International students entering the UK labour market

by Ben Brindle and Madeleine Sumption

International students have been one of the main drivers of unusually high levels of net migration in recent years, alongside Ukrainians and people on health and care visas. In the past, the large majority of international students have left the UK within a few years, and as a result have contributed to the emigration side of the net migration equation. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that, since Brexit, more international students have stayed in the UK following the conclusion of their studies.

After initial post-Brexit liberalisations, the rules facing international students have become more restrictive. In early 2024, the Conservative government introduced a series of changes designed to reduce migration to the UK, including a ban on most international students’ family members. Earlier this year, in May 2025, the current Labour government announced further restrictions, including shortening the post-study ‘Graduate’ route from two years to 18 months.

This raises the question of whether recent cohorts of international students will behave in different ways from earlier arrivals, and with what impacts. This analysis uses data provided to the Migration Observatory through freedom of information requests to look at what international students do in the UK after their studies. It shows that:

• Recent cohorts of international students have been more likely to switch into work visas than in the past. This is not just because of the Graduate visa. More students have been switching to long-term Skilled Worker Route visas, which provide a path to permanent residence in the UK. The share of people switching fell slightly in 2024 following policy restrictions, but remained above pre-Brexit levels.
• Around 40% of people who switched directly from study visas to Skilled Worker visas in 2024 went into care work, suggesting that many former students are overqualified for their Skilled Worker route jobs.
• Relying on former students to help staff the care sector has advantages and disadvantages. Being overqualified may mean former international students lose opportunities to build their skills and move out of the care sector once they receive permanent status. However, study-to-work switchers may also be less vulnerable to exploitation, which has been a significant problem in the care sector.
• The government’s proposal to end overseas recruitment into the care sector may increase employers’ reliance on former international students as a major source of workers between now and 2028.

How can students switch to work visas?

International students who want to work in the UK after graduation have two main options. They can apply directly for a long-term work visa, such as the Skilled Worker visa, or they can move onto the Graduate Route, which allows them to live and work in the UK for two to three years.

To move onto a Skilled Worker visa, prospective switchers must have a job in an eligible occupation with an employer who is a licensed sponsor. The eligibility criteria have changed numerous times in the past few years. Among the main changes:

• In 2021, when the post-Brexit immigration system was introduced, the main salary threshold was reduced from £30,000 to roughly £26,000, with a discounted threshold for study-to-work switchers (of around £21,000). Middle-skilled jobs (such as butchers and chefs) became eligible, alongside graduate jobs. Care worker roles were added in early 2022 (on salaries of roughly £21,000 at the time).
• In 2024, the previous government reversed some of these changes. It increased the main salary threshold for private sector jobs to £38,700 and the discounted threshold to just under £31,000. It also banned new care workers from bringing family members onto their visa.
• In May 2025, Labour proposed further tightening of the rules. Under its plans, most middle-skill roles are being removed from the Skilled Worker route, with select roles added to a new time-limited route. In addition, it announced that main and discounted salary thresholds for graduate-level roles would rise (to £41,700 and £33,400, respectively), while social care providers would no longer be able to hire migrants from outside the UK.

The Graduate route, by contrast, has far fewer rules. Visa holders can work in any job, usually for up to two years, regardless of the skill level or salary. People who want to stay after that must obtain another type of visa, such as the Skilled Worker visa. Take-up of the Graduate route has been high: 238,000 graduate visas were granted in 2024 to international students and their dependants.

It is too early to say what share of each student cohort will stay in the UK long-term, since the Graduate visa enables international students to extend their stay. In other words, we will only get a better picture once they reach the point when they must either switch to a long-term visa or leave the UK. This will take several years—for example, 60% of people who received a study visa in 2021 still had valid leave at the end of 2024, but just under half of those were either still studying (15%) or on the Graduate route (14%).

However, since the majority of international students take one-year master’s courses, we can get an early indication of the trends by looking at the share of each annual cohort who had already moved to work visas by the end of the year after arrival.

How many students are switching to work visas?

The share of people switching to work visas by the end of the first year after arrival in the UK rose sharply after Brexit, peaking at 18% (or 97,000) for the 2022 cohort (Figure 1). It should be no surprise that the share moving to work visas has gone up, since the Graduate route is designed to allow exactly this. More notable is the increase in the share of students switching into long-term Skilled Worker visas, which peaked with the 2022 cohort at 10% of students 1-2 years after arrival.

