UK’s new international strategy lacks muscle, say experts

While higher education leaders have officially given a warm welcome to the UK government’s new international education strategy, most sector experts approached by University World News were clearly underwhelmed by the lack of hard commitments to match the fine rhetoric about Britain’s world-class universities and education providers being among the country’s greatest assets.

The new international education strategy, or IES, published on 20 January 2026, has been promised for around a year by the UK’s Labour government.

Now that it is finally published, the priority is clear: boost the value of the UK’s education exports to £40 billion (US$53.6 billion) annually within the next four to five years.

That’s up from a target of £35 billion by 2030 set by a previous Conservative government in an earlier IES in 2019, which also spoke of increasing international student numbers coming to the UK to study to 600,000 by 2030.

Ducking the number target

The new Labour government strategy ducks the question about how many foreign students it wants to see in the UK.

It also lacks details about how the increase in education exports is to be achieved beyond a new emphasis on leveraging the UK’s diplomatic channels – and the British Council – to deepen global ties to strengthen strategic collaboration and education systems via transnational education and championing the UK as a trusted global partner for high-quality research.

It is perhaps not surprising that Labour's IES leaves the ideal number of international students the UK desires blank, as the 600,000 target proved to be a hostage to fortune.

The target was breached within two years during the Boris Johnson Tory government, with the number of foreign students in the UK jumping to 730,000 in 2022 after the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to 442,000 in 2016 (the year of the Brexit referendum).

The sudden surge in international arrivals on British higher education campuses sparked alarming headlines, suggesting foreign students were taking top spots from British students and increased concerns about a lack of student accommodation. It appeared to catch the government by surprise.

University vice-chancellors were, however, delighted to see seats filling up with lucrative foreign students, who often pay three or four times as much in tuition fees as home students whose fees are fixed by the government.

Eventually, the Conservative government panicked and introduced a series of measures to clamp down on international students, including banning foreign masters students from bringing their dependents, which took effect from the beginning of 2024. This led to a huge drop in postgraduate-taught students from abroad.

Immigration issue

Now, with immigration remaining a hot political issue in Britain, the new international education strategy is clearly treading a fine line between “sustainable growth” in international students studying for British qualifications and provoking anti-immigration sentiments.

Such sentiments have turned increasingly ugly since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and with the failure of successive prime ministers to stop gangs transporting asylum-seekers and economic migrants across the English Channel in small boats.

Labour’s new international education strategy is therefore much less of a call to boost international student numbers in the UK and more a diplomatic initiative to increase the UK’s standing in the world.

It has three main ambitions:

• Increase the UK’s standing abroad by making the UK the “global partner of choice” at every stage of learning by growing UK transnational education (TNE) and expanding high-quality UK education provision overseas.

• Sustainably recruit high-quality international higher education students from a diverse range of countries by being globally competitive while aligning with the UK government's wider immigration and skills priorities

• Grow education exports to £40 billion annually by 2023 by overcoming barriers to growth internationally.

The new strategy is co-owned by three government departments, with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development offices now brought on board through Baroness Chapman, Minister for International Development and Africa.

She is joined by Baroness Smith, Minister for Skills at the Department for Education, and Sir Chris Bryant, MP, Minister for Trade at the Department for Business and Trade – the two government departments which co-owned the previous IES.

Home Office excluded

Missing in action is the Home Office, which is responsible for immigration controls and issuing student visas.

Dr Diana Beech, a former government adviser on higher education and now director of the Finsbury Institute at City St George’s University in London, told University World News this was a major weakness.

“However supportive other government departments may be, the success of any international education strategy ultimately depends on coherent and competitive visa and immigration policies.

“Without Home Office buy-in, the strategy remains vulnerable, and the next contradictory announcement could easily undermine its entire purpose,” she said.

However, Beech accepted that the release of the updated IES was something of a “minor miracle” for the UK higher education sector, explaining that the government “could have abandoned the update to avoid international students being swept up in the wider anti-immigration currents dominating domestic politics”.

Where’s the new money?

