Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what data her Department holds on (a) the number of people aged 60 and over currently enrolled in further education, (b) the number of people aged 60 and over currently undertaking postgraduate study, and (c) the number of people aged 60 and over who have completed a PhD in each of the last ten years.

Adult further education and skills learner participation by age is published in the further education and skills statistics publication which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/further-education-and-skills/2024-25. However, participation figures for the 60+ age group specifically are not published

In 2024/25, there were 307,750 further education and skills learners aged 50 and above. The following table presents numbers of further education and skills learners by age for academic years between 2019/20 and 2024/25: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/dc701901-2aeb-421f-4a31-08de398c3998.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) is responsible for collecting and publishing data on the UK higher education (HE) sector. In the academic year 2023/24, across all modes of study, there were 7,415 postgraduate student enrolments aged 60+ across all UK HE providers. The following table presents numbers of HE students by age and permanent address for academic years between 2019/20 and 2023/24: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/students/table-58.

Data on the number of people aged 60 and over who have completed a PhD in each of the last ten years is not published, but has been produced using unpublished HESA data and, for qualifiers across all UK HE providers, is shown in the table below:

Note - Age taken at start of final year of study