The share switching to long-term skilled worker visas fell in 2024: 4% of international students who received a study visa in 2023 had switched onto the Skilled Worker route by the end of 2024, while slightly more switched onto the Graduate route instead. This may be owed to more restrictive Skilled Worker rules, such as the ban on dependants for those switching onto care visas, or the higher salary thresholds. A fall in vacancy rates may also have made it more difficult for the 2023 cohort to find eligible roles. Nonetheless, the share of students switching within 1-2 years remained substantially higher than before Brexit.

Figure 1

Around 8% (or 42,200) of non-EU citizens receiving student visas in 2023 no longer held a valid visa (i.e., were expected to have left the country) by the end of 2024. This is down from 22% (or 54,000) in 2010, when a ‘post-study work’ regime broadly similar to the Graduate route was also in place.

Are former international students doing graduate jobs?

We received Home Office FOI data for people who switched directly from a Sponsored Study visa to a Skilled Worker visa, including both EU and non-EU citizens (see the Appendix for details). Our data may also include some people who switched from a Graduate route visa to a Skilled Worker route visa, although the Home Office told us it was not possible to ensure they had all been removed. However, the data should be read as primarily covering direct study-to-work switchers, not Graduate Route switchers.

People who switch directly from study to Skilled Worker visas may be different from those who go via the Graduate route first. For example, they include people who have found a job particularly quickly (perhaps having worked part-time during their studies) or who are more motivated to get on a pathway to permanent status.

The most striking trend is the popularity of jobs in the care sector. Just under 40% (or 48,500) of people who moved from the Study route to the Skilled Worker route in 2024 became a care or senior care worker. This is higher than the share of Skilled Worker route visas going to care among people who apply out of country (i.e., who, in most cases, are not former international students). Specifically, 13% of Skilled Worker entry visa grants in 2024 were in the care sector (11,800).

Both the number and share of students switching into care roles have been on a downward trajectory since the year ending September 2023, when 56% (or 96,000) of switches were into care. This decline predates the introduction of restrictions on migrant care workers’ family members in March 2024 and coincides with a Home Office move to scrutinise applications to sponsor migrant care workers more closely, following reports of widespread exploitation in the sector. Visa grants to migrants joining the care sector from overseas follow a similar trend.

Figure 2

Before Brexit, graduate-level jobs – such as management consultants, doctors, and programmers – would have been the only option for most students switching into work, but in 2024, they made up just under a third of the total (see Table 1).

Table 1

International students aged 26 or older have been more likely to move into care jobs than those under 26, although the share of study-to-care switches fell for both groups between 2023 and 2024 (Figure 3). In 2024, 1,350 students aged under 26 joined the care sector, 81% fewer than in 2023 (7,150). Among those aged 26 or older, the decline was less pronounced but still substantial (-53%, from 16,600 to 7,800).

Figure 3

Does it matter?

The qualifications required for care work are equivalent to GCSEs. This suggests that many people switching from study to long-term work visas in the UK are significantly overqualified for their jobs. The majority of international students in the UK study for master’s degrees, although we do not have data on the subject or level of study for people receiving Skilled Worker route visas as care workers or otherwise. We also don’t have data on what qualifications people have when they come to the UK without having been a student first. Over-qualification is widespread among migrant workers in general.

Is it a problem if former international students working in the UK are overqualified? For the workers themselves, there are drawbacks. If people complete master’s qualifications and then move into jobs that do not require them, they will not necessarily be building on the skills acquired in their degrees and may see these skills atrophy. Note, however, that the study-to-work switchers in these data have chosen to work in the care sector when they could instead have gone onto the Graduate route to work in another sector.

On the other hand, former international students working in care may be less vulnerable to exploitation than those recruited directly from abroad. Among care workers sponsored in 2023, 22% of those who switched from a study visa were recruited by employers whose licenses were subsequently revoked, compared to 36% of overseas hires (Figure 4). One possible explanation is that international students build up local knowledge and language skills while on their study visa, and they can scope out employers without relying on (sometimes exploitative) middlemen. By contrast, people coming directly from abroad often have limited opportunities to research their employer before taking up the job. Exploitation of care workers has been a significant problem since the sector was added to the Skilled Worker route.

Figure 4

Implications for/of the care visa

The data suggest that former international students have been an extremely important recruitment channel for the care sector. Our FOI data show that 9,100 former students joined the care workforce in 2024, compared to 11,750 migrants on out-of-country visas. Data on former students sponsored in care after using the Graduate Route are not available, but previous analysis by the MAC found that 20% of Graduate Route visa holders switching into Skilled Worker visas went into the care sector from mid-2021 to 2023 inclusive. If this trend has continued, former students could well have made up a majority of newly sponsored workers in 2024.

