Care work is the most common occupation for “overqualified” international students who switch from the graduate route on to longer-term work visas in the UK, new analysis reveals.
Freedom of Information Act requests to the Home Office from the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford show that international students are becoming more likely to stay in the UK to work after their studies.
The graduate route, introduced in summer 2021, allows international students to stay on to work in the UK, usually for two years, with those wanting to stay longer typically needing long-term skilled work visas.
Of the 2021 cohort of students from outside the European Union, 8 per cent held long-term skilled worker visas within one to two years – up from just 1 per cent of the 2019 cohort.
