Post-Graduate Routes: What Impact is the Immigration Whitepaper Having on UK Interest?

I'm not sure how much quality time you've spent with the UK's new immigration white paper. My copy accompanied me on several train journeys last week, between various university partners on behalf of FAU and our wider Keystone Education Group family. And it played a big role in the conversations at my destinations.

This means that, yes, I have read the whitepaper cover-to-cover and, whilst I don't necessarily recommend you do the same, this post is here to quickly summarise the bits that matter most to UK universities.

Perhaps more importantly, I'm going to use some early data to explore how much they matter to prospective students.

There are several proposals impacting higher education in the white paper and some parts feel more complete than others. Here are the bits I think matter most for postgrad:

• Graduate Route – The UK's post-study work visa will be cut from 24 to 18 months for Bachelors and Masters graduates (it remains at 36 months for PhD). This puts the Graduate Route in a slightly less favourable position compared to some other post-study work visas, but it's less drastic than some of the proposals that have previously been floated or leaked. The impact will be biggest at PGT (Masters level) where most of the UK's international recruitment takes place.
• Language tests – The standard of English will be increased for most main applicants and their dependents. This won't impact students directly as they already need to demonstrate proficiency. It will affect student-dependents and could therefore have some impact at PGR (PhD) level where students are still allowed to bring family.
• International fee levy – This proposal is light on detail, suggesting a 6% levy on universities' international income to be spent on... something. Impact on students would be indirect as the government assumes universities will raise fees and pass on the extra cost.
• Skilled Worker Visas – There are planned changes to the roles international candidates can be recruited for and increases in the costs employers pay to sponsor them. These also don't impact students and, crucially, the Graduate Route isn't being linked to sponsorship (which would have made it a Skilled Worker Visa by any other name). But making it harder to work for longer beyond study will reduce the appeal of the UK for some students and these changes come off the back of several others last year.

It's important to remember that all of these are proposals and only one of them (the Graduate Route cut) directly impacts international postgraduates (and then, only at Masters level).

The optics are going to be very important here and that's where you – and us! – can play a role. Let's make sure audiences understand what a relatively modest cut to the Graduate Route actually means and let's not leave them to assume they'll face higher language requirements, automatically pay 6% higher fees or etc.

So, what do students think so far? On to the data.

We're a week out from the whitepaper publication and audience interest in the UK hasn't been directly impacted. In fact – so far – it's maintaining most of the surge we saw in April:

We're looking here at a trend for the UK's absolute share of interest (the purple line) plotted against the year-on-year change in UK popularity (the pink columns). Remember, this is based on our Share of Search metric, meaning we're seeing what students actually look for on our platforms, not just fluctuations in underlying traffic.

The story in this data is a pretty positive one: relative interest in the UK has been growing steadily during 2025 and is substantially up on 2024. There is a slight dip after the white paper on May 11, but it isn't dramatic (so far) and may partly be a natural levelling off.

A lot of this healthy UK interest has been driven by policy shifts elsewhere (something our broader Keystone data has been measuring). Those shifts aren't going anywhere and they're a lot more significant than the UK proposals.

We added two question to Pulse immediately after the publication of the Whitepaper and have now had more than 400 responses from prospective international Masters students.

Just less than half (47%) are already aware of the proposal. This may seem like an odd thing to measure, but it's potentially telling: bad news spreads fast amongst prospective international students and news that doesn't spread that fast may not be perceived to be that bad. Remember, these are highly engaged audiences, actively searching for Masters study and taking the time to share information about their plans.

Of course, the Pulse survey will make these audiences aware of the plans. But even then, the impact doesn't look catastrophic for UK interest:

Yes, cutting the Graduate Route does matter and over half of the students in this early sample say it will have some bearing on their UK interest. The government is right to assume this could be an impactful policy (setting aside the internal logic of that policy and impact).

But the largest segment (42%) are those who say this won't impact them at all.

Compare both of these to the data we collected ahead of the MAC review last year (when 43% and 30% of respondents respectively said cutting the Graduate Route to 6 and 12 months would make them 'much less likely' to study in the UK) and, well, this does look like the least-worst change for post-study-work.

I would have 3 tips for anyone working in UK postgraduate marketing right now:

• Stay tuned to the data – We'll be keeping a close eye on audience reaction, using our unique combination of search and survey data. You can stay up to date via FAU's monthly Pulse reports or get in touch with your Account Manager to learn what they're seeing. They're PG experts and my team will make sure they have the data you need. Oh, and if you happen to be in San Diego next week, we'd love to chat international study trends at NAFSA.
• Stay in control of the message to students – As above: these are just proposals and most of them don't directly impact students. There's work to be done in clarifying and reassuring prospective postgrads. We're already doing this and you're welcome to share.
• Remember that PGR is mostly unaffected – Whatever the impact of these proposals turns out to be, it will mostly be felt at Masters level. PhD graduates will still have access to a three-year post-study-work-visa and a lot is in flux for these audiences due to policy shifts elsewhere. Again, the FAU team can help guide you here.

Saying a bad thing is better than a worse thing may seem glib but, right now, this does not seem to be as bad as we might have feared. And a lot of the communication is in our control.

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