In the long term, this trend will end, because the government is closing the care sector to all new recruitment from 2028 onwards. In the short run, the trend may continue. This is because the government has closed the care route to overseas recruitment from late July 2025, but not to in-country recruitment. People on study or Graduate route visas will be eligible to switch into the care sector if they have been legally working for three months for their proposed sponsor, either part-time or full-time. This would prevent last-minute switches into care for people whose visas are expiring.

At the same time, the care sector could become more attractive to former students as it has become harder to access Skilled Worker visas in other occupations. From July 2025, many middle-skilled occupations have become ineligible for long-term skilled work visas: newly ineligible occupations made up 19% of study-to-work switches in 2024, and 60% of switches into middle-skill roles (outside of care). Salary thresholds have increased for those jobs that remain eligible, however, making some hard to access in practice.

At the time of writing, former students switching into the care sector would still have a path to permanent status. Working in the care sector will thus be the only route to permanent status for a larger share of former students who want to stay in the UK. The May 2025 White Paper proposes raising the standard route to settlement from five years to ten, but it is unclear who this will apply to.  Research suggests that the length of time for acquiring settlement may not significantly affect migration decisions across the board, although it is possible that former students who are only interested in the care sector as a route to permanent status and do not want to work in the sector long term may find a ten-year the route less attractive

It also remains to be seen how the trend of international students taking care jobs will affect retention in the longer term. Relying on migrants whose visas require them to remain in an eligible job may increase retention initially, but it is possible that people with UK degrees will move out of the sector if and when they are able to find graduate jobs, or when they receive permanent status (ILR).

Whether it is a good idea for substantial numbers of former international students to join the care workforce in the UK, in large part, depends on the rights and wrongs of the care visa itself. Reasonable people may disagree about how heavily the UK should rely on migrant workers to staff the care sector, either in the short or long term. The Migration Advisory Committee has argued that the long-term solution is to improve wages and conditions for all workers in the sector, rather than relying primarily on migration to address workforce shortages, for example.

What happens next?

It remains to be seen precisely how recent policy changes will affect the rate at which international students remain in the UK. In theory, the restriction on dependants and higher skill and salary thresholds should all make it more difficult for former international students to qualify for private sector roles on the Skilled Worker route. Some may instead opt for the Graduate route, with its greater flexibility, but only in the short term. As a result, the ‘stay rate’ of students should, in theory, decline. However, the fact that students continue to be eligible to switch into the care route until 2028 may mitigate this decline in the near term. The decision to end overseas recruitment for the care sector means they may become one of the largest sources of workers for care providers.

Thanks to Holly White, Jonathan Portes and James Bowes for comments on an earlier draft. We are grateful to James Bowes for sharing his analysis, presented in Figure 4.

Appendix

The FOI data

The FOI data we received from the Home Office show the number of people receiving a certificate of sponsorship (CoS) for a Skilled Worker Route visa. When employers sponsor a worker, they must assign them a CoS, which the worker then uses to apply for their UK work visa.

We received data on Skilled Worker CoS issuances for two groups: people moving directly from the Sponsored Study route to the Skilled Worker route (or its predecessor, Tier 2: General) in-country, and people applying for an initial Skilled Worker route visa from outside of the UK. The data on in-country visa switchers may include a small number of dependants, or a small number of people moving from the Graduate route to the Skilled Worker route. Both the study-to-work switcher and out-of-country figures include people who were issued a CoS but did not come to the UK, although this will occur in relatively few cases.

For each group, our data show the number of CoS issued by occupation and whether the applicant was age 26 or over at the point of application.

Our data contain detailed information on 93,500 people receiving a CoS from outside of the UK in 2024, and 24,200 people switching in-country from the Sponsored Study route. However, because there are sometimes very few people with specific combinations of characteristics, some of the data was suppressed to protect confidentiality. This means that a small percentage of applications are not included, which may affect some of the results. For example, very few people transitioning from study visas are under the age of 26 and sponsored to work as a Chief Executive. As a result, these workers may be underrepresented in the data. However, we expect this suppression to have only a small impact on the results presented. The totals will also not precisely match other published figures.

Salaries in the year ending June 2023

While around 60% of people switching from the Study route to the Skilled Worker route in graduate jobs were paid at least £30,000 in the year ending June 2023, this was the case for relatively few of those entering middle-skilled roles (Figure A1). The salary threshold for student visa holders switching to the Skilled Worker route increased from around £21,000 to £31,000 in April 2024, although only in jobs where pay is not set according to nationally agreed pay scales. In the care sector, the salary threshold increased to £23,200 in April 2024 and to £25,000 in April 2025, including for student switchers.

Unfortunately, we do not have data on salary levels for 2024.

Figure A1

Underlying data – International students in the labour market

Underlying data – Sponsor licence revocations