Students reporting a sexual orientation of lesbian, gay, bisexual or ‘other’ and students reporting their gender identity as not the same as the sex registered at birth
The term LGBT+ is typically used in studies to refer to students who report their sexual orientation as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or of other minority sexualities and gender identities. Other terms used include ‘LGBTQ’ and ‘LGBTQ+’.
Some studies differentiate and separate out sexual orientation (e.g. lesbian, gay, bisexual, other or heterosexual) and gender identities.
Key statistics
Continuation – Progression:
The Education and Skills Funding Agency’s (ESFA’s) individualised learner record (ILR), The Student Return, collected by the Designated Data Body (DDB) and The Student Alternative (SA) record, collected by the Designated Data Body (DDB).
On a provider level:
The size and shape of provision data dashboard has information on the sexual orientation of students (4-way).
The TEF data dashboard: Data dashboard has information on the continuation, completion and progression rates of students by age (3-way).
On a national level:
The student characteristics data: Outcomes data dashboard has information on the profile, continuation, completion, attainment and progression rates of students by sexual orientation (3-way).
The National Student Survey data: student characteristics data has information on the experience of students by sexual orientation (3-way).
Note: Definitions and the quality of each study vary.
Bachmann, C.L. and Gooch, B. (2018) LGBT in Britain: Health report. Stonewall Group. (Accessed 12/01/2024)
HEPI (2023) ‘Student Academic Experience Survey 2023’. HEPI. (Accessed 12/12/2023)
UCAS ‘Next Steps: What is the experience of LGBT+ Students in Education?’ (Accessed 12/12/2023)
WONKHE and Pearson (2022) ‘Students' perceptions of belonging and inclusion at university’. (Accessed 12/12/2023)
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