Knowsley was the worst performing council area in England for GCSE results this year, according to exam data. Only 8% of results achieved grade 7 or above – the equivalent of traditional A or A* grades – in the borough for the latest academic year.
Regional divide widens
Across the North West, only 19% of students secured marks worthy of a 7 or higher, highlighting a growing national divide. In the City of London, 72% of students made the cut by comparison, with three other London boroughs in the mid to high 40s.
Halton, which sits in the Liverpool City Region, was joint third with North East Lincolnshire as a performing council area, with just 11% of grade 7 or higher results. Liverpool’s results were marked at 17% while Sefton recorded 16.5%.
Best and worst in the region
Wirral was the best performing city region authority with 21% of students making it to grade 7 or higher, but just 14% were recorded in St Helens. Trafford in Greater Manchester had the fifth best results in the country, however. With 39.7% achieving a grade 7 or above, it is the highest score outside of the south of England by some distance.
The North East had the worst GCSE results of any region in England. Just 17.7% of grades in the region were 7 or higher, compared to 28.5% in London. It is a gap of 10.8 percentage points, up from a gap of 10.3 points last year.
National and regional breakdown
In the South East, 24.6% of grades were seven or higher. In the East of England it was 22.0% and in the South West it was 21.0%. It drops to 19.0% in Yorkshire and The Humber, 18.9% in the North West, 18.3% in the West Midlands and 18.2% in the East Midlands.
The North West performed better when it came to the number of students achieving grade 4 – formerly C – or higher, with 64%. This was the second highest performing area after the North East. Nationally, 67.3% of students hit the mark, down 0.1% on last year and achieving the same as 2019. By comparison, in Northern Ireland, learners securing 4 and above hit 83%.
Percentages of GCSE entries awarded the top grades of 7/A or higher by nation and region in 2026, with the equivalent figures for 2025 and the pre-pandemic year of 2019: North-east England 17.7% (2025: 17.8%; 2019: 16.4%), North-west England 18.9% (2025: 18.8%; 2019: 18.6%), Yorkshire & the Humber 19.0% (2025: 18.4%; 2019: 17.8%), West Midlands 18.3% (2025: 18.5%; 2019: 18.1%), East Midlands 18.2% (2025: 18.1%; 2019: 18.3%), Eastern England 22.0% (2025: 22.2%; 2019: 20.5%), South-west England 21.0% (2025: 21.4%; 2019: 20.4%), South-east England 24.5% (2025: 24.6%; 2019: 23.5%), London 28.6% (2025: 28.4%; 2019: 25.7%), England 21.8% (2025: 21.8%; 2019: 20.7%), Wales 19.6% (2025: 19.5%; 2019: 18.4%), Northern Ireland 31.7% (2025: 31.6%; 2019: 30.5%), All 22.0% (2025: 21.9%; 2019: 20.8%).
