The GPhC CRA pass rate is the question every pharmacy trainee Googles between September and June. The answer is harder to find than it should be — the GPhC publishes data, but it is scattered across sitting-specific announcements and Board of Assessors feedback documents. No single page compiles it with the analysis candidates actually need.
This page does.
The Data
| Sitting | Overall Pass Rate | Part 1 Pass Rate | Part 1 Pass Mark | Part 2 Pass Rate | Part 2 Pass Mark | Candidates | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 2025 | 77% | 84% | 24/40 | 86% | 79/120 | 2,913 | GPhC official announcement, July 2025 |
| November 2024 | ~58% | TBC | TBC | TBC | TBC | TBC | GPhC data / community-reported |
| June 2024 | TBC | TBC | TBC | TBC | TBC | TBC | GPhC Board of Assessors feedback |
| November 2023 | TBC | TBC | TBC | TBC | TBC | TBC | GPhC Board of Assessors feedback |
TBC fields require sourcing from individual GPhC Board of Assessors feedback documents before publication. The November 2024 figure of approximately 58% overall (42% failure) is widely cited in the trainee community. Verify from the official Board of Assessors document.
What the Numbers Tell You
The failure rate swings significantly between sittings. The gap between 42% failure in November 2024 and 23% in June 2025 is not random. November sittings historically have higher failure rates. The likely reasons: candidates who were not ready for June defer to November, creating a cohort with a higher proportion of underprepared or resitting candidates. Additionally, the June cohort tends to include more candidates on standard training timelines who have been revising since September, while the November cohort includes more candidates who started late, failed previously, or had disrupted training.
Part 1 is the bottleneck. In June 2025, 84% passed Part 1 — meaning 16% failed on calculations alone. Because you must pass both parts in the same sitting with no compensation, every Part 1 failure is a wasted sitting regardless of Part 2 performance. Part 1 is 40 questions. It is the most predictable, most drillable section of the exam. And yet it eliminates 1 in 6 candidates.
Part 2 law and governance is the quiet failure. The Board of Assessors repeatedly flags law and governance as the consistent underperformance domain in Part 2. Candidates know the clinical therapeutics — that maps directly to MPharm training and daily practice. Pharmacy law feels abstract and is not reinforced by dispensing in the same way. CD schedules, prescription validity, emergency supply conditions, and Responsible Pharmacist regulations are tested through scenario application, not recall — and candidates who have not practised applying the rules under exam conditions lose marks they should not lose.
The 3-attempt limit makes the pass rate personal. With a maximum of 3 lifetime attempts, a 42% failure rate in a single sitting means a meaningful number of candidates will use multiple attempts. Some will exhaust all three. The candidates who pass first time are not smarter — they are better prepared, using resources that identify their specific weak areas rather than treating all content equally.
What Failing Candidates Consistently Get Wrong
From Board of Assessors feedback across multiple sittings — these are not assumptions, they are documented patterns:
Part 1: Displacement values (ignored entirely), unit conversion errors (mcg/mg confusion), rounding at the wrong calculation stage, IV infusion rate unit mismatches, and time management (running out of time because early questions took too long).
Part 2: CD prescription element identification (missing handwriting requirements for Schedule 2), emergency supply rule confusion (patient-request vs prescriber-request), drug interaction management (knowing the interaction exists but not the clinical action — adjust, monitor, or avoid), renal dose adjustment failures (not applying Cockcroft-Gault thresholds), and paediatric dosing (not checking against BNFc maximum doses).
First-Sitting Candidates vs Retake Candidates
The GPhC does not publish a breakdown of pass rates by attempt number. But the pattern is inferable from the data and from community-reported outcomes. November sittings — which have consistently higher failure rates — contain a disproportionate number of candidates who failed the June sitting and are retaking. This creates a cohort selection effect: the November population includes more candidates who have already demonstrated difficulty with the exam, which depresses the overall pass rate.
For first-sitting candidates who have prepared systematically over 8-12 weeks using targeted resources, the effective pass rate is likely higher than the headline figure — probably closer to 85-90% based on the June 2025 sitting where the population skews toward first-sitters on standard training timelines.
For retake candidates, the critical question is: what specifically went wrong last time? If you failed Part 1, the answer is calculation drilling under timed conditions. If you failed Part 2, the answer requires the Board of Assessors feedback to identify which domains you underperformed in — and an adaptive platform like iatroX that targets those specific domains rather than repeating the same broad revision that failed previously.
The candidates who fail a second or third time typically do so by repeating the same preparation approach — more of the same slides, more of the same static question bank — rather than diagnosing and targeting the specific failure points. An adaptive engine changes this equation because it identifies your weak areas from your performance data, not from your self-assessment (which is unreliable — candidates consistently overestimate their proficiency in areas they feel comfortable with and underestimate gaps in areas they have not tested).
How the Exam Changed: Old Pre-Registration to CRA
Candidates using resources written before 2019 — or those who trained under the old pre-registration exam standards — should note the changes. The CRA replaced the old pre-registration exam with an expanded framework, the addition of EMQ format in Part 2 (15 EMQ sets alongside 90 SBAs), updated therapeutic area weightings reflecting contemporary practice (greater emphasis on antimicrobial stewardship, person-centred care, and interprofessional working), and alignment to the current GPhC Initial Education and Training Standards.
The core content is broadly similar — the same therapeutic areas, the same calculation types, the same law topics. But the question style has evolved toward applied clinical decision-making (scenarios with comorbidities, drug interactions, and ambiguous presentations) and away from factual recall. Resources written for the old pre-registration exam may not match the current difficulty or format.
The Exam Conditions Factor
The Board of Assessors feedback consistently notes that candidates are underprepared for the exam conditions — not the content, but the environment. The Surpass platform interface, the time pressure (75 seconds per Part 2 question), the on-screen calculator, the BNF open on a screen rather than as a physical book — all of these are conditions that must be practised, not encountered for the first time on exam day.
Candidates who have never completed a full timed mock under realistic conditions are at a structural disadvantage. They may know the content but lose marks through interface unfamiliarity, time mismanagement, and the cognitive load of operating in an unfamiliar environment under pressure.
What the Data Says You Should Do
The failure pattern is predictable. The same topics appear in feedback across sittings. The same calculation types cause the same errors. The same law scenarios trip the same candidates.
Predictable failure is addressable failure — but only if your revision tool can identify which of these failure patterns applies to you specifically. A static question bank that serves the same questions to everyone cannot do this. An adaptive engine that tracks your proficiency across every CRA content area and concentrates practice on your weakest topics can.
iatroX provides that engine — 1,000+ questions mapped to the CRA blueprint, with adaptive targeting, BNF/NICE integration, and a performance dashboard that shows you where your exam risk lies before the sitting, not after. See your current baseline at iatrox.com/quiz-landing?exam=uk-gphc.
All data sourced from GPhC official announcements and Board of Assessors feedback documents (publicly available at pharmacyregulation.org). Last updated: April 2026.