UCAS data for January 2023 shows growth in total international applicants but slight declines in China and the EU

Data recently released by UCAS shows that the number of international applicants to UK undergraduate courses as of the January 2023 “Equal Consideration” deadline increased to 114,910, up 3% compared to the same point in the 2022 entry cycle. The January deadline data is a strong indicator of how undergraduate enrolment is performing for the upcoming academic year (2023-24), as a fairly large majority of students have already applied by this point. Last year slightly over 74% of international applicants applied before the January deadline.

Despite the overall growth there is still a moderate gap between trends for non-EU applicants - which increased by 4% - and applicants from EU countries, who fell by 2%. This represents a fourth consecutive year of decline for EU students with an overall 53% drop compared to the number in 2020. However, the gap between EU and non-EU trends is much smaller than the difference between these regions in the previous two years.

Looking at the UK’s two largest sending countries, the trends in both China and India are more negative than we saw last year. The number of China-domiciled applicants has fallen by 4% compared to a year ago, its first decline in more than a decade. Meanwhile Indian applicants grew by 5%, but this is significantly lower than their 11% growth last year and 26% growth the year before.

In terms of net growth, the countries with the largest increase in undergraduate applicants were the UAE, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. Student applications from the United States also saw encouraging growth. Meanwhile Hong Kong and Russia both saw substantial drops in undergraduate applications.

Within the EU, as well as the decline in applicants being much smaller than the last couple of years, we also didn’t see a repeat of the big gap in trends between the Western and Eastern parts of the continent that stood out in the 2021 and 2022 entry cycles. This suggests that the post-Brexit change to fees and financial support is no longer the main driver of EU student trends, although the number of applicants from EU countries continues to be far lower than it was before these changes.

As always with UCAS applicant data it’s important to note a couple of caveats. The figures only cover undergraduate courses, and also exclude students entering through non-UCAS channels like those who articulate to the UK through transnational education courses. It’s also important to bear in mind that this data is specifically for applicants, who might not translate into actual enrolments for a number of reasons. One particular point to note is that large increases in Chinese student applications in the last couple of years did not translate to similar growth in student enrolments, perhaps partly because of a trend towards students applying to multiple countries simultaneously during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The table below gives a summary of applications from the top 30 sending countries. Full figures for all countries can be found on the UCAS website at https://www.ucas.com/data-and-analysis/undergraduate-statistics-and-reports/ucas-undergraduate-releases/ucas-undergraduate-applicant-releases-2023-cycle/2023-cycle-applicant-figures-25-january-deadline

(* Figures from January 2020 reflect the period before the first Covid-19 lockdowns)