Highest level of qualification

The highest level of qualification is derived from the question asking people to indicate all types of qualifications held. There were 14 response options (plus “no qualifications”) covering professional and vocational qualifications, apprenticeships and a range of academic qualifications. For the purpose of statistical outputs, these are combined into five categories for the highest level of qualification, plus a category for no qualifications.

The census question on qualifications asked people to tick all the qualifications they had from a list of options.  The category of highest qualification that each of these fall into 

Total number of categories 7

Individual question 25: Which of these qualifications do you have?

• O Grade, Standard Grade, National 3, 4 or 5, Intermediate 1 or 2, GCSE, CSE or equivalent
• Higher, Advanced Higher, SCE Higher Grade, CSYS, A Level, AS Level or equivalent
• Apprenticeship (trade or equivalent)
• Apprenticeship (Foundation or equivalent)
• Apprenticeship (Modern or equivalent)
• Apprenticeship (Graduate or equivalent)
• GSVQ Foundation or Intermediate, SVQ level 1 or 2, SCOTVEC Module, City and Guilds Craft or equivalent
• GSVQ Advanced, SVQ level 3, ONC, OND, SCOTVEC National Diploma, City and Guilds Advanced Craft or equivalent
• HNC, HND, SVQ level 4 or equivalent
• Other school qualifications not already mentioned (including foreign qualifications)
• Other post-school but pre-Higher Education qualifications not already mentioned (including foreign qualifications)
• Degree, Postgraduate qualifications, Masters, PhD, SVQ level 5 or equivalent
• Professional qualifications (for example, teaching, nursing, accountancy)
• Other Higher Education qualifications not already mentioned (including foreign qualifications)
• No qualifications
  
  

Information about qualifications held is used for informing service delivery, such as directing resources for community/adult education, policy development, local area labour market profiling and more.

This variable is broadly comparable to the one created by ONS for the 2021 census in England & Wales (highest_qualification). There are some differences summarised in section 5 of the  Quality Assurance report for the Education, labour market and travel to work topic release.

This variable is not comparable with the version created for Scotland's census 2011, with the exception of the "Degree level qualifications or above" category which can be compared.

Although the categories for this variable are the same as the ones in the 2011, the question was revised and split up to group together different qualifications. This means that the way people answered the question in Census 2022 cannot be fully compared with the answers from the 2011 Census. 

The highest qualification variables from the 2011 and 2022 Censuses are not fully comparable due to the inclusion of apprenticeship qualifications in 2022 Apprenticeships were not included in 2011. 

The data on highest level of qualification from the 2021 England & Wales and Northern Ireland Censuses are not entirely comparable to Scotland’s Census 2022.

For more information, see section 5 of the Quality Assurance report for the Education, labour market and travel to work topic release.

The highest level of qualification is derived from the question asking people to indicate all types of qualifications held. There were 10 response options (plus “no qualifications”) covering professional and vocational qualifications, and a range of academic qualifications. For the purpose of statistical outputs, these are combined into four categories for the highest level of qualification, plus a category for no qualifications.

Total number of categories 6

Which of these qualifications do you have?

Tick all that apply.

• O Grade, Standard Grade, Access 3 Cluster, Intermediate 1 or 2, GCSE, CSE, Senior Certificate or equivalent
• SCE Higher Grade, Higher, Advanced Higher, CSYS, A Level, AS Level, Advanced Senior Certificate or equivalent
• GSVQ Foundation or Intermediate, SVQ level 1 or 2, SCOTVEC Module, City and Guilds Craft or equivalent
• GSVQ Advanced, SVQ level 3, ONC, OND, SCOTVEC National Diploma, City and Guilds Advanced Craft or equivalent
• HNC, HND, SVQ level 4 or equivalent
• Degree, Postgraduate qualifications, Masters, PhD, SVQ level 5 or equivalent
• Professional qualifications (for example, teaching, nursing, accountancy)
• Other school qualifications not already mentioned (including foreign qualifications)
• Other post-school but pre-Higher Education qualifications not already mentioned (including foreign qualifications
• Other Higher Education qualifications not already mentioned (including foreign qualifications)
• No qualifications 

Information from this question will be used to help measure shortfalls in the provision of education and training and to monitor the take up of government initiatives. It will also be used to help assess reserves of skilled and qualified people who are unemployed, including those not currently seeking work. The census is the only source of this information for small areas and the only one which allows cross-tabulation of qualifications with other factors such as employment.

England & Wales (2011)

There were 11 response options (plus ‘Foreign qualifications’ and ‘No qualifications’) covering professional and vocational qualifications, and a range of academic qualifications. The main differences between this question and the one asked in Scotland are as follows:

• people holding foreign qualifications were asked to “tick the ‘Foreign qualifications’ box and the nearest UK equivalents”,
• there is an ‘Apprenticeship’ option, and

people are asked to tick different boxes depending on the number of O levels, A levels and AS levels they have. For example, a person with 4 O levels would tick a different box to a person with 5 O levels.

Scotland (2001)

Whilst not a new question in 2011, there were a number of changes made to the qualifications question since 2001, meaning direct comparisons between the two sets of census results are not possible without further processing of the data. The 2011 question included three additional ‘other’ qualifications categories so that respondents (including those with foreign qualifications) could more easily identify appropriate responses, while SVQ Levels 4 and 5 (included under the same response category in 2001) were included in seperate response categories in 2011. There was also an additional 2011 category for ‘No qualifications’, to replace the 2001 ‘None of these’ category. These categories in particular cannot be considered comparable as it is possible that a person will have responded differently in 2011 and 2001 for the same qualification. For example, a respondent who had foreign qualifications which were not listed in categories in 2001 may have ticked ‘None of these’, whereas, in 2011, they will likely have chosen an appropriate ‘other’ category of qualifications rather than ticking ‘No qualifications’.

This derived variable provides information on the highest level of qualification. For Scotland and Northern Ireland it is based on QU(x)PS and QU(x)PNI respectively. In England and Wales it is based on responses to both the qualifications question and the professional qualification question (see QU(x)PEW and PQU(x)PEW). The codes are preceded by 1 for England and Wales, 2 for Scotland and 3 for Northern Ireland to emphasise that the levels are derived from different questions.

Total number of categories 6

Not applicable category (XX) comprises: All people aged 15 or under or aged 75 or over.