This year’s A-Level results are published on 13 August, with student enrolment figures available for the 57 subjects offered this year, via the Joint Council for Qualifications (JQC), covering exams in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
2026 sees a welcome increase in the number of students taking History A-Level: up from 44,717 in 2025 to 46,960 (an increase of 5%). This compares with a 2.7% increase in enrolments for all A-Level subjects; a 0.2% decline for Humanities subjects overall, and a 4.8% increase for Social Science subjects for the same period.
A summary of this year’s A-Level results is now available from the:
- Joint Council for Qualifications (JQC) – which provides a new dashboard interface for 2026 offering ‘Main Statistics’ and ‘Insights’ comparing 2026 results with those of 2025.
- British Academy – which uses JQC data for its ‘Secondary and Post-16 Subject Trends’ dashboard, and also includes results for this year’s Scottish Highers and Advanced Highers, released on 4 August.
At 5%, the increase in History A-Level enrolments sees the fifth highest increase in student numbers, 2025-26, after Political Studies, Economics, Law and Further Maths, for subjects with more than 5000 students.
With 46,960 students sitting the exam, History is the 7th most popular A-Level of the 57 available in 2026, after Maths, Psychology, Biology, Chemistry, Economics (47,157 students) and Business Studies (46,977).
The 2026 results continue the long-term trend for more female than male students to take History A-Level: 25,661 against 21,299 this year. Between 2025 and 2026, the number of female students taking History increased by 6.2% against 3.7% for male students.
While the total number of male students for History rose in 2026, after two years of decline, the rate of divergence between female and male students increased this year — as shown below via the British Academy dashboard which now enables searching by gender.
This trend is also evident in a growing divergence between the number of female and male students applying for and accepting places on History degree courses (as reported by UCAS) and enrolling as first year History undergraduates.
Across the three nations offering A-Levels, the number of students in Northern Ireland rose by 8.8% between 2025 and 2026 (1984 and 2158 students respectively); England recorded a 5% increase (40,679 compared with 42,724) and Wales a 0.1% increase (1885 compared with 1887).
Last week’s Scottish Highers and Advanced Highers results, available from the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) via the British Academy, record a 4% decrease in Highers students for History between 2025 and 2026 (9865 against 9465) and a 5.3% decrease for Advanced Highers (1305 against 1235).
The British Academy dashboard also offers longer-term trends in A-Level numbers by individual subjects (e.g. History) or groups of subjects (e.g. History, English and Geography, or those in ‘Humanities’). The following chart shows student numbers for History between 2006 and 2026, with a peak in 2015.
This year’s British Academy dashboard also includes a new Rankings tab, showing changing percentages of students by subject over selected date ranges.
Between the high point of 2015 and 2026, History A-Level student numbers have fallen by 15.9%, with the sharpest decline being up to the year 2020. Between 2020 and 2026 History numbers have risen by 4.6%.
This compares to a 16.1% increase in student numbers for all A-Level subjects (2020-26) and a 0.9% decrease for all Humanities subjects, including History, for the same period.
British Academy Rankings also enable a similar view for History students in Scotland taking Highers: student numbers here have seen a 4.6% decrease in student numbers, 2020-26.
Release of the 2026 A-Level data is accompanied by the following British Academy guide for student number trends in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences: ‘Who studies what subjects at school and why does it matter?’
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