International students in the United Kingdom

International Students in the United Kingdom between 2014/15 to 2022/23

The United Kingdom is among the world's most popular destinations for international students, regularly placing within the top three countries for hosting international students alongside the United States and Australia.[1][2] Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency indicates that students from the three countries of India, China, and Nigeria together account for around 53% of all international students enrolled at higher education institutions in the UK.[3]

In 2019, the UK government's International Education Strategy set a target to recruit 600,000 international students in higher education and to increase the value of higher education exports to £35 billion by 2030.[4] The recruitment target was met in one year and in the 2022/23 academic year, there were 758,855 international students studying at UK higher education institutions, equivalent to 25.8% of all higher education students in the UK – ranging from 18.6% in Wales to 28.7% in Scotland. This represented a 10.4% increase in international students from the previous year (2021/22: 679,790 and 2020/21: 605,130).[3] London Economics, a policy and economics consultancy, have estimated one first-year cohort of international students in 2018/19 to deliver £25.9 billion net benefit to the British economy over the course of their study.[5] They upgraded this figure to a net benefit of £37.4 billion for the 2021/22 academic year.[6] University College London's revenue from international tuition fees alone was worth over half a billion pounds – the equivalent of a third of the annual overseas earnings of the entire UK fishing industry.[7] This figure grew by about 25% to £640 million in the 2022/23 academic year.[8]

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) estimates that the number of international students will continue to increase with international applications to study at British universities expected to increase by 60%, from around 150,000 in 2022 to 240,000 in 2030.[9][10] As of 2023, 58 current world leaders have been educated at a higher education institution in the United Kingdom, second in the world only to the United States' 65.[11]

  1. ^ "Education: Inbound internationally mobile students by continent of origin". data.uis.unesco.org. Retrieved 3 October 2021.
  2. ^ "Global Mobility Trends". Institute of International Education.
  3. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference domicile was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "International students in UK higher education: FAQs". House of Commons Library. Retrieved 15 July 2022.
  5. ^ "Bilimoria warns cutting foreign student numbers would be 'utter madness'". Financial Times. 25 January 2023.
  6. ^ Weale, Sally (16 May 2023). "International students boosted UK economy by £42bn in 2021/2 – study". The Guardian. Archived from the original on Dec 15, 2023.
  7. ^ Alan, Beattie (4 May 2023). "Fish exports are a drop in the ocean next to overseas student fees". Financial Times.
  8. ^ "Russell Group draws majority of fee income from overseas". Times Higher Education. 12 February 2024.
  9. ^ Staton, Bethan (27 March 2023). "UK higher education applicants to rise to 1mn a year by 2030, warns UCAS". Financial Times.
  10. ^ "Agents expecting to send more international students to UK". Times Higher Education. 9 August 2022.
  11. ^ Jack, Patrick (22 August 2023). "UK gains ground on US in educating world leaders". Times Higher Education.