By Nik Taylor (editor, The Uni Guide) | 30 September 2025 | 7 minutes read
When is A-level results day 2026?
A-level results day is on Thursday 13 August 2026 in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.
In Scotland, SQA results are due to be released to students on Tuesday 4 August 2026.
You can pick your results up anytime from 8am, or whenever your school or college opens on the day.
1. Feeling ready for A-level results day
It's really common to feel some nerves in the run-up to results day. If you've got a conditional offer for a university place, you know that place depends on your grades.
Perhaps the most effective way to deal with this pre-results anxiety is to really take the time to understand all your options.
Remind yourself that you've given it your absolute best shot. Have a plan A, B and C in place to reassure yourself.KA_P, posting on The Student Room
Every year, universities go into results day with tens of thousands of university places unfilled. These go into Clearing, and you can search through them from 2 July onwards.
With all those courses to choose from, you can make some solid back-up plans for if your grades come out a bit lower than planned.
And remember, you can look upwards too. Ask yourself: if your grades end up higher than you expect, would there be another course you would want? Clearing can be used to switch in that case, too.
It can be a real weight off your mind if you work this stuff out well ahead of results day.
"Remember, you can look through Clearing vacancies before results day," says Joe Woodcock, head of community at The Student Room. "Clearing opens in early July and a lot of the courses will be listed from then.
"When you're looking through Clearing, it can make sense to start with courses available at other universities you've already researched. That might be some of your other Ucas choices, or perhaps other unis you've visited on open days."
You can collect your results from your school or college, or you can arrange to receive them via email or post. Check with your school to find out what time it will be open from.
Ucas receives your results directly and will update your Ucas Hub around 8.15am. The system will be busy, so you might need to be patient to find out whether you’ve been successful.
While you can check Ucas Hub to find out whether you’ve secured your university place, you’ll still need your results to see exactly what grades you got.
Ucas will open at 8am – in previous years it’s been a bit before this. It won’t tell you your results (that comes from your school) but you will know if you have been accepted or not.McGinger, posting on The Student Room)
3. What to expect from your uni offers
Depending on how your grades come out, you're likely to find yourself in one of the following situations.
You’ve met your firm offer
It's good news! Once your Ucas Hub status updates you’ll be sent a confirmation from your firm choice.
You’ve just missed the grades you needed for your university offer
If you just miss the offer conditions for your firm choice, you might find they still confirm your place anyway. Check your Hub: if you can see a banner that says your place is confirmed, then you're all good.
Alternatively, you might get offered a place on a different course at the same university. This is known as a ‘changed course offer’, which you’ll need to accept or decline.
You can decline your offer if you want to go into Clearing.
Plus, of course, even if you have missed your firm offer, you might still make your insurance (more on this below).
If you miss your firm offer, and the university will not accept you
It's worth talking through your options with your school or college, but here are a few things you could do:
accept your insurance place
apply to different universities through Clearing
retake your A-levels
reapply next year
If you missed the grades you needed by only a few marks you might decide to get a review of marking. If you do this, be sure to let your firm (and insurance) choices know, so you can find out where you stand if your grades improve.
At some point before you go, you’ll also need to change your student loan details – you might be entitled to a different amount of student finance depending on where you're now going to study.
You missed your insurance offer as well as your firm
Before you panic, check Hub – you may still have an offer. If the university hasn't made a decision yet, phone them up.
Realising that neither your firm nor insurance university will accept you can be hard, but you still have options.
To apply for a university place via Clearing, you'll need:
your Ucas ID number and log-in details.
your Ucas Clearing number – you will see this on Ucas Hub only if you're eligible for Clearing (like if you’ve been rejected by both your first and insurance choices)
your personal statement – universities in Clearing could ask you about what you've written, so it's a good idea to refer back to it.
You should check a university’s Clearing page for their opening hours. You need to know your results and have access to your Ucas Hub showing you're in Clearing (and ideally have good signal, lots of charge on your phone and not too much noise in the background!). Some universities are no longer accepting clearing enquiries over the phone and only accepting enquiries by web form.PQ, posting on The Student Room
What if you go onto Hub and nothing has changed?
Hub should update first thing on results day, but it's not uncommon for it to take a little longer. If your Hub hasn't updated by mid-morning on results day, you should phone the university as they might still be making a decision on your application.
If the university has a hotline number, it'll be listed on their website. If not, try calling their general help number and tell them you're an existing offer holder, rather than a Clearing applicant.
4. Other options if you don't get a uni place
If you don't want to rush into making a decision, you could take some time to reconsider your options.
Maybe you want to get some more work experience, retake your exams or defer your place for a year.
Alternatively, you might decide to forget about uni for the moment and look for an apprenticeship or a job
A gap year could offer you some valuable time out to get yourself into a stronger position to apply next year.
"Once you know your grades, you know the exact courses where you meet the entry requirements," says Joe. "This can make applying to university a whole lot easier - and you could learn a lot during your year off too."
