UK Maths Competitions and Enrichment for Able Children 2026-27

In short

The main maths competitions for able children in the UK are run by the UK Mathematics Trust (UKMT): the Junior, Intermediate and Senior Mathematical Challenges, their Kangaroo and olympiad follow-on rounds, the British Mathematical Olympiad and two team challenges. Alongside them sit the Primary Mathematics Challenge for ages 9 to 11, the Scottish Mathematical Challenge, and in computing the free UK Bebras Challenge, the TechFirst Girls Competition (formerly CyberFirst Girls) and the British Informatics Olympiad. Enrichment comes through Ri Masterclasses, UKMT summer schools and free university maths clubs. Nearly all are entered through a school. Modern Age Coders is not connected with any organiser; we teach the problem-solving behind them live online, in a group batch of 15 to 20 or one-to-one, through our Olympiad and Competition Maths course, and the first class is free.

Where to start

Three courses for a child who wants harder problems

Multiple-choice papers, written olympiad answers, and programs a judge runs.

$Middle School Math Competitions course thumbnail$

UKEC / 01

Competition maths, Years 6 to 9

Multiple-choice papers of the Kangaroo and Junior Challenge kind: reading a question fast, eliminating options honestly, and spotting the structure under a puzzle.

Open the syllabus →

Maths Olympiad & Competition Course course thumbnail

UKEC / 02

Olympiad and competition maths

From the first written olympiad answer to proofs at sixth-form level, with every solution read by a teacher as a stranger would read it.

Open the syllabus →

UKEC / 03

Competitive programming

For pupils heading towards the British Informatics Olympiad: algorithms, testing a program until it breaks, and three hours of sustained work.

Open the syllabus →

The master table

Which UK maths and computing competitions run in 2026-27, and who can enter?

Twenty rows, one per competition or linked set of rounds. Each row was read at the organiser's own page on 1 November 2026; year groups are given for England and Wales first, with the Scottish and Northern Irish equivalent where the organiser publishes one.

UK maths and computing competitions, 2026 to 2027 season
Competition	Organiser	Who can sit it	Format	When
Primary Mathematics Challenge	The Primary Mathematics Challenge, a charity	Aged 9 to 11, in primary school	25 questions, 20 of them multiple choice, 45 minutes	9 to 20 November 2026; Bonus Round February 2027
Primary Kangaroo	UKMT	Year 5/6 or below; P6/P7 or below in Scotland and Northern Ireland	20 multiple-choice questions, 45 minutes	18 to 25 March 2027
Junior Mathematical Challenge	UKMT	Year 8 and below; S2; Year 9 in Northern Ireland	25 multiple-choice questions, 60 minutes	5 May 2027
Junior Kangaroo	UKMT	Year 8 and below, UK schools only	25 multiple-choice questions, 60 minutes	15 June 2027
Junior Mathematical Olympiad	UKMT	Year 8 and below; around 1,200 qualify from the JMC	Six olympiad questions, 2 hours, written	15 June 2027
Intermediate Mathematical Challenge	UKMT	Year 11 and below; S4; Year 12 in Northern Ireland	25 multiple-choice questions, 60 minutes	27 January 2027
Grey and Pink Kangaroos	UKMT	Grey Year 9 and below; Pink Years 10 and 11	25 multiple-choice questions, 60 minutes	18 March 2027
Cayley, Hamilton and Maclaurin olympiads	UKMT	Cayley Year 9 and below, Hamilton Year 10, Maclaurin Year 11; around 1,800 qualify from the IMC	Six olympiad problems, 2 hours, written	18 March 2027
Senior Mathematical Challenge	UKMT	Year 13 and below; S6; Year 14 in Northern Ireland	22 multiple-choice and three 000 to 999 answers, 90 minutes	7 October 2026 (already sat this season)
Andrew Jobbings Senior Kangaroo	UKMT	Year 13 and below, UK schools only	20 integer-answer questions, 60 minutes	18 November 2026
British Mathematical Olympiad Round 1	UKMT	Year 13 and below; around 1,000 invited from the SMC	Six problems, 3.5 hours, full written solutions	18 November 2026
British Mathematical Olympiad Round 2	UKMT	Year 13 and below; around 100 invited from BMO1	Four problems, 3.5 hours, full written solutions	20 January 2027
Mathematical Olympiad for Girls	UKMT	Year 11 and above; S4; Year 12 in Northern Ireland	Five problems, 2.5 hours, two answer-only and three written	22 September 2026 (already sat this season)
Mathematical Competition for Girls	UKMT	As for the girls' olympiad; a pupil sits one or the other	Five answer-only questions, 90 minutes	22 September 2026 (already sat this season)
Team Maths Challenge	UKMT	Years 8 and 9; S1 to S3; Years 9 and 10 in Northern Ireland	Teams of four, four rounds, one team per school	Registration from 5 October 2026; events from February 2027
Senior Team Maths Challenge	UKMT	Years 12 and 13; S5 and S6; Years 13 and 14 in Northern Ireland	Teams of four, three rounds, regional finals	Regional finals from November 2026
Scottish Mathematical Challenge	Scottish Mathematical Council	P7 and S1 to S6, in four divisions	Two rounds for secondary, three for primary; explanations marked	See the organiser's page for this year's rounds
UK Bebras Challenge	Raspberry Pi Foundation	All young people aged 6 to 19	Interactive online tasks, 45 minutes, free	9 to 20 November 2026
TechFirst Girls Competition	TechFirst, delivered by IBM	Girls aged 12 to 13: Year 8; S2; Year 9 in Northern Ireland	Team technology challenges online, free	11 to 20 November 2026
British Informatics Olympiad	The British Informatics Olympiad	Under 19, full-time pre-university, resident in mainland Britain	Three-hour programming exam at school, free	Round one in December and January; the 2027 window was not yet published

