T Levels T Levels updates
T Levels September 2025 update
Welcome to September’s T Level Update, your first for this academic year and we've got everything you need to know to get the year off to a great start.
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Things to do
Join us for our annual exams officer and administrator training event on 4 November, 12:00–13:00.
This online event is for anyone involved in the administration of the Technical Qualification, covering everything from undertaking provider approval to making registrations and entries and assessment scheduling.
We’ve refreshed our training and admin support page, making it easier for you to find the help you need when you need it.
You can find admin support, training resources, provider FAQs, support from industry professionals and more, all in one place.
You can now make new registrations on the Technical Qualification for your cohorts starting this academic year.
The deadline to make your registrations is 1 November. Late fees will apply to registrations received from 2 November onwards.
Need help? You’ll find guides to making registrations and managing student details on our admin support page.
You must be approved by Pearson for each Technical Qualification you plan to deliver. If you didn’t apply for approval during the approval window (February–June 2025), please contact us as soon as possible.
You can now make your core component entries for the autumn series. You must make an entry for every student wishing to enter the assessment. If you're making resit entries, make sure you’re familiar with the resit rules.
The deadline to make your entries is 5 October. Late fees will apply to entries received from 6 October onwards.
Need help? You'll find guides and videos on making and managing entries and assessments, results and re-sits on our admin support page.
You can now make your occupational specialism entries for the summer 2026 series. You must make an entry for every student wishing to enter the assessment.
The deadline to make your entries is 5 October. Late fees will apply to entries received from 6 October onwards.
If you offer post-16 Level 2 study programmes at your centre, you might be interested in our Level 2 BTEC qualifications.
Join our webinar on 14 October, where we’ll walk you through the current BTEC portfolio and the potential changes as post-16 qualification reforms continue.
Post-16 Level 2 BTEC landscape for 2025 onward
Sector updates
We are working on some new support materials to be available by the end of September:
- Guidance from the principal examiner to help improve core exam performance based on past years’ experience.
- The Guide to Core Content Depth will be updated to include the Generation 2 specification content.
We will hold our annual content review of the specification and assessments soon. We don’t expect there to be many changes, given the recent updates to Generation 2 TQ; however, we are keen to hear from you if you identify any serious issues, or errors, with the specification – please email gabriel.staples@pearson.com.
The Generation 2 specification for teaching from September 2025 is now available:
Watch a recording of our provider event introducing the 2025 specification to learn what’s new.
A new occupational specialism, Project Delivery for Construction, is available for students commencing from September 2025, with the first assessments in 2027. We expect to have the updated specification published later this month.
If you’re moving from BTEC Nationals in Construction to the T Level, use our transition guide to help you map BTEC National units to the core content areas.
Pearson has been working with the Gatsby Foundation to provide high quality teaching resources for several topics in the Core: Law, Maths and Modern Methods of Construction. Keep an eye on the Gatsby Technical Education Networks website.
Explore Construction resources on the Technical Education Networks site
Making assessments more manageable
Thanks to your feedback, we’re making assessments more manageable from next year:
- There will be a much longer window to complete the practical surveying task (facade survey).
- There will be a longer gap between core exam papers 1 and 2, giving learners more time to revise for the topics in each paper.
Support your T Level delivery with CITB
Need support for employers? Whether you already have relationships with employers or you’re trying to encourage employers to take students on placement, the CITB have great support to help.
If you're delivering for the first time this September, make sure to check out all the support we offer, including delivery guides, schemes of work, specimen assessments and guide standard exemplification materials. You’ll find these and more on each qualification's course materials page:
Craft and Design | Course materials
Media, Broadcast and Production | Course materials
Training
Join our live Getting Ready to Teach training events this month:
- Getting Ready to Teach Media Broadcast and Production
10 September, 12:00–2:00 p.m. | Book your place
- Getting Ready to Teach Craft and Design
18 September, 12:00–2:00 p.m. | Book your place
If you can’t attend the live training, don’t worry, you can watch the recordings of past sessions:
Craft and Design: download your updated specimen assessment materials
We've updated the specimen assessment materials (SAMs) for the occupational specialism assessments in the T Level in Craft and Design. Revisions apply to SAMs, mark schemes and relevant templates for both tasks in all specialisms and will be carried through to the live assessments. Please make sure you've downloaded the latest versions of all these documents.
You can now register students on the Generation 2 Digital T Levels.
| Generation 2 T Level | QAN |
|---|---|
| Digital Software Development (with the occupational specialism retitled to match the standard as Digital Software Development) | 610/5801/4 |
| Digital Support and Security | 610/5799/X |
| Digital Data Analytics (with the occupational specialism retitled to match the standard as Data Analytics Technician) | 610/5800/2 |
If you were approved by Pearson to deliver the Generation 1 T Level in Digital Production, Design and Development, you have automatic approval to deliver its Generation 2 replacement, the T Level in Digital Software Development. This does not mean you also automatically have approval to deliver Digital Support and Security or Digital Data Analytics.
