GCSE Results 2025: Which were England's best performing counties for top grades this year? How each one ranked

• GCSE results day was earlier this week
• Some regions saw much larger proportions of their overall entries achieve top grades than others
• This trend continues on a county level too, with large gaps between the highest and lowest-scoring areas
• Experts say these ‘disappointing’ regional differences shouldn’t be ignored, but there’s no quick fix

Significant performance gaps between different parts of England have lingered on for another year, new results day figures show.

This Thursday (August 21) was GCSE results day for secondary school pupils across the country, with nationwide results being a bit of a mixed bag this year. The proportion of entries getting top grades rose a little on last year, while the amount achieving a ‘standard pass’ of 4 or above fell.

There also remained large disparities in performance across the different regions, in both top grades and the standard pass rate. But even within the regions themselves, performance was not uniform.

We’ve looked at qualifications regulator Ofqual’s new data on how each of the country’s 48 ceremonial counties performed, when it came to the proportion of entries achieving a top grade of 7 to 9 in England’s 9-point grading system. Breaking down the data further helps to paint a clearer picture of pupil attainment in different communities, but it is important to remember that each has its own unique strengths – and faces its own set of challenges and barriers that may impact young people and their education.

Here is the proportion of GCSE entries to achieve a top grade of 7 to 9 by county, from highest to lowest:

England’s highest-performing counties for GCSE results

Considerable performance gaps between England’s different regions overall stuck around this year, the data showed. When it comes to top grades of 7 or above, London led the pack with about 28.4% of all GCSE entries earning a top grade – nearly 3 in every 10. It was followed by the South East at 24.6%; the East of England at 22.2%; the South West at 21.4%; the North West at 18.8%; the West Midlands at 18.5%; Yorkshire at 18.4%; the East Midlands at 18.1%; and the North East at just 17.8%.

Here is how each of the counties did. The City of London and Greater London have been combined, and Ofqual adds that these figures may differ a little from overall regional stats due to minor differences in how they are calculated:

1. Rutland (East Midlands): 31.7% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
2. Surrey (South East): 31.4% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
3. Hertfordshire (East of England): 29.5% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
4. Buckinghamshire (South East): 28.7% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
5. Berkshire (South East): 28.4% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
6. Greater London (London): 28.2% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
7. Oxfordshire (South East): 27.5% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
8. Gloucestershire (South West): 25.5% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
9. Cambridgeshire (East of England): 25.2% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
10. Bristol (South West): 24.9% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
11. Warwickshire (West Midlands): 24.9% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
12. Kent (South East): 23.4% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
13. Dorset (South West): 22% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
14. East Sussex (South East): 21.8% of all entries earned a top grade – the last county above the national average
15. Essex (East of England): 21.2% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
16. North Yorkshire (Yorkshire & the Humber): 20.7% of all entries earned a top grade
17. Devon (South West): 20.4% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
18. Greater Manchester (North West): 20.2% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
19. Leicestershire (East Midlands): 20% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
20. Hampshire (South East): 19.8% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
21. Somerset (South West): 19.8% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
22. West Sussex (South West): 19.8% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
23. Cheshire (North West): 19.7% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
24. Wiltshire (South West): 19.6% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
25. West Yorkshire (Yorkshire & the Humber): 19.3% of all entries earned a top grade
26. West Midlands (West Midlands): 18.9% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
27. Tyne and Wear (North East): 18.7% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
28. Worcestershire (West Midlands): 18.6% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
29. Nottinghamshire (East Midlands): 18.3% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
30. Lancashire (North West): 18.2% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
31. Cornwall (South West): 17.9% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
32. Norfolk (East of England): 17.7% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
33. Northumberland (North East): 17.4% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
34. Shropshire (West Midlands): 17.3% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
35. Suffolk (East of England): 17.3% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
36. Durham (North East): 17.1% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
37. South Yorkshire (Yorkshire & the Humber): 16.8% of all entries earned a top grade
38. Derbyshire (East Midlands): 16.7% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
39. Bedfordshire (East of England): 16.6% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
40. Lincolnshire (East Midlands): 16.6% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
41. Merseyside (North West): 16.6% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
42. Northamptonshire (East Midlands): 16.1% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
43. East Yorkshire (Yorkshire & the Humber): 16% of all entries earned a top grade
44. Cumbria (North West): 15.6% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
45. Herefordshire (West Midlands): 15.3% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
46. Staffordshire (West Midlands): 14.6% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade
47. Isle of Wight (South East): 12.9% of all GCSE entries earned a top grade

The highest and lowest scoring areas, Rutland and the Isle of Wight respectively, both have considerably smaller numbers of GCSE entries than many of the other, larger counties. The difference between them is a whopping 18.8 percentage points.

Excluding those two, the difference between the next highest county (with a more standard amount of pupils taking their GCSEs), Surrey, and the second lowest, Staffordshire, is still a noteworthy 16.8 percentage points.

‘Potential is spread across the country, opportunity is not’

Dr Rebecca Montacute, research director at public policy think-tank the Social Market Foundation, said on results day that it was “disappointing that year after year, we continue to see large regional gaps in the grades young people achieve at GCSE”.

“While potential is spread across the country, opportunity is not. We are wasting the potential of young people in so many communities, with wider economic implications at a time we desperately need improvements to economic growth,” she continued. “While Labour’s opportunity mission has a welcome focus on widening opportunity, we need to see much more from Government, including greater efforts to reduce child poverty, and improvements in every part of the education system, from the early years through to opportunities post GCSE.”

Ofqual’s chief regulator, Sir Ian Bauckham told teaching magazine Tes after A Level results day earlier this month – which revealed similar regional disparities – that while differences between regions were typically smaller than those between individual schools within a region, they “shouldn’t be ignored”. He also described the gaps as “disappointing”, but added that “single quick-fix solutions” didn’t exist, with regional differences based on “complex problems” that needed to be “tackled in the round”.

Keen to check out more of our coverage of GCSE results day, and how the 2025 cohort did? Here’s a piece exploring private vs state school performance, and here’s one looking into how many marks were needed to score a top grade this year.