What does the chart show?
The chart illustrates the median daily earnings over time following students’ completion of Key Stage 5, typically at age 18.
The top panel shows earnings for all students overall, while the bottom panel separates the earnings by demographic characteristics such as gender or school type. Each line represents a different student group, categorised based on their A level performance. For each year shown, the analysis included only students who were not in education, were in sustained employment, and were not receiving out-of-work benefits.
Changing the two input selectors above the panels will update the chart.
The top selector allows the display of findings for multiple performance groups. Students who performed best in their A levels are those in the ‘A level lowest C’ group, which includes students whose lowest grade was C, B, A or A*. This is followed by the ‘A level best D’ group, and then the ‘A level best E’ group, where the best grade achieved was, respectively, grade D or the lowest passing grade, E.
The bottom selector is a drop-down list containing six demographic options. The bottom chart will update accordingly based on the selected demographic.
Why is this chart interesting?
Firstly, the chart shows that an earnings gap exists between the best-performing group and all others, overall and within all the demographic groups, though the size of this gap varies.
Fifteen years after completing Key Stage 5, the difference in median daily earnings between students in the ‘A level lowest C’ group (highest performing) and those in the ‘A level best E’ group (lowest performing) was £28 per day. This equates to an annual earnings difference of £10,220. At Year 15, the largest gap between these two groups was observed among students from independent schools, at £53 per day (£19,345 annually). In other words, academic grades matter for future earnings even for students within the same demographic subgroup.
Secondly, we can observe that earnings progress at different rates for different A level performance groups.
In the first four years after completing Key Stage 5, the median students in the best-performing A level group earned less than their lower-performing peers. The exact reason driving this pattern is unclear. One potential explanation is that high-achieving students, who are disproportionately from more advantaged socio-economic backgrounds, were less likely to work during their part-time education or gap years, compared to other students who were more likely to enter the workforce if they chose not to pursue full-time education.
By Year 5, however, median earnings across all groups were very similar. Starting in Year 6, earnings began to rise for all groups, but at a much steeper rate for better-performing students. The steepest increase from Year 5 to Year 15 was observed among the best-performing group from independent school, with median daily earnings rising by £75 (equivalent to an increase in annual earnings of £27,375). In contrast, the equivalent median earnings growth was noticeably more gradual for lower-performing groups from independent schools.
Further information
Vidal Rodeiro, C.L. and Gill, T. (2025). Progression of students who leave post-16 education with low A level grades. Cambridge University Press & Assessment.