- Admissions tests
What Is a Good TMUA Score? Cambridge, LSE and Imperial Data (2026)
- Published:
- Updated: September 1, 2026
- By Miguel
A good TMUA score is 6.5 or above, roughly the top 10 to 15% of test takers. A 7.0 is the realistic benchmark for Imperial Maths, LSE Economics and international Oxbridge applicants, while 5.0 already unlocks published reduced offers at Durham and Warwick. The TMUA now guards entry to maths-heavy degrees at seven universities, including every G5 institution, and these bands come from primary data: Freedom of Information (FOI) releases covering more than 4,500 individual Cambridge applicants across the 2023 and 2025 cycles, Imperial’s official outcomes dashboard read department by department, official FOI responses from Warwick and LSE, and our own analysis of UAT-UK’s published score distributions.
To find out where you currently stand, work through the official TMUA past papers and specimen tests, or start with our guide to how to prepare for the TMUA.
If you are applying to Cambridge for Mathematics you will also sit STEP, where offers usually ask for grade 1 in two papers. Our STEP past papers and resources has every paper from 2014 to 2025.
How the TMUA is scored
The TMUA is two 75-minute papers of 20 multiple-choice questions each: Paper 1 (Applications of Mathematical Knowledge) and Paper 2 (Mathematical Reasoning). There is no negative marking, and the 40 raw marks are converted into a single overall score from 1.0 (low) to 9.0 (high), reported to one decimal place. Scores are statistically equated across test versions, so a raw mark is worth more on a harder paper.
- Two papers, 40 questions
- One overall score, 1.0–9.0
- No negative marking
- Median candidate ≈ 4.0–4.5
- Top 10% ≈ 6.5–7.0
UAT-UK’s official explanation of results states two design anchors: typical candidates score around 4.5, and roughly 10% score above 7.0. We digitised the official distribution charts and computed the percentiles ourselves: in the October 2025 sitting the median sat at about 4.5 and roughly 12% scored 7.0 or above, while across the full 2025/26 cycle the median drops to about 4.0 and a 6.5 put you around the top 13%. The TMUA is hard: most candidates get well under half the questions right, and 6.5 to 7.0 is genuinely a top-decile-ish performance.
What counts as a good TMUA score?
Averaging across everything below, here is the honest quick answer, before we get into what each university’s data actually shows.
| TMUA score | What it means |
|---|---|
| 4.0–4.5 | Around the recent global median. Well below the typical successful applicant at the most selective courses. |
| 5.0 | Unlocks published reduced offers at Durham and Warwick. About the top third of the field. |
| 5.5–6.5 | Competitive. The middle of the Cambridge offer-holder pack starts here. |
| 6.5–7.0 | Strong. Roughly the top 10 to 15% of all test takers in the 2025/26 sittings. |
| 7.0+ | The realistic benchmark for Imperial Maths, LSE Economics and international Oxbridge applicants. |
| 8.0+ | Exceptional, but no guarantee: about 40% of Cambridge CompSci applicants in this band were still rejected. |
The TMUA moves the needle more than any other UK admissions test we have analysed. At Cambridge Computer Science in 2025, the offer rate ran from 0.2% below 4.0 to 60% above 8.0, a three-hundred-fold difference. Yet a third of successful applicants scored below 6.0, so a modest score is a headwind, not a verdict. If you have not yet sat a full paper under timed conditions, our free TMUA practice tests run both papers with the real clock.
Raw marks to TMUA score: the conversion
UAT-UK does not publish a conversion table for the current computer-based TMUA. But Cambridge released the official 2023 table under FOI, and it is the best available guide to how raw marks map to the scale. Two things stand out: the median candidate answers only about a third of the questions correctly, and the top of the scale is compressed, so every extra mark counts double up there.
| TMUA score | Raw marks (out of 40), 2023 official | Roughly % correct |
|---|---|---|
| 4.5 | 14 | 35% |
| 6.0 | 19 | 48% |
| 6.5 | 21 | 53% |
| 7.0 | ~26 | ~65% |
| 8.0 | 34 | 85% |
| 9.0 | 38–39 | 95%+ |
Treat any single row as a guide, not a boundary. Since 2024 the TMUA has been computer-based and equated with an item-response model, so the exact mapping shifts with each version’s difficulty. Use the table to set raw-mark targets in practice papers, to within two or three marks.
Cambridge: what the FOI data shows
For 2027 entry Cambridge requires the TMUA for Computer Science, Economics and, newly, Mathematics. Per-applicant FOI releases cover Computer Science in the 2025 cycle and both Computer Science and Economics in the 2023 cycle: more than 4,500 individual scores with offer outcomes. We analysed all of them in full.
