Postgraduate Research UK Update as of March 2025

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

• Autumn 2025 continues to be the most popular entry point for all audiences. UK Continuers are the most likely to seek entry in 2026, with around 45% of that audience targeting next year.
  
  
• Non-EU Share of Search for UK PhD study continues to track alongside last years strong interest levels after the recovery we saw in autumn 2024. EU interest, however, remains below last years’ levels despite a slight rise in February 2025.
  
  
• Growth for UK PhD study comes from a wide variety of regions with audiences from across Asia, Africa and the Americas present in the top 10. Like we saw in the PGT report, Nepal and Bangladesh lead the way (with +61% and +56% growth respectively).
  
  
• Our Spotlight this month investigates how welcoming the ‘big four’ anglophone destinations are thought to be by international students. The UK comes out on top, with around 75% of audiences viewing it as either ‘quite’ or ‘very’ welcoming compared to around 60% for the USA and Canada. We’ve dug into this topic further on the site, with breakdowns for specific audiences.