diff --git a/changelog/8761.feature.rst b/changelog/8761.feature.rst
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..88288c81002
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/8761.feature.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+New :ref:`version-tuple` attribute, which makes it simpler for users to do something depending on the pytest version (such as declaring hooks which are introduced in later versions).
diff --git a/doc/en/reference/reference.rst b/doc/en/reference/reference.rst
index 153dad903b7..1fe0563ee65 100644
--- a/doc/en/reference/reference.rst
+++ b/doc/en/reference/reference.rst
@@ -226,6 +226,37 @@ Marks a test function as *expected to fail*.
           a new release of a library fixes a known bug).
 
 
+pytest.__version__
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The current pytest version, as a string::
+
+    >>> import pytest
+    >>> pytest.__version__
+    '7.0.0'
+
+
+.. _`version-tuple`:
+
+pytest.version_tuple
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+.. versionadded:: 7.0
+
+The current pytest version, as a tuple::
+
+    >>> import pytest
+    >>> pytest.version_tuple
+    (7, 0, 0)
+
+For pre-releases, the last component will be a string with the prerelease version::
+
+    >>> import pytest
+    >>> pytest.version_tuple
+    (7, 0, '0rc1')
+
+
+
 Custom marks
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
diff --git a/src/_pytest/__init__.py b/src/_pytest/__init__.py
index 46c7827ed5e..8a406c5c751 100644
--- a/src/_pytest/__init__.py
+++ b/src/_pytest/__init__.py
@@ -1,8 +1,9 @@
-__all__ = ["__version__"]
+__all__ = ["__version__", "version_tuple"]
 
 try:
-    from ._version import version as __version__
-except ImportError:
+    from ._version import version as __version__, version_tuple
+except ImportError:  # pragma: no cover
     # broken installation, we don't even try
     # unknown only works because we do poor mans version compare
     __version__ = "unknown"
+    version_tuple = (0, 0, "unknown")  # type:ignore[assignment]
diff --git a/src/pytest/__init__.py b/src/pytest/__init__.py
index d8169b8080f..3694f0fc471 100644
--- a/src/pytest/__init__.py
+++ b/src/pytest/__init__.py
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 """pytest: unit and functional testing with Python."""
 from . import collect
 from _pytest import __version__
+from _pytest import version_tuple
 from _pytest._code import ExceptionInfo
 from _pytest.assertion import register_assert_rewrite
 from _pytest.cacheprovider import Cache
@@ -130,6 +131,7 @@
     "Session",
     "set_trace",
     "skip",
+    "version_tuple",
     "TempPathFactory",
     "Testdir",
     "TempdirFactory",
diff --git a/testing/test_helpconfig.py b/testing/test_helpconfig.py
index 571a4783e67..e2a27b4e706 100644
--- a/testing/test_helpconfig.py
+++ b/testing/test_helpconfig.py
@@ -19,6 +19,12 @@ def test_version_less_verbose(pytester: Pytester, pytestconfig, monkeypatch) ->
     result.stderr.fnmatch_lines([f"pytest {pytest.__version__}"])
 
 
+def test_versions():
+    """Regression check for the public version attributes in pytest."""
+    assert isinstance(pytest.__version__, str)
+    assert isinstance(pytest.version_tuple, tuple)
+
+
 def test_help(pytester: Pytester) -> None:
     result = pytester.runpytest("--help")
     assert result.ret == 0