Two-year graduate visas allowed for "high-compliance" universities after updated Government plans
UK Chancellor John Healy, appointed by Andy Burhnam earlier this year, delivered his first Budget speech to the Commons on Wednesday 28 October, where he announced graduates from UK universities with “strong labour market outcomes” will be allowed to obtain a graduate visa valid for two years.
The Labour Government reduced the visa length from two years to 18 months in May 2025, which will remain the case for those graduates that apply from 1 January 2027 onward and are from universities not considered “high-compliance”.
To date, there is no more information on the criteria used to determine labour market outcomes, or which universities comply.
This change is part of efforts to ensure the immigration system “supports a dynamic labour market”, as outlined in the document. This policy naturally establishes a dynamic where some institutions are given more favourable conditions than others, which has received mixed responses from key stakeholders.
Dr Hollie Chandler, Director of Strategic Policy at the Russell Group (composed of 24 leading public UK universities including Imperial) expressed support for the implementation as it will “help protect our reputation as a global study destination and maximise the contributions of these graduates to the UK workforce” and announced the Group will work closely with Government to shape the change.
Director of HEPI (Higher Education Policy Institute), criticizes the decision as “linking how long international students can stay in the UK to graduate employment rates, when international students are the one group for whom we have very little data on graduate outcomes, just does not make much sense.”
National Union of Students President Favour Samuel joins this backlash, arguing the policy just changes an “arbitrary immigration figure” and that it “does nothing but increase the confusion surrounding this scheme”.
In other efforts to “go further in attracting the world’s best graduates”, there will be a proportional increase in the yearly applications cap for the High Potential Individual (HPI) visa route. The HPI visa, introduced in 2022 and currently capped at 8,000 applications, allows graduates from eligible global universities to stay in the UK for two years without a job offer or sponsors. The list of universities has now been expanded, from to graduates from the world’s top 80 institutions to 150, although it is not clear which will be added.
