10 June 2026

Updated 20 July 2026

TMUA.co.uk team

TMUA 2026: Key Dates, Registration and the 28 September Deadline

TMUA 2026 October test appointment booking is open. UAT-UK account creation opened on 1 June, booking closes on 28 September at 6pm BST, and the test runs from 12 to 16 October at Pearson Professional Test Centres. Results arrive on 16 November.

Table of contents

Intro

The TMUA calendar is unforgiving in one specific way: every date matters and none of them move. The test window sits in the same fortnight as most schools' first round of mocks and the run-up to the 15 October Oxbridge UCAS deadline, which means October is already the busiest month of your application. The students who handle it well are the ones who treat the admin as a July task and the prep as a June-to-October project, not the ones who discover the 28 September deadline on 25 September. This post covers the full timeline, the registration mechanics, the access arrangements trap, and a month-by-month plan back-calculated from the 12-16 October window.

The full 2026 timeline

Date What happens
1 June 2026, 3pm BST UAT-UK accounts, bursaries and access-arrangement requests opened
20 July 2026, 3pm BST October test appointment booking opened
14 September 2026, 6pm BST Access-arrangement request deadline
21 September 2026, 6pm BST Bursary request deadline
28 September 2026, 6pm BST Test appointment booking closes
12-16 October 2026 Test window (computer-based, Pearson VUE centres)
16 November 2026 Results released

Candidates sitting in China, Hong Kong or Macau can take the TMUA only on 15-16 October.

Two structural points worth absorbing. First, the test sits before any interview at Cambridge and before shortlisting decisions elsewhere, so your score is part of the file from the start. Second, results arrive a month after you sit the test, which means you apply through UCAS without knowing your score. You cannot wait for the number before deciding where to apply. That is by design.

The test itself is two papers, sat in one sitting: Paper 1 covers applications of mathematical knowledge, Paper 2 covers mathematical reasoning and logic. Each is 75 minutes, 20 questions, no calculator.

How registration works on UAT-UK

The TMUA is run by UAT-UK and delivered by Pearson VUE. The flow has two halves: registering with UAT-UK, then booking a physical seat with Pearson VUE. In broad terms:

  1. Create or log in to your UAT-UK account, available since 1 June. Your name must exactly match your test-day photographic ID.
  2. Check your personal details against UCAS. You can add your UCAS ID later if you do not have it yet.
  3. Submit any bursary or access-arrangement request and wait for approval before booking.
  4. Select TMUA to generate a Test Card, then use Pearson's booking system to choose an available centre, date and time.
  5. Pay the fee: £78 at centres in the UK or Republic of Ireland and £133 elsewhere. The fee depends on test-centre location.

Use the official UAT-UK registration instructions while you book. UAT-UK advises booking early because the earlier you book, the more likely you are to find an appointment at your preferred centre.

How to actually register: we have a full step-by-step walkthrough of the process, How to Register for the TMUA 2026, covering the UAT-UK portal flow, the UCAS-details-must-match trap, the Pearson VUE centre booking, and the separate 14 September access arrangements and 21 September bursary deadlines.

Access arrangements: start earlier than you think

If you get extra time, rest breaks, a separate room or any other adjustment at school, you need the equivalent formally arranged for the TMUA. This does not happen automatically and your school cannot grant it on the day.

The nuance that catches people: the access arrangements deadline is not the same as the 28 September registration deadline. For the October 2026 sitting it is 14 September at 6pm BST, two weeks earlier, and UAT-UK says requests can take up to ten working days to review, advising you to apply at least ten working days before you book. Have your school's SENCo evidence ready in July, not September. If your evidence is sitting in a teacher's inbox over the summer holidays, you have a problem that no amount of maths prep fixes.

Picking a date inside the 12-16 October window

You sit the TMUA once, on one day inside the window. Things to weigh:

  • School clashes. Many sixth forms run mocks or assessments in mid-October. Check your school calendar before booking.
  • Earlier is not better by default. There is no advantage to sitting on the 12th versus the 16th beyond your own schedule. The papers differ across the window but are designed to be comparable.
  • Morning versus afternoon. Book the slot that matches when you have been doing your timed practice. If every mock you sat was at 9am, do not book a 4pm slot out of convenience.
  • Travel. A convenient centre with a familiar route beats a marginally better time at a centre that creates avoidable travel stress.