If you were approved by NCFE to deliver the Generation 1 T Levels in Digital Support Services, and/or Digital Business Support and are now transitioning to the Generation 2 versions, you must gain provider approval from Pearson before starting teaching.
If you're migrating from Generation 1 to Generation 2 T Levels, we've put together some additional FAQs to help you.
Read our provider approval FAQs
The new specifications are available on the website, along with specimen assessment materials for the core exams. We’ll release more materials over the coming months; here’s a rough schedule of what to expect when:
| Month | Details |
|---|---|
| October 2025 | Additional specimen assessment materials: core exams Guide standard exemplification materials: employer set project Guide standard exemplification materials: occupational specialism |
| November 2025 | Additional specimen assessment materials: employer set project |
| December 2025 | Additional specimen assessment materials: occupational specialism |
We've worked with Cisco and their Networking Academy on teaching resources for Python and other programming languages used in the occupational specialism. It's free to sign up and become a Cisco Networking Academy centre.
Access the resources and find out more at the Cisco Networking Academy
Curious how you can use Netacad to enhance your teaching and prepare for assessments? We’re running a joint webinar with Cisco on 14 October, so join us then to find out more.
- Pearson/Cisco Digital Software Development webinar
14 October 3–4 p.m. | Book your place
Gatsby are continuing the rollout the Digital T Level support created by industry experts like Raspberry Pi and our own examiners to enrich your delivery. For information, keep an eye on Gatsby's website.
We launched the first set of support materials in July, joining the curriculum guides and mapping documents already available on the website. More materials will follow later this month and over the autumn term.
Curious how you can use Netacad to enhance your teaching and prepare for assessments? We’re running a joint webinar with Cisco on 30 September, so join us then to find out more.
- Pearson/Cisco Digital Support Services webinar
30 September 3–4 p.m. | Book your place
We launched the first set of support materials in July, joining the curriculum guides and mapping documents already available on the website. We’ll keep sharing more support materials during September and throughout the autumn.
These Generation 2 T Levels will be delivered by Pearson from September 2026. This will not affect your 2024 or 2025 intake; those students will complete their T level with NCFE.
By adding these T Levels to your curriculum, you’ll be meeting the growing demand from industry, broadening your course options and attracting students excited about high-quality vocational qualifications.
We'd love you to join our provider panel and share your opinions about the content, the structure and manageability of the assessments, and anything else you feel would be useful as we refresh both Technical Qualifications. To join, please email Andrew Hambelton at andrew.hambleton@pearson.com.
Join our upcoming progress webinars to hear about the progress on these new TQs, get guidance on preparing to transition in September 2026 and take the opportunity to share your feedback with us.
- Pearson T Level in Health progress webinar
30 September, 3:30–5:00 p.m. | Book your place - Pearson T Level in Science progress webinar
2 October, 4:00–5:00 p.m. | Book your place
Bookmark the T Level Health and Science pages so you can keep up to date with updates to these qualifications as they happen:
We have resources to support your delivery, including schemes of work for the core and occupational specialism components, exemplar materials for the employer set project, and a content overview for Core Paper 2.
Explore the Legal Services course materials
CILEX have proposed a webinar for providers on placements and support on 24 September. We’ll share more details with you once we have them.
Improvements to the occupational specialism
We’ve made some changes to the T Level Finance occupational specialisms to help make assessment clearer and more efficient.
No more pre-release materials. This change is designed to streamline your preparation process, ensuring all necessary information is included within the main assessment documents.
Tasks that were previously split into separate documents (e.g., Task A and Task B) will now be combined into a single task booklet. This adjustment aims to simplify the administration and handling of assessment materials.
We’ve uploaded updated administrative support guides to reflect these changes, and these are available to download from our course materials page, along with curriculum planners.
Explore the Finance course materials
Support from The Chartered Insurance Insitute
Our partner The Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) has a dedicated T Levels page to support you.
ACCA have developed an offer to support your T Level Accounting students with their progression and employability, as well as employer introductions, Sage discounts and careers in accountancy events.
For more information, contact Rob Alder at rob.alder@accaglobal.com.
Join us and our partners at the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) for a webinar on 1 October, where CIM will discuss the benefits this partnership will bring to your Marketing students, progression opportunities, CIM exemptions, professional recognition, enriched learning resources and more.
Engage directly with the Pearson team and CIM , ask your questions, and explore how this initiative can help your students flourish in their marketing journey.
- Empowering Marketing Students: Introducing the CIM and Pearson Partnership to enrich learning
1 October, 3:30–5:00 p.m. | Book your place
Find out more about our partnership with CIM
The Technical Qualification specification is now available on our website, and the Getting to Know the Specification on-demand training is available on our training and admin page.
The specimen assessment materials, delivery guide and schemes of work are now available to download from the course materials page.
If you need specific support with your T Level, our subject advisors are here to help. You can book a 15-minute one-to-one call where you can discuss any issue you are having with regards to planning or delivery of your T Level.