Average LNAT Score: The National Mean and Every University Figure

The average LNAT Section A score is roughly 23 out of 42. That figure comes from the last national statistics the LNAT Consortium published, covering 7,849 candidates in 2015/16, where the candidate-weighted mean raw score was 23.27 with a standard deviation of about 5.5. Since then the Consortium has stopped publishing national data, so every more recent “average” you will see, including ours, is a university applicant pool rather than the country. Those pool averages run from roughly 22 to 25, and the offer-holder averages sit four to six marks above them.

The national average, and why it is a decade old

The only national LNAT statistics in the public domain are in the Pearson VUE technical report covering 1 September 2015 to 30 June 2016. Across the 7,849 candidates who sat in that window, mean raw scores on the five test forms ranged from 22.04 to 24.43, giving a candidate-weighted mean of 23.27. Reliability was moderate (Cronbach’s alpha 0.68 to 0.76) and the average item was answered correctly by 56% of candidates.

Later technical reports exist but are circulated to member universities rather than published, and the Consortium’s public results page gives no averages at all. So 23 out of 42 is the last measured national mean, it is a decade old, and nothing published since contradicts it. Applicant averages disclosed by individual universities in the 2020s cluster between 22 and 25, which is what you would expect if the national mean has not moved much.

Average LNAT score by university

Section A scores are directly comparable between universities because every candidate sits the same 42-mark test. What differs is the pool. The figures below are the most recent published or FOI-disclosed averages for each university’s applicants and offer-holders.

*King’s publishes an enrolled-student mean rather than an offer-holder mean, so that row is not exactly comparable with the others. Bristol, Glasgow and SOAS require the LNAT for relevant routes but publish no comparable averages, so they are omitted rather than estimated.

How the averages have moved

Offer-holder averages track where each university has drawn its line, rather than who happened to apply, which makes them the series to follow. UCL’s is the longest run available: flat around 26 to 28 from 2013 to 2021, then a step up to roughly 29.5 from 2022. Cambridge has held near 30 across its three disclosed cycles.

The lines move slowly. No university in the chart shifts by more than about three marks across a decade, so last cycle’s figure is a reasonable guide to this one. The distance between universities is wider than the distance between years: Durham and LSE offer-holders average in the mid-20s while Oxford and Cambridge offer-holders average around 30, and that spread has held for as long as the data runs.

Why offer-holders average so much higher

At every university that has published both numbers, offer-holders average four to six marks above the applicant pool. No cut-off produces that gap: Oxford made offers to candidates scoring in the low 20s in 2025, and LSE has confirmed it operates no threshold. The gap appears because the chance of an offer climbs with the score, steeply at the top of the range.

So the applicant average is the wrong thing to measure yourself against. Scoring 24 puts you in the middle of the people who applied and five or six marks below the people who got in at the most selective universities. See the full score distributions for how sharply the offer rate turns as the score climbs.

Average essay scores are not comparable

Section B is not centrally marked, so there is no national essay average and no way to compare essay figures across universities. Oxford converts essays to a 0–100 comparative-judgement scale, where the 2025 offer-holder average was 65.21. Cambridge marks out of 10, with a 2025 offer-holder average of 7.49. UCL scores out of 5. Durham and King’s assign no numerical essay mark at all. A 65 at Oxford and a 7.49 at Cambridge are two instruments reading the same essay, so putting them side by side tells you nothing.

Who scores what

The 2015/16 report also broke scale scores down by candidate group, and the gaps are narrow. The whole spread between the highest and lowest scoring UK school types is 3.7 marks on a 42-mark test, and the male–female gap was 1.4 marks. Candidates aged 16 to 21 averaged 23.11, above older candidates.

Use those numbers to calibrate. The published gap between a sixth form college and a grammar school is about 2.7 marks, which sits well inside what preparation moves. Your school has not already decided your score.

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