Sources, all read 1 November 2026: the UKMT competitions calendar and each UKMT round page; the Primary Mathematics Challenge; the Scottish Mathematical Council's Mathematical Challenge page; TechFirst for schools on GOV.UK for the TechFirst Girls Competition and UK Bebras; and the British Informatics Olympiad. Entry prices are not repeated here. We have no connection with any of these bodies.

The thread

Who actually enters a child for these?

Almost always the school, and that changes what a parent should do first.

UKMT is plain about it: every pupil is entered through a registered UKMT centre, and "Your institution must be in the UK, a Crown Dependency or be a British International School." The Primary Mathematics Challenge goes through schools too, teachers register UK Bebras and TechFirst Girls entries, and BIO round one is sat at school and marked by a teacher before moderation.

Enrichment is narrower still. Ri Masterclasses work by nomination: "Masterclasses are free to attend, school students are nominated by their teacher." Summer school invitations go through schools, one pupil per school.

So the most useful conversation is with the head of maths or the computing teacher, not a tutor. Ask which challenges the school enters, whether it puts a team forward, and whether it nominates for masterclasses.

Families outside school have a route too, though it is a favour rather than a right. UKMT says a homeschooled child can approach a local school that is a registered centre and ask to be hosted, "however they are not obliged to do so".

Enrichment and able pupils

What enrichment is there for able maths pupils in the UK?

Enrichment means maths beyond the syllabus with no exam at the end. The UK has a mix of free university outreach, nominated programmes and things a family can simply join, and the pages below take each in turn.

The mathematics national curriculum in England does not ask schools to race able pupils ahead. It says pupils who grasp concepts rapidly "should be challenged through being offered rich and sophisticated problems before any acceleration through new content". Our page on gifted and talented maths and coding in the UK starts from that sentence and asks what stretch in maths and in programming looks like when a child is not simply moved up a year.

A maths circle is the gentlest way in: a small group meeting regularly over one rich problem. The Oxford Online Maths Club, a weekly recorded livestream, needs "no registration". Online maths circles in the UK lists the free university options and who each suits.

Masterclasses are more formal. The Royal Institution ran its first secondary series in 1981, primary in 1998, and "secondary school Computer Science Masterclasses launched in 2014". The maths masterclasses for able students page covers nomination and what to do without one.

