Educational achievement in Birmingham ranked against Manchester, London & more English cities

New research has unveiled which English cities have achieved the highest level of education.

The major study by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) followed the fortunes of state school pupils who sat their GCSEs in the 2012/13 school year, looking at how many went on to get A-levels, degrees and other qualifications. The data looks at GCSE grades, A-levels, apprenticeships and degree grades.

Data on an individual’s attainment in later years was related back to the city or town they lived in when they sat their GCSEs, even if they moved away afterwards. This allowed the researchers to understand the relationship between long-term educational attainment and the town where the person grew up.

Every English city outside London had a worse-than-average educational score, except Brighton and Hove. Smaller towns, however, had better educational attainment.

To compare each of the towns and cities, the ONS used a score to summarise the educational attainment of young people at different points throughout their education. A score of 0 is the average score of all areas, while negative scores reflect poorer than average performance, and positive scores mean better than average attainment.

Overall, small towns had an average score of 0.4. Scores decreased by size: medium towns had a score of -0.3 and large towns had a score of -0.9. Meanwhile cities had a average score of -1.3.

Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “This analysis demonstrates how closely aligned educational outcomes are to levels of deprivation.

“Raising attainment is therefore dependent not only on ensuring that schools in areas of high deprivation are well supported and resourced, but also on wider efforts to tackle poverty and improve local economies.”

The research also enables us to compare cities across England to see which ones achieved the highest scores for educational attainment. Here’s how they rank.