TMUA October vs January Results: Why Are the Distributions Different?
Official 2024-25 and 2025-26 statistics explained: cohort differences, comparable scaled scores, and the percentile mistake to avoid.
The Difference Is Large and Repeats Across Both Cycles
Official UAT-UK technical reports show that October candidates scored higher on average than January candidates in both available computer-based cycles.
| Cycle and sitting | Candidates | Mean | Median | 75th percentile | 90th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 2024 | 8,987 | 4.58 | 4.5 | 5.7 | 7.0 |
| January 2025 | 4,868 | 3.51 | 3.3 | 4.4 | 5.4 |
| October 2025 | 9,685 | 4.62 | 4.5 | 5.8 | 7.0 |
| January 2026 | 6,407 | 3.78 | 3.6 | 4.6 | 5.9 |
Does This Mean January Is Harder?
No conclusion about test difficulty follows from the distributions alone. The sittings contain different candidate groups. Course deadlines and university rules affect who takes each sitting, so the populations are not random samples of the same group. A lower January mean can arise from cohort composition even when equating is working as intended.
Are the Scaled Scores Comparable?
The purpose of IRT calibration and equating is to place results from different forms and sittings onto the same reporting scale. A 6.0 is therefore intended to represent the same position on the reported ability scale, not “better because it came from January”. What changes is the proportion of each sitting that reaches that score.
The Percentile Trap
Your percentile depends on the reference population. A score may have one percentile within October candidates, another within January candidates and another in the combined annual cohort. Always state which distribution you are using.
For example, the 2024-25 combined cycle had 13,855 candidates, a mean of 4.20, median of 4.0 and 90th percentile of 6.5. Those combined figures should not be described as the October-only distribution, whose median was 4.5 and 90th percentile was 7.0.
What Applicants Should Actually Do
- Choose a sitting according to official course and deadline requirements, not because one cohort has a lower mean.
- Interpret your scaled score first; use percentiles only as cohort context.
- Do not infer an admissions cutoff from a national score distribution.
- When comparing online claims, check whether they refer to October, January or the combined cycle.
Sources and Interactive Data
The figures above come from the UAT-UK TMUA Technical Reports for 2024-25 and 2025-26. The MioMath results archive links the original documents and lets you explore digitised distributions from 2016 to 2025. Digitised chart bars are measurements of official figures, not official numeric tables, and are displayed with uncertainty notes.
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