Summer schools are the most selective. UKMT's residential week invites pupils aged 14 to 16 "selected at random from the top 1.5% of results from the Intermediate Mathematical Challenge". The online maths summer school page explains the invitations and gives a summer plan for everyone else.

For children learning at home, maths for home-educated children deals with law, planning and exams. For teenagers who want coding to count, coding for the Duke of Edinburgh Skills section maps it onto Bronze, Silver and Gold; the DofE asks for "an average of 1 hour a week" and a finish "before your 25th birthday".

Quoted from the National curriculum in England: mathematics programmes of study, UKMT Summer Schools, Ri Masterclasses, the Oxford Online Maths Club and DofE timescales, read raw between 31 October and 1 November 2026.

Maths competitions

Which maths competitions can UK pupils enter, and how do the rounds connect?

UKMT runs three stages: a multiple-choice first round in school, a Kangaroo follow-on for many high scorers, and a written olympiad for fewer. Around them sit a primary challenge, team events and Scotland's own competition.

UKMT says "over 700,000 young people take part" in its challenges, Kangaroos and olympiads each year, and the first-round papers carry the same instruction to every candidate: "Do not expect to finish the whole paper in the time allowed." On those papers "calculators and measuring instruments are forbidden". And "All UKMT Competitions are now paper-format only", so practise on paper.

For a parent seeing the whole ladder for the first time, maths olympiad training in the UK is the overview of every written round and how training changes as a pupil climbs.

The youngest competitors start with the Primary Maths Challenge, a 25-question paper for ages 9 to 11 whose last five questions offer no options at all; that page is about pacing. The multiple-choice follow-ons, Junior, Grey, Pink and Senior, are covered together on UKMT Kangaroo rounds practice, including what the wrong options are there for.

UKMT Team Maths Challenge practice covers the junior and sixth-form team events, where "a maximum of two students from the older year group" may sit in a team of four.

The Junior Mathematical Olympiad page is about a twelve-year-old's first written proof. The Cayley, Hamilton and Maclaurin page sorts out which year sits which paper.

At the top, the British Mathematical Olympiad page covers BMO1 and BMO2, which UKMT calls "the UK's hardest national mathematics competition". The Mathematical Olympiad for Girls page explains its mix of answer-only and written problems.

The Scottish Mathematical Challenge has run since 1976, from P7 to S6, and marks the explanation rather than the bare answer.

How the UKMT rounds connect in 2026-27
First round	Kangaroo follow-on	Olympiad follow-on	Invited, roughly
Junior Challenge, 5 May 2027	Junior Kangaroo, 15 June 2027	Junior Mathematical Olympiad, 15 June 2027	Around 1,200 to the olympiad
Intermediate Challenge, 27 January 2027	Grey or Pink Kangaroo, 18 March 2027	Cayley, Hamilton or Maclaurin, 18 March 2027	Around 1,800 to the olympiads; several thousand to the Kangaroos
Senior Challenge, 7 October 2026	Andrew Jobbings Senior Kangaroo, 18 November 2026	BMO1, 18 November 2026, then BMO2, 20 January 2027	Around 1,000 to BMO1; around 100 to BMO2

Every date and invitation figure in this table is UKMT's own, from its round pages read on 1 November 2026. Schools can also buy discretionary entries for most follow-on rounds.

Computing programmes and competitions

What computing competitions and programmes are there, and what happened to CyberFirst?

Fewer contests than maths, most of them free, and one big change in 2026: CyberFirst is now part of TechFirst.

GOV.UK describes TechFirst as "the government's flagship tech skills programme", and its guidance pages are published under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. The National Cyber Security Centre, which ran CyberFirst from 2016, says the programme "has now transitioned over to TechFirst under the leadership of DCMS", with the NCSC staying on as the cyber pathway lead.

The old bursary is now an undergraduate scholarship. CyberFirst courses and bursary in 2026 sorts out which free courses still run and what the scholarship asks for: at least 120 UCAS tariff points and a degree "in any subject to start in September 2027".

