London students have achieved the best A-Level results in the country with almost a third awarded top grades.
On Thursday, it was revealed that 32.1% of teenagers collecting their grades in the capital were allocated A*- A classifications – a 0.8% rise compared to 2024.
Pupils across the city were celebrating their record results as the proportion of A-level entries awarded top grades rose again this year, remaining above pre-pandemic highs, national figures show.
It is the second year in a row that London students have been top of the table. The second-best performing region was the South East with 31.2% getting A*- A grades, while the East of England was third at 28%.
The North East was the worst performing region where 22.9% got top grades, followed by the East Midlands (23.8%) and West Midlands (24.2%).
Experts said the gap between the best and worst performing regions appeared to be widening.
Myles McGinley, head of the OCR exam board, said: “What we have seen is inequalities looking worse rather than better.
“If you look at the gap between the highest performing region this year, which is London, and the lowest performing region, which is the North East, we have seen an increase in the gap. Last year that gap was 8.8 percentage points, and this year, that gap is 9.2 percentage points.”
Across the UK more than a quarter (28.3%) of entries were awarded an A or A* grade, up by 0.5 percentage points on last year, when 27.8% achieved the top grades.
This was higher than in 2019, the last year that summer exams were taken before the pandemic, when 25.4% of entries were awarded an A or A*.
It is the highest proportion of entries scoring top grades outside the pandemic-affected years of 2020-22, according to the figures from the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Boys have outperformed girls in terms of top grades for the first time in seven years.
The proportion of UK entries awarded the top A* grade this year has also risen, by 0.1 percentage points to 9.4%, compared to 9.3% in 2024, and it is higher than when it stood at 7.7% in 2019.
But more girls took exams than boys, with 54% of entries from female students.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson on Thursday vowed to tackle the "yawning inequalities" in educational attainment.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, she said: "Alongside the post-16 white paper that we'll be publishing later on this year, I will also bring a big focus through our schools white paper on how we tackle these thorny generational challenges where white working-class kids across our country don't get the start that they deserve.
"Now the school system is an important part of how we respond to that, but I would say alongside it so much of this develops and opens up in the early years.
"The attainment gap that we see between less well-off students and better-off students opens up before the age of five.
"It's why early years has been such a priority, because if we get that right then we set up children to succeed, but we will take more action in the school system to ensure that those gaps that we see, those yawning inequalities, are addressed.
"It's something the last government failed to tackle. It is something this Government will grasp."
