Indians surpass Chinese to make up largest cohort of foreign students in UK

Surpassing Chinese nationals, Indian students have now become the largest group of foreign students in the UK, according to the latest Immigration Statistics Report released today. 

In total, there were 127,731 grants to main applicant Indian nationals in the year ending September 2022, an increase of 93,470 (+273 per cent) as against 34,261 in 2019. After India, it was Nigerian nationals who recorded another major increase in sponsored study visas of 44,162 (+650 per cent) to 50,960.Pakistan and Bangladesh are the other two countries in the top 5 nationalities in the list of sponsored study visas in the UK.

The number of Chinese nationals decreased by around half (-56 per cent) to 51,909 in the year ending September 2020 as an after-effect of Covid-19. However, Indian, Nigerian, Pakistan and Bangladesh are all more than three times higher than they were in 2019.

According to the data released by the UK Immigration, Chinese and Indian nationals together comprise over half (51 per cent) of all sponsored study grants.