Postgraduate Research UK Update as of December 2025

Our unique Pulse trackers and Share of Search data provide insights on thousands of prospective students interested in UK PhD opportunities. As of December 2025, we’re seeing that:

• International interest for UK PhD study sees slight growth from non-EU audiences and stability from the EU - which is tracking far above what we saw this time last year.
  
  
• Growth from the top 15 audiences is varied, with interest continuing to rise from Spain and Italy (relative to a drop last year) but also France, India and the USA. Meanwhile we see the largest falls from Canadian and German audiences.
  
  
• Discipline area interest is remarkably stable, with only slight growth for fields of Chemistry and Physics, and a similarly slight fall in relative interest in Engineering.
  
  
• Our Spotlight this month takes a look at how cutting the Graduate Route to 18 months is likely to impact UK study interest, both after the initial announcement in May and after the implementation confirmation in October. We’ve explored this, and other current topics for UK international PG, in greater detail on the blog.