[2][3] The competition is divided into four levels: Breakthrough, Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced, collectively known as 'Round 1', with the top-scoring 5% of entrants at Advanced level (formerly the top 16 entrants) eligible for a follow-on round, called 'Round 2' [4] and selection for participation in the International Linguistics Olympiad, one of the international science olympiads.
In 2009, teams from two schools competed in a pilot competition, with the winners taking part in the international contest as guests of the All-Ireland Linguistics Olympiad.
[9] Olympic athlete Christine Ohuruogu MBE is the patron of UKLO, having completed a Linguistics degree at University College London.
[11] The UK Linguistics Olympiad was the host for the 2013 IOL, held at the Manchester Grammar School and chaired by Neil Sheldon.
The competition in Manchester was featured on an edition of BBC Radio Four's Word of Mouth programme centring on language games.
At Breakthrough, Foundation and Intermediate levels, participants may enter either individually or as part of a group of 2-4 students, and timings and conditions can be decided by schools.
At the Advanced level, the competition must take the format of an individual, 2.5 hour test sat under controlled conditions.
Previously,1 roughly 16 of the top scorers from the Advanced paper were invited to participate in Round 2, which took the form of a residential training weekend at a host university,[15][16] followed by the exam.
However, the UK still selected a squad of eight, consisting of Adrian Sahani, Benedict Randall Shaw, Hari Prasad, Kilian Meissner, Robbie Bennett, Sam Corner, Simeon Hellsten, and Soren Choi.