Two-thirds of non-EU overseas students stay in UK post-graduation

Students from outside the European Union are four times more likely than those from inside the bloc to transfer to another visa type to stay in the UK post-graduation, new figures reveal.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) data released on 27 February show that the number of people arriving on study-related visas fell 38 per cent to 301,000 in the 12 months to June 2025 from two years previously as a result of policy changes around dependant visas.

Post-Brexit, UK universities have been increasingly forced to turn to countries like India and Nigeria for international recruitment. And the ONS data reveals stark differences in behaviour among this cohort.

By June 2025, 62 per cent of non-EU students and their family members who arrived within the last two years had transitioned to a different pathway, such as a work or family visa.

This was up from 50 per cent between June 2020 and June 2022, and just 17 per cent in the two-year period before that. The UK reintroduced graduate visas in 2021, allowing most people to stay and work post-study for two to three years.

Trends among EU nationals are largely unchanged over this time. Just 13 per cent of all study-related arrivals transitioned to another visa type in the two years to June 2025. This means that they were four times less likely to do so than people from outside the EU.

The ONS data show that this was partly driven by dependants. Over half (55 per cent) of non-EU students arriving in the two years before June 2025 had switched to a different visa type – and 80 per cent of dependants had.

Three-quarters (72 per cent) of dependants arriving by June 2024 had transitioned onto new visas within one year – up from 50 per cent by June 2023, and just 5 per cent by June 2021.

Bringing dependants has been limited to only students on postgraduate research courses since January 2024. Their numbers have fallen dramatically since then.

Mihnea Cuibus, a researcher at the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said the trends were evidence of an “ongoing phenomenon” of recent years where there has been a “big shift” in international student behaviour.

Cuibus said the figures showed the intended effects of the graduate visas, which was introduced by Boris Johnson’s government to allow international students to remain in the country for longer periods of time.

The most common visa transition for students and dependants was for work. For non-EU visa holders who arrived in year ending June 2023, 42 per cent had transitioned to a work-related visa after two years, compared with only 14 per cent of those from the EU.

Cuibus said part of the reason for the shift was a change in the composition of international students – who are increasingly older and more likely to come from places like India or Nigeria.

“Those nationalities have historically always been much more likely to remain in the UK after graduation, and we’ve seen that a big part of the increase in overall numbers has been driven by such nationalities.”

Study was the most common reason for immigration for people from outside the EU in the year to June – with study-related visas making up 43 per cent of all visas. It represented 40 per cent of EU arrivals, and was less typical than work-related visas.

The ONS data also suggests that non-EU students are more uniform in their course selection.

Two-thirds of students from Nepal, which is now the UK’s fifth biggest market, studied business and management courses in 2023-24. This is compared to just 13 per cent from the US, which the country recently overtook.

High proportions of students from Bangladesh (55 per cent), India (52 per cent) and Pakistan (47 per cent) were also studying business.

A quarter of EU applicants were taking business courses that year, but they tend to be more evenly distributed across a university.

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com