Overall A Level results in England remained stable in summer 2018 for both reformed and unreformed A Levels with outcomes relatively unchanged from 2017.

746,000 entries were made across all A Level subjects (759,000 in 2017) with A* success rates falling slightly from 8.3% in 2017 to 8% in 2018.

The majority of subjects have now been reformed, with 12 more reformed subjects awarded this year.

Maths continues to be the most popular subject at A Level (97,627 candidates), followed by Biology (63,819) and Psychology (59,708).  Maths remained popular at AS Level too, with 81,051 entries.  The majority of entries for Maths were for the unreformed A Level, rather than the reformed A Level which was available for the first time this summer to allow highly able maths students to take Maths in one year at age 17 and Further Maths at 18.

Computing saw the biggest percentage rise in A Level candidate entries, up by 23.9% from the previous year (to 10,286), followed by Business Studies and Chemistry.  ICT, Religious Studies and Geography were amongst the top decreasing subjects.

More female students took Biology and Chemistry than male, with more male students taking Mathematics and Physics.

As predicted, AS entries declined sharply this summer, following the de-coupling of the AS from the A Level.  Only 64,810 17 year olds took at least one AS this year, compared with 209,540 in 2017.

Entries for the Extended Project Qualification plateaued at 40,437 (up 1.1% on 2017).

Statistics covering the whole of the UK by subject, grade and gender are available on the JCQ website.

For further exploration of results trends, Ofqual has produced an analytics tool including an interactive map of England showing A Level results in different subjects by grade and county.