The girls' competition is now the TechFirst Girls Competition, "a free, UK wide competition for girls aged 12 to 13, delivered by IBM", building on "the CyberFirst Girls Competition, which ran from 2016 to 2025". Teachers registered teams from 5 October to 10 November 2026 and the competition runs from 11 to 20 November 2026. The CyberFirst Girls Competition page covers the rename and the logic the puzzles lean on.

UK Bebras Challenge practice is for anyone aged 6 to 19: 45 minutes of interactive tasks from 9 to 20 November 2026, run by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, where "every participant receives a certificate". At the other end, the British Informatics Olympiad is a three-hour programming exam for under-19s "resident in mainland Britain", with a final in Cambridge and a team of four sent to the International Olympiad in Informatics.

For the very youngest, KS1 coding lessons online explains what the computing curriculum expects in Years 1 and 2, the prediction and debugging a six-year-old Bebras entrant meets. The UK competitions calendar lays out every coding, maths and AI contest month by month, cipher and AI contests included.

Sources: TechFirst and TechFirst for schools on GOV.UK, both showing "From: Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport", read 1 November 2026; the NCSC Cyber Skills pages, read 31 October 2026; the TechFirst Undergraduate Scholarship guidance on GOV.UK; the BIO overview, read 1 November 2026.

How to choose

How do you choose the right competition or programme for your child?

Start from the school year and the school, not the competition. Seven steps.

Write down your child's school year in the organiser's terms. UKMT sets eligibility by school year, and the same pupil is Year 8 in England or Wales, S2 in Scotland and Year 9 in Northern Ireland.
Ask the school whether it is a registered UKMT centre and whether it enters UK Bebras. Those answers decide most of what follows.
Find the first-round paper that matches the year: the Primary Mathematics Challenge or Primary Kangaroo at the top of primary school, the Junior Challenge up to Year 8, the Intermediate up to Year 11, the Senior up to Year 13. A Year 7 or 8 pupil is eligible for the Intermediate as well as the Junior.
Add one computing contest. UK Bebras suits almost everyone from age 6; the TechFirst Girls Competition suits girls in Year 8; the British Informatics Olympiad suits a sixth former who already programs.
Ask about the nominated programmes early: masterclass nominations come from teachers, summer school invitations reach schools in March, and team places are limited to one team per school for the Team Maths Challenge.
Practise on the organisers' own free past papers, on paper, and for written rounds practise full explanations.
Then open the page for that round, above or in the full list at the foot of this page.

A worked example, ours. Three made-up pupils in England, planned against the published 2026 to 2027 dates and lengths. They assume a child qualifies at every step, which most do not.

Our illustrative years, minutes computed by us on 1 November 2026 from the organisers' published lengths
Pupil	The year, in order	Paper time if every round is reached
Year 5	Primary Mathematics Challenge (November), UK Bebras (November), Primary Kangaroo (March)	45 + 45 + 45 = 135 minutes
Year 8	UK Bebras (November), Intermediate Challenge (January), Cayley (March), Junior Challenge (May), Junior Mathematical Olympiad (June)	45 + 60 + 120 + 60 + 120 = 405 minutes, 6 hours 45 minutes
Year 12	Senior Challenge (October), BMO1 (November), BMO2 (January), BIO round one (December or January)	90 + 210 + 210 + 180 = 690 minutes, 11 hours 30 minutes

The arithmetic shows how small the competitions themselves are: even our busiest Year 12 pupil spends under twelve hours in an exam room all year.

The Year 8 row surprises parents: a Year 8 pupil can sit both the Intermediate and the Junior Challenge, so one year holds two routes to a written olympiad.

The Year 5 row is the opposite case: three 45-minute multiple-choice papers and not a word of written explanation. Puzzles explained out loud prepare a ten-year-old for the later jump to writing. And if a child enjoys none of this, a masterclass, coding projects or the DofE Skills section may suit them better.

By stage

What fits at each stage of school

A rough map by school year in England and Wales, drawn from the eligibility rules above.

