UK visa statistics show more sponsored study visas issued in 2021 than ever before, despite the pandemic – but trends vary greatly from country to country.

The UK’s latest set of visa issuance statistics – published on February 24^th – includes figures for the final quarter of 2021 along with statistics for the full year.

Overall Q4 accounted for 19% of all visas issued in 2021. This is a higher proportion than the pre-pandemic average of around 10% for the final quarter of the year but still a much smaller proportion than last year when almost a third of all visas were issued in the final quarter.

More visas issued than ever before

An overall total of 386,858 sponsored study (Tier 4) visas were issued to main applicants in 2021, substantially higher than any previous year.

Part of this increase was because most EU/EEA citizens now need visas to study in the UK, but even if this group is excluded the number of visas issued to non-EU/EEA/Swiss nationals was up by +33% over 2019 or +69% compared to last year.

The introduction of the Graduate Route, offering students the ability to work in the UK for two years after graduating from a UK higher education programme, is likely the main driver for the growth. Meanwhile the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is still having a negative effect in some countries.

Mobility from China was down slightly vs pre-pandemic

The number of visas issued to Chinese students was slightly lower than the pre-pandemic figure, falling by 0.3% in 2021 compared to 2019.

However, this decline was much smaller than the trend in the first three quarters of the year, which showed a drop of nearly 12%. This difference suggests that a lot of Chinese students delayed the start of their in-person course, starting their study online before moving to the UK after the start of the 2021/22 academic year.

Although China is still the largest single source country, growth in other parts of the world means that China is now a much less dominant source of students than it was before the pandemic. China now represents 31 per cent of student visa issuances (or 33 per cent excluding EU students), compared to 43 per cent in 2019.

Most East Asian countries saw fewer visa issuances than before the pandemic

Alongside the slightly negative trend in China, most other parts of East and South East Asia also saw a drop in visa issuances compared to before the pandemic - although all countries in the region saw growth compared to 2020.  Thailand and Vietnam saw particularly large declines (-21% and -37% respectively vs 2019) while the overall trend in the region (excluding China) was a 10 per cent decline compared to 2019.

Indonesia was the only major sending country in the region to see growth compared to the pre-pandemic period, while Hong Kong saw a relatively small decline of -0.6%.

This suggests that students in East Asia were more concerned about the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic than those in other regions, while being comparatively less likely to be attracted by the Graduate Route.

Extremely strong growth in South Asia and Nigeria

In general students in South Asia have responded extremely positively to the introduction of the Graduate Route. Visa issuances to Indian students more than doubled compared to 2019; Pakistan and Bangladesh had over three times as many student visas issued in 2021 compared to the pre-pandemic period, and Nepal and Sri Lanka rose to more than four times their 2019 levels.

Nigeria also saw very strong growth, more than tripling the numbers of visas issued compared to two years ago, a trend which was likely also boosted by the Graduate Route. Most other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa also saw growth over 2019 but at a comparatively lower rate - among major source countries in the region, Ghana was the fastest-growing with a 60 per cent increase over 2019 while most other countries in the region saw single-digit percentage growth.

EU/EEA figures suggest that Brexit has had a strong impact

As 2021 was the first year for which students from the EU, EEA and Switzerland needed visas, it is difficult to estimate year-on-year changes in student numbers from these areas. However a look at the relative ranks of these countries in terms of student issuances shows that their performance in 2021 was comparatively much poorer than in previous years, in line with information from UCAS which showed a drop of 50 per cent in EU student acceptances for the 2021 application cycle.

As with the UCAS data, visa figures suggest that student mobility from countries in the eastern part of the EU has fallen particularly sharply, while countries such as France, Germany and Spain appear to have been comparatively less strongly affected as they continue to be among the UK’s top 20 source countries.

Other parts of the world showed a strong recovery after the pandemic

The Americas saw visa issuances exceeding their 2019 total, while the Middle East has seen strong growth over 2020 with issuances only one per cent lower than in 2019. In the latter region there was a lot of variation from country to country, with mobility affected by factors such as cuts to scholarship programmes in some countries.

The chart below shows trends in the top 30 countries. As 2020 was a very atypical year, this chart shows the change since 2019 (i.e. before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic) rather than year-on-year growth.

General student visas increased while child student visas fell

Breaking down student visa issuances to the General and Child Student categories, the number of General Student visas issued to non-EU/EEA/Swiss nationals was up by 35% compared to 2019 while Child Student visas were down 19%.

This trend was strongest in China, where Child Student visas were down nearly 50% while General Student visas were up by around 1.5%. Other countries had a smaller difference but showed trends in the same direction, with stronger growth (or a smaller decline) among adult students compared to younger learners.

This supports anecdotal findings that younger students (or their parents) were more likely to be concerned about the effects of the pandemic, while post-study work opportunities were a less important factor for this group.

Overall Child Student fell from 4.5 per cent of total sponsored study visa issuances in 2019 to 3.5 per cent in 2021. Germany, Spain and Hong Kong have the highest proportion of visas issued to younger students, with the proportion standing at around 30 per cent in all three.

Short-term study visa issuances are still far lower than pre-pandemic

Visa data confirms that the short-term study sector is still being extremely strongly affected by the pandemic. Only 6,168 short-term study (student visitor) visas were issued in 2021, a decline of more than 95% compared to 2019.

Data source & definitions

Full data for all countries is available from the UK government's website: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-december-2021/list-of-tables

All the figures above are for main applicants only, i.e. the students themselves (not including dependents). This means they might be slightly lower than figures quoted by other sources.