UCAS data shows a slight drop in undergraduate applicants as of June 2024

Earlier this month, UCAS released their figures for the current undergraduate application cycle (2024 entry) as of the deadline for main scheme applicants, 30 June. These figures are a very strong indicator of demand for undergraduate places, although it should be noted that the figures are for applicants rather than acceptances or enrolments at this stage, and a small proportion of students do - after the 30 June deadline each year - use the straight-to-clearing route.

The total number of international applicants for 2024 entry fell slightly to 135,470, representing a drop of 1.9 per cent compared to the same point last year. This is a more negative trend than we saw last year, as the number of applicants as of June 2023 was up 2.4 per cent compared to 2022. It is also more negative than the 0.7 per cent year-on-year growth we were seeing as of the previous UCAS data release in January.

Several major sending countries including China, the US and Hong Kong saw worse performance in the last six months compared to the trend we saw in applicants as of the January deadline. On the other hand, India saw a strong increase in applicants for the January-to-June period, possibly because of a boost after the MAC review recommended keeping the Graduate Route open.

The main driver of the overall drop was a very large decrease in Nigerian applicants – down 49 per cent year-on-year. This is probably mostly because of economic issues, particularly the decline in the value of the Naira which has made studying abroad more expensive. The UCAS figures won’t have been directly affected by last year’s changes in dependent visa policy, because they couldn’t bring dependents even before these changes, but negative sentiment surrounding this change may also have had some effect. However, the fact that we’ve seen such a strong drop in undergraduates suggests that we can expect an even more negative trend in Nigerian postgraduate students.

Hong Kong, Pakistan and Italy also saw relatively large drops in UCAS applicants, while in percentage terms Sri Lanka also saw a large drop. For Hong Kong this is likely because of demographic trends – the territory’s student-age population is shrinking, while for Sri Lanka the main driver is likely economic factors.

In the other direction, the country with the strongest net growth was Turkey, which saw an increase of +660 applicants (+29 per cent) – although this does still represent a slowdown compared to even stronger growth last year. Canada and Kuwait also saw very strong growth, while Brazil and Uzbekistan are relatively smaller markets that stood out in terms of percentage growth this year.

China is still by far the largest international source of undergraduate applicants, and saw a slight increase in applicant numbers compared to last year (+0.5 per cent). Despite this growth, the number of applicants is still lower than in 2022, and the level of growth is significantly lower than the 3.3 per cent year-on-year growth in pre-January applicants – if we look specifically at the January-to-June period there was actually a drop in the number of applicants from mainland China. In retrospect this isn’t surprising, as January-to-June 2023 saw an unusually large number of Chinese applicants after the end of the country’s Zero Covid policy.

As always, when looking at data from UCAS it’s important to remember that this data is specifically for undergraduates, who may not have the same trends as postgraduates – a point which is particularly important this year as the recent changes to dependent visa policy only affect students studying master’s degrees. The data also doesn’t include direct applicants or students transferring through credit recognition / articulation / TNE partnerships.

We should also bear in mind that this data refers to applicants, and not all applicants accept a place at a UK university. Last year’s UCAS data showed an increase in applicants but a drop in the number of students who accepted a place at a UK HEI; discussions with agents and school counsellors across a range of countries suggest that this is probably because students are increasingly likely to apply to universities across multiple countries which will naturally lead to lower conversion rates.

The table below gives a summary of the top 30 sending countries or regions, which includes seven EU and 23 non-EU markets. Complete data is available from the UCAS website here.