Students’ dependants in the UK: a case study of Nigerian students at the University of Hertfordshire

March 2025 – June 2026
Overview Methods Outputs
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Overview

International students make up a large share of long-term immigrants in the UK.¹ They contribute to the UK economy through their spending, and also subsidise the education of domestic students by paying higher tuition fees (MAC, 2018). But little is known about how international students fund their mobility.

What is known is that an increasing share of students came to the UK with partners and children. Students’ dependants who are over 18 are permitted to work full-time, in any job, while students study. In addition, since 2021, student dependants can work in the UK after the student’s graduation by obtaining a dependant Graduate Route visa. However, a ban introduced in January 2024 restricted the ability to bring dependants to postgraduate research students only. The subsequent drop in student visa applications raises questions about the role ‘dependants’ play in the UK.

Despite the importance of the topic, dependants’ participation in the UK labour market remains understudied. To shed light on this, this project will focus on Nigerians, the fastest-growing student population in the UK (+686% student visas in three years²) with high employment rates (43% of all Nigerian students in the UK were in employment according to the latest data³), and who bring the highest proportion of dependants (more than seven times the average for all nationalities in 2024, despite the ban)ª. Through an innovative multimedia participative methodology, this project will examine the role that dependants play in enabling Nigerian students’ mobility – and, by extension, the mobility of other international students bringing high numbers of dependants.

The findings of this phase of the research will feed into the development of a longitudinal project on dependants’ trajectories before and after students’ graduation, with a focus on dependants remaining in the UK on Skilled Worker or Graduate Route visas.

 

¹ See https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migrants-in-the-uk-an-overview/.

² See https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-june-2022/.

³ See latest release available: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/articles/theinternationalstudentpopulationinenglandandwalescensus2021/2023-04-17.

ª Ratio dependants/main applicants for students in 2023: 0.31 for all nationalities; 1.27 for Nigerians. Ratio dependants/main applicants for students in 2024: 0.14 for all nationalities; 1.03 for Nigerians. Source: calculations based on Vis_D02 published 22 Aug. 2024, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/migration-statistics.

Principal Investigator

Dr Peter W Walsh

Researchers

Dr Ilka Vari-Lavoisier

Funding

John Fell Fund, University of Oxford