Net migration is at an all-time high

On May 24, 2023, the UK Home Office announced that foreign non-research postgraduate students can no longer bring their family members to the UK during their course starting in January 2024 (Seddon, 2023). It is due to the new record high of 700,000 legal migration expected this year, up from 606,000 in 2022 and 488,000 in 2021, according to the Office for National Statistics (2023). These figures show that the Conservatives have repeatedly failed to reduce net migration to less than 100,000 people per year, violating the 2019 manifesto pledge (Pickard et al., 2023).

Non-EU nationals made up the majority of immigration in the UK

In 2022, non-EU nationals (925,000) arriving in the UK account for the immense majority of the total immigration, followed by EU nationals (151,000) and British (88,000) (Office for National Statistics, 2023). Study, work, and humanitarian reasons have been the three primary drivers of the increase in non-EU immigration since 2021 (see Figure 1 below), with more than a third of UK visas issued to Indian and Ukrainian nationals, followed by Nigerian, Chinese, and Pakistani nationals in the year to March 2023 (Syal, 2023).

Indian
Ukrainian
Nigerian
Chinese
Pakistani

Figure 1. Non-EU immigration by reason between 2018 and 2022

Reasons for the surge in study-related visas

There are two primary reasons for the substantial increase in study-related visas for non-EU immigration in recent years. One is the new Graduate visa route introduced in 2019 to allow international students to stay in the UK for up to three years after graduating, and that attracted a lot of foreign students coming to the UK to study, particularly students from India. In 2022, almost 140,000 Indian students went to the UK to study. Nearly a quarter of all visas were granted to Indian nationals in 2022, the highest amongst all other nationalities, with 55% of those being for students (Ellis-Petersen, 2023). Another cause is the dramatic rise in dependant visas granted to foreign students. In 2022, 135,778 visas were granted to dependants of international students. As can be seen from Figure 2 below, the number of issued dependant visas increased from 19,139 in 2020 to 135,778 in 2022, which is seven times more. This is driven by an increase in the number of visas granted to dependants from Nigeria and India (Seddon, 2023).

Nigeria
India

Figure 2. The number of dependant visas granted to foreign students between 2020 and 2022

Students pursuing a doctorate or a postgraduate research degree can still apply for dependant visas

As a result, Home Secretary Suella Braverman announced a crackdown on dependant visas granted to international students enrolled in postgraduate taught courses from January 2024, claiming that the move would strike the right balance between reducing migration and safeguarding the economic benefits students can bring to the UK (Seddon, 2023). In other words, international postgraduate taught students coming to the UK to study in the autumn of 2023, as well as those on research programmes such as PhD and postgraduate research courses, can still apply for dependant visas under new immigration restrictions (Cowburn, 2023; The Guardian, 2023).

What are your thoughts on this new change? Does it influence your decision to pursue a postgraduate taught programme in the UK? Please leave a comment below and share this page with your family and friends if you find it useful. If you need help with admission, Ahead Achiever offers An Hour Consultation and Postgraduate Admission Application to make the entire postgraduate application process a lot easier and faster for you. Contact us today for Free Master’s Degree Advice.