UCLES was established in 1858 to administer examinations for persons who were not members of the University of Cambridge and to inspect schools, with the aim of raising standards in education.
[4] The Thinking Skills Assessment (TSA) was introduced in 2001 for entry to a range of undergraduate courses at the University of Cambridge followed by the first BioMedical Admissions Test (BMAT) in 2003.
In 2004, a dedicated unit was formally set up with responsibility for developing and administering admissions tests.
Cambridge Assessment called for "league tables [to be] taken out of [government] ministers' hands", because it felt recent reforms of the British education system had disfavoured International GCSEs offered by its Cambridge Assessment International subsidiary.
The building was designed by Eric Parry Architects, and construction began in 2015[16] with landscaping by Coles Nursery[17] and architectural elements such as pebble seat sculptures.