National pupil projections
Reporting year 2025

Description

This document describes the data included in the ‘National pupil projections: 2024 model, published July 2024’ Official Statistics release’s underlying data file. This data is released under the terms of the  Open Government License (opens in a new tab) (http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/) and is intended to meet at least 3 stars for  Open Data (opens in a new tab) (https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/improving-the-transparency-and-accountability-of-government-and-its-services/supporting-pages/releasing-data-in-open-formats).

The  methodology document (https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/methodology/national-pupil-projections-methodology) for this subject should be referenced alongside this release. It provides information on the data sources, their coverage and quality and how the data is produced.

Coverage

This publication contains actual and projected figures for the pupil population up to the age of 15 (at the start of the academic year) for most school types within England.

Figures from the main (principal) projection are provided by the school types of:

- Maintained nursery
- State primary
- State secondary
- State special
- AP settings
- Independent
- Non maintain special

For the under 5 age group figures are provided as the full time equivalent (FTE) and headcount due to the number of part time pupils. All other ages, or age groups as appropriate, are provided as FTE only.

File formats and conventions

Rounding

Figures in the variant projection data file are provided, and rounded, to the nearest thousand.

Conventions

The following convention is used throughout the underlying data.

‘c’         Suppressed (under 500)

‘z’         Not applicable.

Data files

All data files associated with this releases are listed below with guidance on their content. To download any of these files, please visit our data catalogue (https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-catalogue?publicationId=aa545525-9ffe-496c-a5b3-974ace56746e&releaseVersionId=e87d5213-f1a4-4f2c-f690-08dca05926c4).

Data files

Pupil projections - 2025 projections

Filename: pupilprojprincipal_2025.csv
Geographic levels: National
Time period: 2025
Content summary: All data files associated with this release are listed below with guidance on their content. To download any of these files, please visit our data catalogue.

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name             |  Variable description
------------------------  |  ----------------------------------------------------------
establishment_type_group  |  type of school - school type
model_year                |  Year of actual or projected figures
population_measure        |  Flag for actual or projected years
pupil_age                 |  single year of age or age group - age range
pupil_count               |  Number of pupils
pupil_status              |  Headcount or FTE - headcount or full time equivalent count


Pupil projections variants - 2025 projections

Filename: pupilprojvariants_2025.csv
Geographic levels: National
Time period: 2025
Content summary: National pupils projection using ONS variant projection scenarios.

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name       |  Variable description
------------------  |  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
age_range           |  Pupils aged up to and including 15 - age range (Primary: up to 10, Secondary: 11 to 15, Tota:l up to and including 15)
model_year          |  Year of actual or projected figures
population_measure  |  Flag for actual or projected years
projection_type     |  Type of alternative scenario - variant projection
pupil_count         |  Number of pupils
