Essential Digital Skills

We’ve improved our Essential Digital Skills qualifications 

We're making improvements to our Essential Digital Skills qualifications (EDSQ) to enhance the learner experience, simplify assessment and provide greater support for centres and delivery staff. 

These changes focus on four key areas: accessibility, moderation, results, and support. 

Improving accessibility 

We've reviewed our assessments to help learners demonstrate their skills and knowledge more effectively. 

What's changing? 

• Learners will be able to demonstrate their skills and knowledge in a more flexible way as they will have the option to download assessments and sit offline. This reduces reliance on internet access during assessments and helps learners to demonstrate their skills and knowledge without being limited by connectivity. 

Benefits for learners: 

• Increased accessibility for all learners 

• Assessments can be downloaded via SecureClient and sat offline, reducing dependence on reliable internet access
• Greater focus on demonstrating knowledge and practical skills. 

Enhanced moderation and faster results 

To improve consistency and confidence in assessment outcomes, we're moving from internally marked to externally marked assessments. 

What's changing? 

• Assessments will now be marked by our experienced examiners. 
• External marking will support greater consistency and clarity across all qualifications. 
• The requirement for a witness observation record has been removed. 
• Learners can now upload all required assessment evidence directly to the online assessment platform. 

Result timelines: 

• Results will be issued on the sixth working day following a successful assessment upload. 
• Where new assessment papers are introduced, results will be issued on the 35th working day following a successful assessment upload. 

Benefits for centres and learners: 

• More consistent marking across all assessments 
• A simpler evidence submission process 
• Reduced administrative requirements 
• Published result timelines. 

Ongoing support for providers 

Alongside these qualification updates, we're strengthening the support available to centres and delivery teams. 

Sample assessment materials: 

• new sample assessment materials are available at every level 
• additional practice papers will be released soon 
• onscreen sample assessments can be booked and completed through Surpass 
• in-browser versions are available through the EDSQ Online Sample Assessments webpage. 

Expert guidance 

Our External Quality Assurance and Assessment Delivery teams will continue to provide guidance and support whenever you need it. Our Provider Development team will deliver updated training and events to support successful qualification delivery. 

Benefits for providers: 

• access to up-to-date training and guidance 
• enhanced preparation materials for learners 
• dedicated support from specialist teams 
• greater confidence in qualification delivery. 

Key dates 

• We're excited to announce that our updated assessment papers will be available from 27 October 2026. 
• The last opportunity for learners to sit the current internally assessed version will be Tuesday 20 October 2026. 
• More information about new paper introductions and results release dates is available on our delivery support page. 

What this means for you 

These updates make EDSQ more accessible; simplifying assessment and evidence collection and supporting more consistent outcomes for learners, centres, and providers. 

For more information about these changes and the support available, visit our delivery support page. 

What are Essential Digital Skills qualifications?

Our Essential Digital Skills qualifications (EDSQ) are funded qualifications mapped to national standards for essential digital literacy. These qualifications are designed to meet digital knowledge gaps and provide vital skills for life.

What are Essential Digital skills?

• Using devices and handling information
• Creating and editing
• Communicating
• Transacting
• Being safe and responsible online.

Our Essential Digital Skills qualifications are available at Entry Level 3  and  Level 1, perfect for learners between 16 − 19 and adult learners.

Skills Builder: initial assessment and resources

Skills Builder provides EDSQ initial assessment and resources that are mapped to the new qualifications. These have been developed in collaboration with the digital subject matter experts who developed the national standards for the Department for Education, to ensure their effectiveness.

Your learners will go through a range of initial assessments so you can understand their current digital skills and competency based on their results. Then, we’ll provide an individual skills plan tailored to each learner’s specific needs with areas identified for improvement.

The easy-to-navigate platform is available 24/7, so your learners can develop their skills on demand at a time that suits them.

For more information on our EDSQ qualifications and Skills Builder, please fill in the contact form above.