Number of school students

IBISWorld expects the number of nursery, primary and secondary school students in the United Kingdom to rise at a compound annual rate of 0.3% over the five years through 2025-26, to reach just over 10.6 million pupils. This figure is largely in line with expected population growth figures for the age cohort of students. Cohort effects are the main driver of trends in the number of school students. Changes in the birth rate determine the size of a cohort of new students working their way through the system each year. An increase in the birth rate takes approximately 8 years to filter through into higher student numbers. Net immigration also has an effect on the total number of students, although this depends on the proportion of migrants bringing their families to the United Kingdom compared to British residents going abroad.

The trend in student numbers effectively shifted in 2010-11. Prior to this year there had been a prolonged decline in the number of students between 2001-02 and 2009-10 inclusive. This was a result of a dramatic rise in the number of people going to university in the 1990s, which resulted in a higher proportion of women waiting longer to have children. The trend in the birth rate changed in the early 2000s, not because of a reversal in the university attendance numbers, but rather more and more babies were being born to mothers in older age groups. This adjustment filtered through to student numbers in 2010-11 as the decline reversed and a positive but small level of growth returned. As the larger cohort of students started working its way through primary schools, and into secondary schools, the increase in the total number of students accelerated – it has continued on an upwards trajectory and, in 2023-24, the number of school students is expected to increase by 0.1% year-on-year, as the baby boom in the early 2000s reached its peak effect on the education system. This trend began reversing from 2024-25 onwards as the number of births began declining in 2017 onwards.