and science’. But adding a technical pathway at Key Stage 4 will – by design – take slots away from other GCSE subjects and reduce curricular breadth.

If few 16-year-olds want to narrow their options early and commit to a trade, will 14-year-olds feel differently? Expecting very young teens to know how they would like to spend more than fifty years on the labour market seems quite a tall order.

It is still early days for T Levels. Many T Levels awarded this summer were delivered for the first time this cycle, and deserve time to bed-in. Other early teething problems, including retention rates, are slowly being ironed out.

Young people deserve strong academic, vocational and technical pathways at level 3. As of 2027, V Levels will join the offer at post-16, providing welcome clarity in the vocational offer. But prematurely treating T Levels as a technical education success story to be replicated earlier in the system isn’t the answer. It certainly won’t make parity of esteem come any quicker.