Government statistics on funded early education and childcare show ‘concerning’ trend
The Department for Education has published official statistics on ‘Funded early education and childcare’. These are the annual statistics on children under five registered for government funded entitlements in England.
This is the first time this publication of statistics include registrations for the new entitlements for children of eligible working parents aged nine months to two years.
These statistics cover the:
- universal entitlement for all 3 and 4-year-olds;
- working parent entitlement for eligible children aged 9 months to 4 years; and
- families receiving additional support (FRAS) entitlement for eligible 2-year-olds (formerly known as the disadvantaged entitlement).
Tim McLachlan, NDNA’s Chief Executive said: “The increase in funded early education and care place shows how hard the sector is working to support working families. Recent Ofsted data showed it is doing this while maintaining the record of 98% of providers being good or outstanding.
“Nurseries and preschools in the private and voluntary sector continue to be vital to the delivery of these places, ensuring children have the best start in life and supporting working families.
“We are concerned about the drop in take up of places for children from disadvantaged families and the universal funded hours. We cannot lose sight of the fact that these are the children who have the most to gain from access to high quality early education and care.”
Key headlines:
- In 2025, 1.7 million children were registered for government funded entitlements, up a third or over 400,000 children from a year earlier. This is driven by children aged 9 months to 2 years registered for the expanded working parent entitlement.
- In 2025, there were 55,000 providers delivering the entitlements, the first increase in five years (up 5,800 or 12%). This was driven by an increase in the number of providers delivering the working parent entitlement (up 9,200 or 26%) and by the number of childminders delivering any entitlement (up 5,600 or 43%).
- 93% of 3- and 4-year-olds were registered for the universal entitlement – down 0.5 percentage points from 2024, the lowest on record.
- 1.2 million 3- and 4-year-olds were registered for the universal entitlement – down 1.2% (14,200) from 2024.
- 91% of eligible 3- and 4-year-olds were registered for the working parent entitlement – up 5 percentage points from 2024, the highest on record.
- 379,000 eligible 3- and 4-year-olds were registered for the working parent entitlement – up 5% (17,200) from 2024.
- 457,000 eligible children aged 9 months to 2 years were registered for the working parent entitlement – covering new entitlements rolled out in 2024.
- 72% of eligible 9-month to 2-year-olds were registered for the working parent entitlement.
- 95,000 eligible 2-year-olds were registered for the FRAS (disadvantaged) entitlement – down 18% (20,800) from 2024.
- 65% of eligible 2-year-olds were registered for the FRAS entitlement – down 10 percentage points from 2024, the lowest in the series.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “It is brilliant to see our reforms to early education delivering for so many families, with tens of thousands more funded places and staff compared with stagnating numbers just last year, and more parents than ever accessing government funded childcare.
“Through our Plan for Change we are setting up even more parents to benefit from September’s expansion to 30 funded hours, saving them up to £7,500 per year, alongside our investment in free breakfast clubs and school based nurseries to give parents more choice and slash costs.
“But there is more to do to make sure the system works for all families who need it, which is why, through our Best Start in Life strategy, we have committed to making it easier for every family to access support, including through our 1,000 Best Start in Life Family Hubs in every corner of the country.”
Read the full report here https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/funded-early-education-and-childcare-2025
- childcare
- Department for Education
- early years
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