Postgraduate Research UK Update as of December 2024

Our unique Pulse trackers and Share of Search data provide insights on thousands of prospective international students interested in UK PhD opportunities. As of December 2024, we’re seeing that:

• UK Share of Search from non-EU audiences maintains the sharp rise we saw last month, trending only slightly below last year. Interest from the EU also sees a further rise.
  
  
• The majority of UK Continuers are targeting Autumn 2025 entry. Whereas UK Returner and International interests are almost evenly split between Spring 2025 and Autumn 2025.
  
  
• Like with UK PGT, we see confidence levels grow for Domestic audiences and negative sentiment fall for Internationals.
  
  
• Our Spotlight this month asks whether we appreciate the difference between those audiences who want to study at postgraduate level and those who successfully do so - something our data is uniquely equipped to explore. For example, although less than half of PhD enrolments in Science & Engineering are female, the searching audience is almost
  evenly split. Our Discipline Deep Dive series explores UK postgraduate audiences in greater detail.