Competitions and programmes by stage, from the organisers' eligibility rules
Years	Stage	Worth knowing about
1 to 4	1. Curiosity first	UK Bebras from age 6, and puzzles at home
5 to 6	2. First national papers	Primary Mathematics Challenge, Primary Kangaroo, masterclasses
7 to 9	3. Junior and intermediate	Junior and Intermediate Challenges, JMO, Cayley, team events
10 to 11	4. Written olympiads	Hamilton, Maclaurin, Pink Kangaroo, summer school, DofE
12 to 13	5. Senior rounds	Senior Challenge, BMO, senior team event, BIO

If a child is ahead of their year

Enter the paper for the actual school year first. UKMT sets eligibility as "and below", so a younger pupil may sit an older paper, but a strong score on their own paper can open the follow-on round meant for their year.

If a child is not entered at school

Ask politely, and ask early in the autumn term, before papers are ordered.

The full list

Courses for able pupils, by stage

Grouped by where a pupil is now; each course page sets out its syllabus in full.

I

Challenges and Kangaroos

Years 5 to 9

UKEC / B / 01

Competition maths, Years 6 to 9

Multiple-choice problem solving at pace.

Open the syllabus

UKEC / B / 02

Middle school maths mastery

Algebra and geometry with reasons attached.

Open the syllabus

UKEC / B / 03

Maths through coding

Test a pattern by program, then explain why it holds.

Open the syllabus

II

Written olympiads

Years 8 to 13

UKEC / C / 01

Olympiad and competition maths

Proof, written so a marker is convinced.

Open the syllabus

UKEC / C / 02

High school mathematics

Technique that never slows a solution down.

Open the syllabus

UKEC / C / 03

TMUA and STEP preparation

For olympiad pupils heading to university maths.

Open the syllabus

III

Computing contests

Ages 11 to 18

UKEC / D / 01

Competitive programming

Algorithms under a clock, tested to destruction.

Open the syllabus

UKEC / D / 02

Python for teens

A first serious language, start to finish.

Open the syllabus

UKEC / D / 03

Cyber security for teens

Cryptography and defence, taught ethically.

Open the syllabus

How lessons run

Live problem-solving lessons, alongside whatever the school enters

Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays. Our teachers work from India, which keeps one clock all year, so India time is four and a half hours ahead of UK time in summer and five and a half in winter. Every lesson is booked in UK time.

After school

A weekday hour that suits primary and lower secondary pupils.

Weekend morning

Room for one long problem, solved and then written up.

Before a round

A short run of lessons on the format of the next paper.

One idea per lesson

A named technique, such as working backwards, met in several fresh problems.

Explain it aloud

Even young pupils say why an answer is right, the habit written rounds reward.

A batch of 15 to 20

Somebody always finds another route; or one-to-one for a pupil far ahead.

Problems written by us

Our own practice; the organisers' free past papers we simply point to.

Short notes home

What a pupil can now do, and one thing to work on next.

No entries, no promises

Schools enter pupils and organisers set thresholds. We teach the thinking and say so plainly.

Student work

Work by our students

Four published student projects, none of them competition entries; the student labs page has the rest.

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A batch of 15 to 20 at one stage
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Written answers read and returned
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A teacher for one pupil alone
Planned around the next round
Suited to a child well ahead of their year

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Questions parents ask

Maths competitions and enrichment: common questions

What maths competitions are there for able children in the UK?

The largest are UKMT's Junior, Intermediate and Senior Mathematical Challenges with their Kangaroo and olympiad follow-on rounds, the British Mathematical Olympiad and two team challenges. There is also the Primary Mathematics Challenge for ages 9 to 11 and, in Scotland, the Scottish Mathematical Challenge.

How does my child enter a UKMT challenge?

Through a school that is a registered UKMT centre. The school buys the papers, runs the challenge and receives the results. Follow-on rounds are by invitation from a qualifying score or by a discretionary entry bought by the school.

Can a home-educated child enter UKMT competitions?

Yes, if a registered school agrees to host them. UKMT suggests approaching local schools and asking, but says schools are not obliged to agree, and it will not say which schools are registered.

What age is the Primary Maths Challenge for?

The organiser says it is aimed at pupils aged 9 to 11 who are in primary school. The 2026 paper runs from 9 to 20 November 2026, with 25 questions in 45 minutes and an invite-only Bonus Round in February 2027.

