Who runs our schools?
Education chapter 4. The shift from local authority control to academy trusts, counted two ways — because the two ways disagree.
Academies and free schools were 48.2% of schools in 2025/26 and taught 60.4% of pupils. In 2015/16 the figures were 22.3% and 35.3%.
Who runs them
48.2%
Of schools are academies
2025/26, up from 22.3%
60.4%
Of pupils are in academies
A 12.2-point gap on the school share
11,816
Academies and free schools
In number
Why the two percentages differ
Both schools and pupils are shown because they give different pictures: academies are on average larger, so the academy share of pupils runs ahead of the academy share of schools. Quoting one alone would over- or understate the shift depending which.
This series begins in 2015/16, which is where the published dataset begins on a consistent basis. The academy programme started earlier — the first sponsored academies opened in 2002 and the Academies Act 2010 opened conversion to all schools — so the shift shown here is the later part of a longer change.
Dark bars: the first measure. Grey bars: share of schools.
Source: DfE, Schools, pupils and their characteristics.
View as table
| Period | Academy share, by pupils and by schools | share of schools |
|---|---|---|
| 2015/16 | 35.3% | 22.3% |
| 2016/17 | 39.1% | 26.1% |
| 2017/18 | 43.4% | 30.7% |
| 2018/19 | 47.1% | 34.5% |
| 2019/20 | 49.7% | 37.1% |
| 2020/21 | 51.5% | 38.7% |
| 2021/22 | 53% | 40.2% |
| 2022/23 | 54.4% | 41.6% |
| 2023/24 | 56.2% | 43.5% |
| 2024/25 | 58.4% | 46.1% |
| 2025/26 | 60.4% | 48.2% |
Academies and independent schools are different things: an academy is state-funded and free to attend.
- Academy or free school5,386,540 (60.4%)
- Local authority maintained2,973,432 (33.3%)
- Independent (privately funded)560,255 (6.3%)
Source: DfE, Schools, pupils and their characteristics.
View as table
| Category | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Academy or free school | 5,386,540 | 60.4% |
| Local authority maintained | 2,973,432 | 33.3% |
| Independent (privately funded) | 560,255 | 6.3% |
Academies are not independent schools
Independent schools are privately funded and are counted here because they are part of the picture of who educates children in England. They are not academies: an academy is state-funded and free to attend, and conflating the two is a common error in coverage of school structures.
The size of the system
Schools and pupils by phase
View as table
| Phase | Schools | Pupils |
|---|---|---|
| State-funded primary | 16,712 | 4,470,363 |
| State-funded secondary | 3,458 | 3,659,508 |
| Independent school | 2,497 | 560,255 |
| State-funded special school | 1,071 | 173,286 |
| State-funded nursery | 376 | 35,708 |
| State-funded AP school | 333 | 16,555 |
| Non-maintained special school | 52 | 4,552 |
What this chapter does not settle
Whether academisation worked
Whether academisation improved outcomes is contested, and the published evidence does not settle it. Schools were not assigned to academy status at random — sponsored academies were converted because they were judged to be underperforming, and converter academies chose to convert, often from a stronger position. Comparing academy results with maintained-school results therefore compares two groups selected on different criteria, which is why the serious evaluations disagree with each other and why no comparison of that kind appears on this page.
The census records the legal category a school sits in on census day. It records nothing about how well it is run, and this page draws no line between the two.
Last verified 2026-08-16. Data: DfE, Schools, pupils and their characteristics.
Related chapters
- In this sectionWhat education costsWhy a shrinking maintained-school population makes the deficit series hard to read.
- In this sectionAre children learning more?The attainment measures, and why comparing school types is harder than it looks.
- In this sectionTeachers and the workforceAcademies may employ teachers without qualified teacher status; maintained schools generally may not.
- In this sectionEducationThe other chapters, and how this section is built.
Scope and definitions
England, not the UK
Education is devolved. Every figure on this page is England only. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland operate different frameworks with different legal definitions, and their figures are not directly comparable.
Governance, not quality
Academies are publicly funded and independent of local authority control, funded directly by central government and run by academy trusts. Independent schools here are privately funded. The three categories are governance, not quality, and the census records only which one a school is in.
Population
These figures cover schools and staff in England as recorded in the annual censuses: the school census for pupils and schools, and the school workforce census for staff. They count institutions and employees, not children with any particular characteristic, and they are not the 0–25 population used in the SEND chapter.