The Graduate visa is good for students and the UK

Post-study visas are common across the world, for good reason – it makes sense to retain the talent where the talent was trained, in addition to allowing people who have integrated to remain should they wish to.

The UK revoked its post-study visa in 2012, harming the university sector as well as the UK economy – for international students in the 2016/2017 academic year, for example, fewer than one percent managed to switch to a work visa. This was a tremendous loss of UK-trained talent.

After campaigning from the University sector and others, the Graduate visa was introduced in 2021 as a way for the UK to better compete for the talent and knowledge of international students. The Graduate visa currently allows those who finished their Bachelors and Masters in the UK to remain for two years, and those who completed their PhDs to remain for three. While the Green Party welcomed the return of a post-study option, we continue to push for it to last three years for all students. In contrast, Canada, for example, offers permanent residency upon completion of the post-study visa assuming the individual has worked for a Canadian company for at least one year. Both Australia and New Zealand, meanwhile, currently allow master’s students to remain for three years.

We are still in the early days of the Graduate visa and thus cannot use long-term data, but we can evaluate the numbers from pre-2012: during those years, the vast majority of international students left, with fewer than 20% of those who came on a Student visa still in the UK after five years. Assuming we will find similar trends once the data allows an equivalent analysis, we should welcome the minority of international students who wish to remain in the UK long-term; this includes allowing them to apply for permanent residency after five years in the UK, which they currently are barred from, the only ‘major’ visa route without this right.

We also promote policies which encourage UK businesses to hire from within the migrant workforce already in the UK rather than recruiting directly from abroad. It simply does not make sense, either economically or socially, to lose international students who would otherwise remain in the UK. For example, while we believe in the total revocation of both the Immigration Skills Charge and the minimum salary threshold, in the current system both unfortunately exist. As such, we would like to see both abolished for those on the Graduate visa, as an incentive for UK businesses to hire UK-trained workers.

In short, we appreciate the contribution all international students make to the UK and would like to retain the minority who wish to remain in this country through a more generous post-study visa route than what currently exists.