T-Levels

Government Transformation and Service Delivery

Record date: 31 March 2026

Whole-life cost: £2.0bn
Published schedule: 25/10/2016 – 01/09/2028
NISTA delivery confidence: Not disclosed
Senior responsible owner: Kiera Harper, Jane Belfourd

What the project is for

T Levels are two-year technical qualifications for 16-19-year-olds, offering students practical and knowledge based learning at a school or college and on-the-job experience through an industry placement of at least 315 hours - approximately 45 days. T Levels are designed to increase the economic value of skills being supplied by the post-16 system, increasing take-up of high-quality qualifications to improve skills, key to supporting the government's opportunity and growth missions. The T Level programme aims to roll-out and support the growth of T Levels to achieve these missions and benefits.

Departmental delivery commentary

Overall delivery confidence for 2025/26 is Amber. The programme continues to perform strongly on quality, with positive trends in participation, retention, attainment and industry placements, and independent assurance confirms clear benefits for learners and employers. Confidence has improved over the year through stable recruitment in line with forecasts, high completion of industry placements and continued ministerial support, including targeted funding to sustain delivery. The Amber rating reflects ongoing and largely structural challenges in scaling the programme to its agreed steady‑state ambition rather than a decline in performance. Key pressures include the pace required to grow participation, uneven provider and employer capacity to expand placements, and the planned introduction of a new V Level route, all of which could constrain growth despite strong outcomes. Our pathway to Green includes: steps taken to ensure T Levels are accessible by a wider range of students through updates to our delivery framework to improve the quality and availability of industry placements; making improvements to T Levels by streamlining content and reducing assessment to improve deliverability; and setting out the purpose and intent for T Levels alongside V Levels in the response to the Post-16 Level 3 and Below Pathways consultation. This will support the programme in maintaining incremental growth following the initial period of intense scale-up and ensuring T Levels remain an attractive option for students and providers.

Schedule

The programme’s planned end date remains 01/09/2028. The programme remains on track to have delivered at least two cohorts on each of the T Levels introduced in scope of this programme by this date. All large (1080+) legacy qualifications in existing T Level areas (with the exception of Health and Social Care) will be defunded in 2027. At that point, T Levels will be the only large (1080+) qualification available for those subjects. Steady State, the point at which we expect student numbers to peak and level, changing only in response to demographic shifts, is expected to be academic year 29/30.

Cost

Compared to financial year 24/25-Q4, the programme’s departmentally agreed Whole Life Cost (measured in £m) increase from £1,653m to £1,856m. This reflects the 25/26 budget being agreed and added to the WLC.

Benefits

The T Levels Programme does not yet report on its monetised benefit as longitudinal earnings data has not yet become available. From next year the programme will be able to report on this.