“We’re seeing concerns around visa delays impacting all markets. Backlogs are primarily due to the UK Visa and Immigration office having, understandably, refocused its teams into processing Ukrainian visas quickly. This has caused a much slower turnaround time for student visas and we see this really playing on students’ minds.
We know that UKVI has notified universities that the backlog has cleared and visa processing times should now resume to the usual three weeks’ wait. This is welcome news and universities will have to work hard to soothe student concerns and stabilise the pipeline at the end of the cycle.”
Jennifer Parsons, Product and Partnerships Director
International picture by offer holders
- The 2022 international pipeline has seen a 38% increase in offer holders. Nigeria, which is dominating this growth, accounts for over 50% of this growth.
- China has been a relatively flat market in recent months, but there is a slight increase in June (2%) as Covid lockdowns eased across the country. However, this improvement is not expected to fill the gaps that Covid has brought to the Chinese market.
International picture by firm acceptances
- Nigeria accounts for two thirds of the growth in firm accepts, having overtaken India in terms of pace of growth and market size.
- Iran remains an interesting market to watch, and for yet another month has shown year-on-year growth. Universities are starting to work with agents in Iran – showing that they recognise the importance of investing in markets demonstrating growth, although this is subject to strong due diligence.