Computer Science
| Group (2025 cycle) | TMUA score |
|---|---|
| Offer holders (162), mean | 6.69 (median 6.7) |
| Offer holders, middle 50% | 5.7–7.4 |
| Home offer holders (100), mean | 6.25 |
| International offer holders (62), mean | 7.40 |
| Non-offer holders, mean | 4.33 |
| All applicants (1,676), mean | 4.56 |
Only 9.7% of TMUA-takers received an offer, and scoring below 4.0 was effectively disqualifying: one offer among 591 applicants. The fee-status gap is large: international offer holders averaged 7.40 against 6.25 for home offer holders, so the realistic international benchmark is 7.0+, not 6.5. The pattern is not new: in the 2023 cycle, on the old paper-based test, offer holders averaged 7.05 with a 9.4% offer rate.
Economics
The 2023 per-applicant release also covers Economics: 1,274 applicants with scores and 177 offers, a 13.9% offer rate. Offer holders averaged 6.56 (median 6.7, lowest successful 3.9) against 5.21 for the whole field. College-level releases for 2024 entry show the same picture a year later: weighting each college’s published average by its offers, Economics offer holders averaged about 6.75 against roughly 5.4 for applicants, and college-level offer averages ranged from 5.8 to 7.5. Successful Economics applicants sit around a point and a half above the applicant field, a shade below Computer Science’s bar. No per-applicant data yet covers the new Mathematics requirement.
Knowing the benchmark is not the same as reaching it. Our tutors sat the TMUA themselves and coach it one to one, against the criteria the universities actually apply.
Book a free consultationYour chance of an offer, by score
Read the chart both ways. Crossing 6.0 roughly triples your odds and crossing 7.0 roughly doubles them again, to better than a coin flip in 2025. And scores decide nothing on their own: 35% of successful 2025 CompSci applicants scored below 6.0, the lowest successful applicant scored 3.8, and even in the 8.0+ band about 40% were rejected. The interview and the rest of the application do real work.
Imperial: a two-point spread between departments
Imperial used the TMUA for 2025 entry across four departments. It publishes its outcomes in an interactive dashboard on its admissions-test pages; we read it department by department.
| Department | Offer holders, mean | Rejected without interview | Offer rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mathematics | 7.6 | 4.7 | 19% |
| Joint Maths and Computing | 7.5 | 4.6 | 14% |
| Computing | 6.2 | 3.7 | 15% |
| Economics, Finance and Data Science | 5.3 | 3.2 | 15% |
Imperial Mathematics and JMC are, on this evidence, the most score-hungry TMUA courses in the country: successful applicants averaged 7.5 to 7.6, and successful overseas maths applicants averaged a remarkable 8.4 (Home widening-participation 5.7, other Home 7.0). Computing sits at 6.2 and the Business School degree at 5.3, so “a good score for Imperial” spans fully two points depending on the course. The score bar tracks the competition behind it: among Imperial’s most competitive departments, Joint Maths and Computing admits 5.5% of applicants and Mathematics 6.8%.
LSE, Warwick, Durham, UCL and Oxford
LSE requires the TMUA for BSc Economics and BSc Econometrics and Mathematical Economics for 2027 entry, and recommends it for eight further quantitative degrees. An FOI release covering 2025 entry shows the most score-selective field in the country: for BSc Economics the median applicant scored 6.7 and the median offer holder 7.1 (middle 50%: 6.5 to 7.4, lowest successful 3.9); Mathematics with Economics offer holders had a median of 7.35. Earlier releases show the bar has sat around 6.5 to 7.5 since the days when submitting a score was optional. Treat 7.0+ as the realistic benchmark. The gap is narrow because the applicant pool is already filtered: the LSE acceptance rate across all programmes is 6.6%.
Warwick requires the TMUA for Computer Science (except contextual offers) and TMUA or STEP for Mathematics, and its statistics, MORSE and data science offers typically include the option to meet requirements via a 5.0. Warwick’s own FOI response for the 2025 cycle shows how different its bar is from the G5’s: offer holders averaged 5.92 in Mathematics, 5.16 in Discrete Mathematics, 4.86 in MORSE, 4.45 in Computer Science and just 3.93 in Economics, barely outscoring the applicant field in every subject. At Warwick a mid-4 is unremarkable and a 5.5+ is strong, where the same scores at Imperial Maths or LSE would be far below par.
Durham strongly encourages the TMUA for Mathematics and publishes the clearest deal anywhere: a score of 5.0 or above qualifies you for consideration for a reduced offer, one grade below standard. UCL uses the TMUA for Economics only, where the UCL Economics acceptance rate is 10.8%: 500 places from 4,639 applications. Oxford replaced the MAT with the TMUA for Mathematics, Computer Science and their joint courses from the October 2026 sitting, so no Oxford outcome data exists yet; the Cambridge benchmarks (6.5+, ideally 7.0+) are the sensible proxy.
