Children missing education, England
Official statistics in development
Children missing education in England on the census day each autumn, with the DfE's rate by population, from the DfE.
England
34,700
2025/26 autumn term · a rate of 0.4% by population, the DfE's
Verified against source, 8 November 2026, 13:16 UTCSource: Department for Education. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Data table
4 periods, newest first
| Period | Children missing education |
|---|---|
| 2025/26 autumn term | 34,700 |
| 2024/25 autumn term | 39,200 |
| 2023/24 autumn term | 33,000 |
| 2022/23 autumn term | 24,700 |
Source and licence
- Publisher
- Department for Education
- Check it yourself
- https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-missing-education
- Licence
- Open Government Licence v3.0 – Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Retrieved
- 8 November 2026, 13:07 UTC
- Raw files fetched
- https://api.education.gov.uk/statistics/v1/data-sets/019bb854-d8d5-707a-bc53-e0de9ac70891/meta?dataSetVersion=1.0.1SHA-256 0f36f286cf2bf860fa9de1390f050755d358d1530460914f2fbdf876a05f9a27 · 15,481 bytes
- https://api.education.gov.uk/statistics/v1/data-sets/019bb854-d8d5-707a-bc53-e0de9ac70891/query?dataSetVersion=1.0.1&indicators=jNnAM,Tv3PJ&geographicLevels.in=NAT,REG&timePeriods.in=2022%2F2023%7CT1,2023%2F2024%7CT1,2024%2F2025%7CT1,2025%2F2026%7CT1&filters.notIn=2iuzl,PyHqe,NglmD,oWJCm,Gz1Vg,S9CWV,3Nmj8,yxdwa,R8SDk,bB8St,DOlnQ,eaHiu,5UBxd,4cnbU,m2Jw9,0kX6T,W1PB2,EXsmq,QCcew,9lvA4,2ieHl,PyYEe,Ng2oD,wI3Ub,oWFOm,9lvB4,dR7j0,OJ6ZC,7SQ1X,pmOqS,InN1B,LKTdW,6ALar,0kXXT,H0Eqz,CvrDI,YdtjH,qfxij,aM0oL,BpDq7,zTqIF,kZVoh,uLzdo,XVwCf,Thf5P&pageSize=10000SHA-256 62ac874230c408c8fe354acf091bf56008cd7aab94adbdcc0b0adfaac8300442 · 9,384 bytes
Verification
Verified against source, 8 November 2026, 13:16 UTC Run at 8 November 2026, 13:16 UTC; 4 of 4 figures matched the live source.
| Result | Check | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Pass | Provenance recorded | Department for Education; Open Government Licence v3.0; retrieved 2026-11-08T13:07:07Z; 2 raw file(s) |
| Pass | Raw files match recorded SHA-256 | 2 of 2 files intact |
| Pass | Re-parsing raw files reproduces figures | 4 of 4 figures and the headline reproduced; the meta's rates match |
| Pass | Figures are finite numbers | 4 figures, 0 invalid |
| Pass | Live source matches every figure | 4 of 4 figures match exactly after downloading 2 source file(s) again (1 byte-identical); the headline matches; the meta's rates match |
| Pass | EES data set is current | latest period 2025/26 autumn term ended 312 days before retrieval (limit 550) |
| Pass | The data set's CSV agrees | 88 of 88 cells of the stored query, figures and marks, equal version 1.0.1's CSV (https://api.education.gov.uk/statistics/v1/data-sets/019bb854-d8d5-707a-bc53-e0de9ac70891/csv?dataSetVersion=1.0.1, 44 rows read) |
| Pass | The hub's children-missing-education-by-council agrees | 1 of 1 figures match children-missing-education-by-council's record (England's children missing education in 2025/26 autumn term) |
| Pass | The regions add up to England | in 4 of 4 periods and combinations England's regions (London as Inner and Outer London where the DfE gives no London) add up to England within the rounding the DfE states (0 exactly) |
| Pass | Source page answers | https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-missing-education – HTTP 200 |
Notes
- Children of compulsory school age the council knows are not registered at a school and not receiving suitable education otherwise on the census day in October, as local authorities report them. Collecting these figures became mandatory in the autumn of 2024, and the DfE publishes them as official statistics in development.
- The DfE's methodology: “Local authority and regional data has been rounded to the nearest 10, national figures are rounded to the nearest 100.” The rate is the DfE's own, the children on census day by population, as a percentage to one decimal place; the record keeps it in its data.
- These are counts on one day each autumn, not the counts across a term that the DfE also gives.