The Push and Pull of UK Domestic PGT in 2026

Quick highlights:

• UK PGT enrolments have grown slightly for younger age groups
• Demographics don't entirely explain this shift, but rising graduate unemployment may  be a factor
• Pulse data suggests audiences are increasingly concerned about cost, but seeking long-term benefits from further study

I wrote recently how 2024/25 enrolment data breaks an important trend for UK PGT.

30+ domestic entrants (so, people starting a Masters-level qualification) fell for the first time since 2022/23; 21-24 enrolments rose for the first time since 2020/21. Both changes are very small (-1 and +2% respectively) but the shift in direction feels significant.

Here I want to take a bit more time to ask ‘why’ – weaving in some of our Pulse data.

Why have UK Masters students stopped getting older?

By which I don’t mean people doing a Masters have ceased ageing (although FindAPhD suggests it’s a busy research area) but that the rise in enrolments from people aged 30+ has finally fallen.

One simple explanation is demographics, but this isn’t entirely adequate as ONS data indicates the UK population aged 30-59* has grown every year since 2020 and is up 2% as of 2024. The % of that population entering Masters study has levelled off (at 0.4% in both 2023/24 and 2024/25) so it seems more likely that participation has stopped growing regardless of population.

Another possibility is economics. It’s reasonable to assume that older ‘returner’ students may have greater means of funding postgraduate study (in terms of resource or opportunity) but this only goes so far given the inadequacy of the postgraduate loan.

Pulse research suggests cost is an increasingly important obstacle:

Here I’m comparing the % of people who select ‘cost’ as a blocker to Masters study during an October-March sample (the core consideration and application period for a Masters) across the past three cycles.

The size of this concern is no surprise, but the trend is significant. Returners (those typically older audiences who aren’t at university) are 5 percentage points (or 7%) more likely to cite cost as a concern in 2025-26 than they were in 2023-24.

If 30+ participation is hitting a post-pandemic ceiling, it probably has as much to do with economics as it does with demographics.

But what about those younger audiences?

*A somewhat arbitrary segment based on student finance eligibility.

Why have UK Masters audiences started getting younger?

(I’ll refrain from making the age joke again.)

Demographics don’t quite explain things here either – based on ONS data, the UK 21-24-aged population did grow in 2024, but also in 2023 and 2022. What does change slightly is participation: down from 2020 to 2023, then up from 2.16% to 2.19% in 2024.

These are small percentage changes, but they tell a story that fits: more of the 21-24 UK population chose to do a Masters degree in 2024/25, whereas they didn’t in any previous year from 2020.

The broader context

And yet we know from the previous chart that typically younger Continuer audiences are even more likely to be concerned about the cost of study (up 7 percentage points, or around 9%).

There’s another trend that might explain why more young people are choosing to do a Masters despite ongoing financial barriers. You’ve potentially already thought of it. And it isn’t a pretty one.

Unemployment amongst the young population (here 21-30) in 2023 and 2024 is the highest it’s been since 2013 (excluding the 2020 pandemic spike). Those Continuer undergraduates deciding whether to do a Masters in 2024/25 were (and still are) facing one of the toughest job-markets since the tail-end of the 2008 financial crisis – a time when postgraduate enrolments also grew.

And I think this explains something else we’re seeing in Pulse, this time looking at Motivations for Masters study:

The time periods are slightly different, comparing the six-month period from April to September 2025 with October 2025 to March 2026*. We’re not looking at data to match the rise in younger enrolments, but we are still seeing a meaningful trend for how current undergraduate audiences feel about a Masters.

The absolute order reminds us how important Subject Interest and Career Entry always are for these audiences (and that both matter).

The biggest increases are for Transferable Skills (5pp) and Career Progress (6pp). Career Entry and Earnings are both down (-1pp and -3pp) as is Challenge (-5pp).

Does this tell a story of people focussing more on longer-term outcomes over immediate benefits and experiences? And does that make sense when participation by younger audiences is rising slightly as unemployment rises more? Are people taking ‘shelter’ in Masters-level study once more, at the same time as they’re using it to acquire skills and experience for the longer term? Perhaps.

*The not-especially-exciting reason for this is that Pulse response options for this question changed in early 2024 which makes a year-on-year comparison less valid.

Positioning PGT

Viewed alongside this data, UK domestic PGT feels like a carrot between two sticks: a challenging labour market that encourages more people to consider further study and upskilling that fewer of them can afford.

That does matter for how we position domestic PGT right now. Focussing on broader skills development, flexibility and broader career progress could become more valuable than more direct and simplistic links to immediate employment and salary benefits. Less about what someone might be doing after a Masters year and more of what a Masters might be doing for them in 10 years.

By which time the funding might have improved too.