Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) how many, and (2) what proportion, of international students have chosen to stay in the UK after their studies in each of the last 10 years; and what was the breakdown of students by nationality for each year.

The department publishes data about international graduates from English higher education (HE) providers and colleges who remain in the UK for employment or study one, three, five and ten years after graduating from a first degree in its annual Graduate Outcomes (LEO)[1] publication. Latest available data for international first degree graduates refer to outcomes in the 2018-19 financial year and are published in Table 45 here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/graduate-outcomes-leo/2018-19.

Table 1 in the attached spreadsheet summarises the outcomes of international first degree graduates from English HE providers and colleges one year after graduation for the past five tax years. Data is only published for financial year 2014-15 onwards.

The department also publishes employment outcomes and earnings for international postgraduates from English HE institutions in the LEO: Postgraduate outcomes[2] publication. Table 2 in the attached spreadsheet summarises the outcomes of international level 7 (taught and research) and level 8 postgraduates of English HE institutions, one year after graduation for the past five tax years. Data is only published for financial year 2014-15 onwards.

In the attachment, minor methodological adjustments were made to the published LEO percentage outcome calculations so that graduates in sustained employment, further study or both in the UK are given as a proportion of all graduates (published LEO calculations exclude those identified by the Department for Work and Pensions records as overseas from the denominator).

The publications also include breakdowns of graduates by country but focus on the 20 countries with the highest number of graduates in the 2016/17 academic year. These are available in Table 53 and Table 25 of the respective publications.

Another important data source that measures the outcomes of graduates from the UK HE system is the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s Graduate Outcomes survey. This includes supplementary information about graduate outcomes, such as details of their employment destinations. Further information about the survey is available here: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/graduates.

[1] https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/graduate-outcomes-leo/2018-19.

[2] https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/graduate-outcomes-leo-postgraduate-outcomes.