Regulating Technical Qualifications in T Levels

Overview

Foreword by Sir Ian Bauckham CBE, Chief Regulator at Ofqual

T Levels have an important part to play in the choices available to young people after 16. 

Since the first T Levels were introduced in 2020, they have given students a genuine specialist route into skilled work: a chance to get into the industry or sector that they already know they want to work in, combining study time with an industry placement in the specific sector. Alongside A Levels and the new V Levels, they help to create a landscape where every student, whatever their ambitions, can find a credible path forward.

Now that T Levels are well established, there is the opportunity for more students to benefit from them. The Department for Education has announced that new subjects will be introduced for first teaching from 2027, giving students a wider choice than ever before. The market for delivering T Levels is opening up, so more awarding organisations will have the chance to offer them. As the market evolves, every T Level should be held to the same high standards of validity, reliability, manageability and fairness that students, employers and parents rightly expect. As we do for all regulated qualifications, we will use our powers to ensure that standards are maintained and remain consistent between T Levels in the same subject as more awarding organisations enter the market.

Until now, the Technical Qualification that is a key part of each T Level has been delivered by a single awarding organisation under contract, while the Department for Education has overseen the completion of the Industry Placement, collated the parts of the T Level to determine overall results and issued final certificates. That is to change. For the first time, everything that makes up a T Level qualification will be brought together and certificated by regulated awarding organisations, overseen by Ofqual. This consultation sets out the changes we propose to make to our regulatory framework so that all of this works well in practice. 

We want to hear from awarding organisations, their representative bodies, and anyone else with an interest in T Levels about our proposals and what they would mean in practical terms for the people who will need to make them work.

We welcome your views.

Why your views matter

This consultation is open to anyone who wishes to respond, but we expect it to be of most interest to:

• awarding organisations that currently deliver or are considering delivering T Levels
• representative bodies of those awarding organisations
• schools, colleges and other centres that deliver T Levels, including those that arrange Industry Placements
• employers and their representative bodies involved in Industry Placements or in setting occupational standards
• teachers, assessors and other practitioners involved in delivering or assessing T Levels
• students, parents and carers with an interest in how T Levels are assessed, certificated and quality assured