UCAS: a slight increase in undergraduate applicants

Last Thursday (February 15^th) saw the release of the most recent UCAS statistics on applicants to undergraduate courses for the upcoming academic year (2024-25). These statistics cover applicants as of the January 31^st “Equal Consideration” deadline. While this isn’t the final deadline for applications, a large majority of students have already applied by this point – for example last year 76% of international applicants had submitted their applications by the January deadline.

Overall, international applicant numbers were up slightly (+0.7%) compared to the same point in the 2023 application cycle, bringing the number of international applicants to 115,730. This is slower than the 3.1% growth we saw at this point last year, and the number of applicants is still slightly lower than the previous peak of 116,110 we saw in January 2020.

Looking at the top sending countries / regions, China remains the top sender by a large margin and saw growth of 3% this year compared a 4% decline at this point in the 2023 application cycle. However, the number of applicants is still slightly below the figure from 2022.

Meanwhile India’s share of undergraduate students in the UK is much lower than its proportion of postgraduates, but the country is still the second largest source of UCAS applicants despite a 4% drop compared to this point last year. This is again a reversal of last year’s trend.

Among the other top undergraduate senders, the US saw continued growth (+3%) but still hasn’t returned to its level in 2021; Hong Kong domiciled applicants continued to decline with a further 10% drop, and the number of applicants from Ireland was basically flat (-0.4%). The EU as a whole saw a 3% drop while non-EU students were up 2% overall.

Aside from China the countries with the strongest net growth were Turkey (up 38% to 2,600 applicants) and Canada (+14% to 2,770 applicants), while Kuwait also saw very strong growth in percentage terms (+40% to 970 applicants). The country with the largest drop in undergraduate applicants was Nigeria, with applicant numbers falling by almost half (-46%).

The table below gives a summary of applications from the top 20 sending countries. Further details, including statistics for all sending countries, can be found on the UCAS website.

(* Figures from January 2020 reflect the period before the first Covid-19 lockdowns, as well as being the final cohort of EU students who qualified for domestic fees and subsidised student loans)

British Council comments

While the increase in applications is good news, it is important to remember what these statistics refer to. In particular UCAS data only covers applicants to undergraduate courses, whereas most new international entrants to UK HE courses each year are postgraduates. The data also excludes students entering through non-UCAS channels like transnational education transfers and articulation / credit recognition agreements.

This means that one major recent UK policy change, the increased restrictions on student dependent visas, does not have a direct impact on these figures. Most undergraduate students were not able to bring dependents to the UK even before the recent changes. Messaging about these changes may still have had a negative effect on applicant numbers in some markets, but in general we would expect that these changes would mainly affect postgraduates rather than undergraduates.

In addition, trends in applications are not always exactly reflected in trends in student enrolments. Last year’s UCAS figures showed a 3% increase in the number of international applicants but a 1.5% decrease in the number of students accepting a place. Observers note that competition from other major Anglophone destinations is continuing to intensify in several major source countries such as China, while many students apply to universities in more than one destination country. This means that UK universities will have to work hard to convert these applications into acceptances.

One country that stands out in the most recent data is Nigeria, which saw applicant numbers fall by almost half. The main reason for this drop was probably economic / exchange rate issues, as the Naira was devalued in 2023 which means that studying abroad now costs almost twice as much in local currency terms compared to this point in 2023. Nigeria is also one of the countries that will be most strongly affected by the restrictions on student dependent visas, which means that the trend in postgraduate students from the country is likely to be even more negative.

One final point to bear in mind is that around a quarter of international undergraduate students apply after the January “equal consideration” deadline each year. So while this data gives a good initial indication, there is still time for the trend to change before the end of the recruitment cycle.