PRINCE2 statistics
The first time I wrote an article about the number of people sitting PRINCE2 exams was in 2012. That year was when the total number of people having sat a PRINCE2 exam reaching over 1 million.
I was able to compile the data in 2012 because the PRINCE2 accreditation body at the time (APMG) used to publish quarterly statistics showing the numbers of PRINCE2 exams being sat each month. Soon after, the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) decided to partly privatise PRINCE2 by setting up a joint venture with AXELOS, which was 51% owned by Capita plc.
PRINCE2 trend
After AXELOS came into being, statistics showing the number of students taking a PRINCE2 exam stopped being made public. However, from the published data until 2012 we could see a clear trend emerging.
That was that the number of students sitting a PRINCE2 exam was increasing globally every year. In fact, 2009 was the only year between the launch of PRINCE2 in 1996 and 2012 when the number of students taking an exam declined compared to the previous year. That was due to the extreme credit crunch in late 2008 and early 2009.
However, from 2010, the ever-increasing trend of year-on-year growth continued.
PRINCE2 exams since 2013
We are left with a predicament when forecasting the numbers of examinations. With no data from AXELOS, the next best thing is to make some assumptions.
I have conservatively assumed that the number of exams per year has continued at a flat rate of 100,000 per year (worldwide). Based upon this assumption, we can see from the data that over 2 million exams have been sat somewhere in the world between 1996 and 2022.
