Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many people are training for a full and relevant qualification in early years and childcare and are due to qualify by September 2025.

During the 2021/22 academic year (the latest year of available data) there were 52,650 students studying Early Years and childcare qualifications.

This was comprised of 48,400 learners studying qualifications at English further education (FE) providers and 4,250 full-person-equivalent entrants to Early Years subject areas at English higher education (HE) providers

For HE, Early Years subjects were defined by the ‘Higher Education Classification of Subject’ (HECOS) codes ‘100457 early childhood studies’, ‘100463 early years education’ and ‘100510 early years teaching’, or any course aim leading to Early Years Teacher Status, such as H12, I12 and I73. For FE, Early Years qualifications were defined as those on the ‘Early Years qualifications achieved in the United Kingdom’ list, which is published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-qualifications-achieved-in-england.

The department does not forecast the number of learners predicted to achieve these qualifications by September 2025.