Percentage of undergraduate degrees awarded each grade in the UK 2011-2023

In the 2022/23 academic year, 30 percent of undergraduate students obtaining their degree were awarded a degree with first-class honors, the highest possible grade for UK graduates. Almost half of all students achieved an upper second or 2.1, with 20 percent obtaining a lower second or 2.2, and just four percent of graduates obtained a third, the lowest possible pass grade. The share of UK students graduating with a first-class degree has increased significantly in this time period, while the share of students obtaining a 2.2 has fallen the most in the same time period. 

GCSE and A-Level grades also on the rise

Higher grades for the UK's main qualification for high school students, the general certificate of secondary education (GCSE), have also increased in recent years. In 1988 for example, approximately 8.4 percent of GCSE entries received the highest grade, compared with 22 percent in 2023. This is also the case to a lesser-extent for advanced level GCSE results (A-Levels), with the share of entries being awarded an A or A* increasing from 17.8 percent in 2000 to 25.4 percent in 2023. There is no consensus on if these improvements are due to increased ability, or to grade inflation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, grades in the UK were a lot higher than in other years. This was due to teacher and tutor assessments being giving a higher weighting than normal, with exams being postponed or cancelled completely.

The UK's top universities

Britain's oldest and most famous universities, Cambridge and Oxford, remained the two highest-ranked universities in the UK in 2024, with the London School of Economics finishing third. According to the ranking, the University of St Andrews was the top university outside the south of England, with Durham University being the highest-ranked university in the north of England. The largest university in terms of enrolled students was the mainly remote focused Open University, which had 151,840 students in 2021/22. Among universities that mainly taught on-campus, University College London had the most students enrolled, at 46,830.