What happens after results on 16 November

Your score arrives in your UAT-UK account on 16 November, on the 1.0 to 9.0 scale. UAT-UK sends it to the participating universities included in your UCAS application. Universities do not publish one universal competitive cutoff across every course, so use course-specific context rather than treating a single number as a pass mark. You can see how raw marks map onto the scale with our free score converter, and the full mechanics of that mapping are in TMUA Score Conversion: Raw Marks to the 1.0-9.0 Scale.

Then nothing happens for a while, which is the part nobody warns you about. Universities fold the score into their existing processes: Cambridge alongside interviews in December, others during shortlisting and offer decisions through the winter. There is no appeal route that turns a 5.1 into a 6.1, and no resit until the following year. If the score comes in below what your target course wants, the productive move is to look honestly at where the rest of your application stands. We wrote a separate post on what score each university actually expects, including the honest answer that none of them publish hard cutoffs.

A month-by-month prep timeline

Back-calculated from the 12-16 October window. This assumes you are starting around now (June) with solid AS-level maths; compress or stretch as needed.

June: find your baseline. Sit a free diagnostic before you open a single textbook. You cannot plan a 16-week campaign without knowing whether your problem is content gaps, speed, or Paper 2's logic style. Most students guess wrong about which one it is.

July: book, then audit. Book now, ideally in the opening week. Spend the rest of the month closing the content gaps your diagnostic exposed, using the current content specification and the full set of official preparation materials as your reference.

August: build Paper 1 depth, start Paper 2. Paper 2's logic content (necessary versus sufficient, contrapositive, counterexamples) is genuinely new to most A-level students and needs weeks, not days. Our Logic course is free and covers it from first principles.

September: timed mocks, weekly. This is where scores actually move. Full 75-minute papers under exam conditions, with a proper review of every error. The TMUA Pro question bank and six auto-marked mocks exist for exactly this phase. Also: registration closes 28 September at 6pm BST. If you have not booked by 1 September, stop reading and book.

October: taper. Light, familiar practice in the final week. No new topics after the 5th. If something specific still is not clicking, a couple of targeted 1-1 sessions with a Cambridge student tutor beats another week of unguided grinding.

For the full week-by-week version of this plan, with hours budgets and the mock schedule spelled out, see How to Prepare for the TMUA in 16 Weeks.

Closing

The TMUA 2026 admin is simple if you do it early: create or check your UAT-UK account, book a sensible slot now, sort access arrangements if you need them, and never go near the 28 September deadline. That frees the actual scarce resource, your time between now and 12 October, for the thing that moves the score. If you want the free starting point, the diagnostic and the free PDF guides are where most of our students begin.

Frequently asked questions

When is the TMUA in 2026? The TMUA 2026 test window runs from 12 to 16 October 2026. It is computer-based and sat at Pearson VUE test centres. You sit both papers on a single day within that window.

When does TMUA 2026 registration open and close? UAT-UK account creation opened on 1 June 2026. October test appointment booking is open and closes on 28 September at 6pm BST.

When are TMUA 2026 results released? Results are released on 16 November 2026. Scores are reported on a scale from 1.0 to 9.0.

What happens if I miss the 28 September deadline? Do not plan around a late entry route. Universities that use the TMUA will not chase you to register, and an unregistered applicant to a course that requires the test is in a very weak position. Register in July.

Do I need access arrangements sorted before I register? Start the access arrangements process as early as possible. The deadline for the October 2026 sitting is 14 September at 6pm BST, two weeks before the standard 28 September registration deadline, and UAT-UK advises applying at least 10 working days before you book. Gather school evidence in July.

Which universities use the TMUA? Cambridge, Imperial, LSE, UCL, Warwick and Durham use the TMUA for various maths, computer science and economics courses, alongside several others. Each university lists on the course page whether the test is required or optional, so check the specific course.

Sources: UAT-UK key dates, UAT-UK registration and booking, official TMUA overview, and Pearson VUE UAT-UK delivery. Last updated 2026-07-20.