The Greater Training Statistics Company’s (HESA) data drop revealed there have been a complete of 685,565 worldwide college students within the UK in 2024/25, marking a 6% decline on 2023/24 numbers and enrolments from key markets falling for the second yr in a row.
The variety of college students from India – though nonetheless the most important sending nation – have been down 12% year-on-year, down 5% from China and down a 3rd from Nigeria amid a ten% year-on-year dip in worldwide grasp’s diploma and taught postgraduate diploma entrants.
It follows a curb on worldwide college students’ potential to convey their dependants into the nation, with stricter compliance rules and an upcoming levy on worldwide charges set to hit enrolments additional, after 2022/23’s post-pandemic report of 758,855 worldwide college students.Â
In distinction, enrolments of postgraduate analysis college students rose by 11% year-on-year, reflecting a growing interest in MRes packages, which aren’t topic to the identical ban on dependant visas.
In the meantime, the recognition of UK training overseas is hovering, because the variety of college students learning on UK TNE packages rose 8% to hit 669,950 – nearly the identical variety of worldwide college students learning within the UK.
It comes amid a TNE increase, with the UK charting a course in direction of extra abroad partnerships as a part of the revamped international education strategy and a slew of British universities opening department campuses in India. Different precedence TNE markets embody Indonesia and Pakistan.
College students from India and China accounted for nearly half (47%) of all non-EU worldwide college students, sending 146,480 and 143,200 college students respectively. They have been adopted by Pakistan, sending 48,335 college students, and Nigeria, sending 38,040.
Nepal climbed into the highest 5 sending international locations to the UK in 2024/25, with 24,435 college students. Nepalese enrolments nearly doubled year-on-year, rising from 12,710 in 2023/24. It coincides with stricter visa rules in Australia – historically a well-liked market with Nepalese college students.
Whereas enrolments from European college students has dropped sharply because the UK left the EU in early 2020, a number of international locations have seen modest progress. The variety of Irish college students grew 2% between 2023/24 and 2024/25, whereas there was a 9% rise from Germany and three% rise from Spain.