What you should aim for
| Applying for | Realistic target | Stretch target |
|---|---|---|
| Cambridge Computer Science (Home) | 6.5 | 7.5+ |
| Cambridge CompSci (International) | 7.0 | 8.0+ |
| Cambridge Economics / Mathematics | 6.5 | 7.5+ |
| Oxford Maths / CompSci (proxy) | 6.5 | 7.5+ |
| Imperial Mathematics / JMC | 7.0 | 8.0+ |
| Imperial Computing | 6.0 | 7.0+ |
| Imperial Econ, Finance & Data Science | 5.0–5.5 | 6.5+ |
| LSE Economics / EME | 7.0 | 7.5+ |
| Warwick Maths / CompSci | 5.5 (5.0 unlocks alternative offers) | 6.5+ |
| Warwick Economics | 4.5 | 5.5+ |
| Durham Mathematics | 5.0 (reduced offer) | 6.0+ |
| UCL Economics | 6.0 | 7.0+ |
In raw-mark terms, using the 2023 conversion as a guide: a 6.5 means roughly 21 out of 40 in a typical past paper, and a 7.0 roughly 26 out of 40. Because the scale compresses at the top, the difference between a good and an exceptional sitting is only a handful of questions, which is why timed accuracy on the hardest questions is where preparation pays off most. Prepare for the test as if it decides everything, then prepare for the interview because it does not.
Sitting the ESAT for engineering or natural sciences instead? We have run the same analysis on that test, with the same FOI-first approach, in What Is a Good ESAT Score?
Preparing for the TMUA?
Our Oxford and Cambridge graduate tutors specialise in the logic, proof and problem-solving the TMUA rewards, the areas school maths rarely covers. See how we can help.
Scores are one gate among several. For the wider picture of offers and places, see our guide to the Cambridge acceptance rate.
Find this article useful? Check out our other resources for students sitting the TMUA.
Admissions Test Simulator
Practise the TMUA under timed conditions with original questions.
Personal Statement Guide
Learn how to structure and write a UCAS personal statement.
TMUA Past Papers and Resources
Practise the TMUA with official past papers and other resources.
- University of Cambridge FOI 2025/1098: per-applicant TMUA data, Computer Science 2025 cycle
- University of Cambridge FOI 2023/736: per-applicant TMUA data, Computer Science and Economics 2023 cycle
- University of Cambridge FOI 2023/812: Economics TMUA averages by college, 2023 entry
- Imperial College London: Understanding your ESAT and TMUA scores (outcomes dashboard)
- LSE FOI6355: TMUA quartiles for applicants and offer holders, 2025 entry
- LSE FOI 5409: TMUA statistics 2021/22 to 2023/24
- University of Warwick FOI-1001142.25-26: TMUA scores by course, 2024 and 2025 cycles
- UAT-UK: TMUA Explanation of Results, October 2025 and January 2026
- University of Cambridge FOI: TMUA 2023 score conversion table
- UAT-UK: the TMUA (format, scoring and universities)
- LSE: TMUA requirements
- University of Warwick: admissions tests
- Durham University: Mathematics entry requirements
- University of Oxford: maths admissions test
Frequently asked questions
In the 2025 cycle, successful Computer Science applicants had a median TMUA of 6.7, and in 2023 Economics offer holders averaged 6.56. Anything above 6.5 puts you around the typical offer holder; 7.0+ is the safer benchmark, especially for international applicants, whose successful median runs a point higher.
LSE Economics is the most score-selective field in the country: in the 2025 entry cycle the median applicant scored 6.7 and the median offer holder 7.1, with the middle half of successful applicants between 6.5 and 7.4. Aim for 7.0 or above.
A 5.0 puts you around the top third of all test takers, and it is the published threshold for reduced-offer consideration at Durham and for Warwick’s alternative offers on statistics and MORSE degrees. At Cambridge, though, applicants scoring 5.0 to 6.0 received offers only about 10% of the time.
On the official 2023 conversion table, a 6.5 corresponded to 21 out of 40, and a 7.0 to about 26 out of 40. The current computer-based test is equated per version, so treat these as targets accurate to within two or three marks.
In practice, yes. International offer holders for Cambridge Computer Science averaged 7.40 against 6.25 for home offer holders, and successful overseas applicants to Imperial Mathematics averaged 8.4. The international field is stronger on average and universities read scores in context.
No university publishes a cut-off, and the data shows offers at surprisingly low scores: the lowest successful Cambridge CompSci applicant in 2025 scored 3.8 and the lowest successful LSE Economics applicant 3.9. In practice, though, scoring below 4.0 made a Cambridge offer vanishingly unlikely: one offer among 591 applicants.