What is the hardest UK maths competition?

UKMT calls British Mathematical Olympiad Round 2 the UK's hardest national mathematics competition. It is four problems in three and a half hours on 20 January 2027, and UKMT invites around 100 pupils from BMO1.

Are there free computing competitions for children?

Yes. UK Bebras is free and open to ages 6 to 19, the TechFirst Girls Competition is free for girls aged 12 to 13, and the British Informatics Olympiad is free to enter for eligible pupils under 19 in mainland Britain.

What happened to CyberFirst?

It is now part of TechFirst. The NCSC says CyberFirst has transitioned to TechFirst under the leadership of DCMS, the girls' competition is now the TechFirst Girls Competition, and the former bursary has become a TechFirst undergraduate scholarship.

How do children get into Ri Masterclasses or the UKMT summer school?

Both depend on the school. Ri Masterclasses are free and pupils are nominated by a teacher. UKMT summer school invitations go, through schools, to pupils picked at random from the top 1.5% of Intermediate Challenge results, aged 14 to 16.

When are your lessons, and do you enter pupils?

Weekdays or weekends, flexible: choose your batch, or for a very personalised plan choose 1-on-1 at your convenience, weekend mornings or weekdays. We do not enter anyone for any competition and have no link with any organiser; the school does that. Lessons are live online, the first is free, and we never promise a score or a qualification.

Other UK guides

Other parts of school maths

Competitions sit alongside exams, not instead of them. These pages cover the exams themselves.

11 plus maths

Selective school entrance tests, where the habits from primary challenges are often put to use.

GCSE maths

The exam every pupil in England sits, taught to the board their school uses.

A-level maths

For sixth formers whose olympiad work runs alongside the syllabus.

TMUA preparation

The university admissions test many olympiad pupils go on to sit.

KS2 SATs maths

The national tests at the end of primary school, paper by paper.

Every page in this guide

Enrichment and able pupils

Maths competitions

Computing programmes and competitions

More guides: UK maths exam boards and specification codes · UK maths year by year, Reception to Year 11 · UK selective school maths tests: 7+, 11+, 13+ and 16+ · UK university admissions: maths tests and computing applications

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Three courses for a child who wants harder problems

Competition maths, Years 6 to 9

Olympiad and competition maths

Competitive programming

Which UK maths and computing competitions run in 2026-27, and who can enter?

Who actually enters a child for these?

What enrichment is there for able maths pupils in the UK?

Which maths competitions can UK pupils enter, and how do the rounds connect?

What computing competitions and programmes are there, and what happened to CyberFirst?

How do you choose the right competition or programme for your child?

What fits at each stage of school

If a child is ahead of their year

If a child is not entered at school

Courses for able pupils, by stage

Challenges and Kangaroos

Competition maths, Years 6 to 9

Middle school maths mastery

Maths through coding

Written olympiads

Olympiad and competition maths

High school mathematics

TMUA and STEP preparation

Computing contests

Competitive programming

Python for teens

Cyber security for teens

Live problem-solving lessons, alongside whatever the school enters

One idea per lesson

Explain it aloud

A batch of 15 to 20

Problems written by us

Short notes home

No entries, no promises

Work by our students

NutriLife

Misti

GuardianX

SkyCast

Monthly fees

Rated 4.9 across 547 Google reviews

Maths competitions and enrichment: common questions

What maths competitions are there for able children in the UK?

How does my child enter a UKMT challenge?

Can a home-educated child enter UKMT competitions?

What age is the Primary Maths Challenge for?

What is the hardest UK maths competition?

Are there free computing competitions for children?

What happened to CyberFirst?

How do children get into Ri Masterclasses or the UKMT summer school?

When are your lessons, and do you enter pupils?

Other parts of school maths

11 plus maths

GCSE maths

A-level maths

TMUA preparation

KS2 SATs maths

Every page in this guide

Enrichment and able pupils

Maths competitions

Computing programmes and competitions

Book a free problem-solving class

Want a class sooner? Book a priority demo

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