Market Intelligence Brief - China 2022

China has the largest education system in the world and is also the world’s largest sender of internationally mobile tertiary students. For over two decades China has been the UK’s top source market for international students and has also recently become the UK’s top TNE market. China’s aging population and improving domestic HE capacity will weight against outbound student mobility over the medium term, while decelerating economic growth and practical constraints related to the COVID-19 pandemic present more immediate challenges. On balance, however, rising household incomes and fierce competition for places in China’s top universities (especially at postgraduate level) continue to lean in favour of outbound mobility, for the time being. And regional development, continued urbanisation and a planned reorganisation of China’s economy will open new frontiers of opportunities for the UK education sector, including in TVET.