Dr David Pilsbury, who co-ordinated an independent review of UK global higher education policies by a coalition of willing experts under the auspices of the International Higher Education Commission (IHEC) chaired by former Conservative Universities and Science Minister Chris Skidmore, said he was disappointed that they recommendations seem to have been ignored by the government.

Pilsbury told University World News that while the new IES deserves credit for not treating international education as a narrow student-numbers game, “let’s not pretend this is the strategy the moment demands.”

He said: “Yes, it does a few sensible, practical things: it keeps the Graduate Route, talks about diversifying markets, and recognises that the student experience has to be sustainable – housing, support, outcomes – rather than simply chasing volume.

“And I’m glad to see stronger language on TNE as a strategic tool, with government leaning in through diplomacy ... as competition hardens and we move to UK capability delivered in-country to keep the Home Office happy. So, the right rhetoric for a more mature phase of internationalisation.”

However, the new IES is light on commitments, said Pilsbury, who asked: “Where is the new money for a serious destination marketing push and the clear accountability and measurable outcomes?

“It is not enough to point to existing activities like the British Council’s Study UK campaigns.

“We need the government to put real ‘meat’ behind TNE growth and not leave too much to chance and the sector delivering in a vacuum and at the very point that universities are under maximum financial strain.”

Levy ‘own goal’

His biggest gripe, shared by several other experts, was not using any of the international student levy – due to be charged at the rate of £925 per head on international students recruited after 2028 – to enhance the performance and transformation of the sector in all things “international”.

“This is a real own goal,” said Pilsbury, who said the levy should be spent on a proper international marketing campaign, supporting the TNE academy and “internationalisation at home (IaH) activities that would indirectly benefit international and domestic students”.

Instead, most of the levy is destined to be spent on re-introducing targeted maintenance grants for less well-off home students.

“This is, at best, tone deaf. It reinforces the sense that government still can't decide whether international students are a national asset or a domestic political problem,” said Pilsbury.

Dr Anthony Manning, associate dean (international) at Arden University and one of the UK’s biggest champions of IaH, said that while the new IES didn’t use the term “internationalisation at home”, the new strategy recognised the importance of UK education “meeting global needs” and embedding “international priorities across our education system” in all stages.

“This is welcome, but [by] stopping short of naming or fully operationalising IaH as a distinct policy strand, the strategy leaves it to the sector to translate these principles into coherent practice and to build momentum for sustained investment in this area,” Manning told University World News.

Shift towards diplomacy

Dr Janet Ilieva, founder and director of Education Insight, was another critic of the new international education strategy’s lack of ambition.

Ilieva said the new IES “marks an important shift: from a largely export-led narrative towards education diplomacy – with the Foreign Office now a co-owner and UK Heads of Mission explicitly positioned to broker education partnerships.

“This is the right direction. If the UK wants to remain a global education player in a more multipolar, more competitive landscape, it will do so increasingly through TNE and deeper institutional partnerships overseas”.

However, she joined the chorus claiming the proposed international student levy appeared to contradict the strategy’s emphasis on a globally competitive offer and widening recruitment to a more diverse range of countries.

One area she did highlight as a positive was the role of the British Council as a delivery partner after the last government's indifference, at best, to the importance of the Council in supporting “Brand Britain”.

“The British Council has been an underutilised asset for a long time – and is one of the UK's most credible channels of cultural and educational diplomacy, with the reach and convening power to translate ambition into partnerships on the ground,” Ilieva told University World News.

Economic contributions

Dr Suzanna Tomassi, executive director of external affairs at NCUK, a leading UK pathway provider for UK universities and former TNE specialist for the Department of Business and Trade, told University World News: “By moving beyond a narrow focus on international student recruitment numbers, the strategy acknowledges the growing importance of education delivered overseas, transnational partnerships and long-term global collaboration.

“The positioning of UK education as a key contributor to economic growth, while aligning education more closely with trade and foreign policy objectives, creates exciting new opportunities for UK providers to diversify their international activity through high-quality partnerships, transnational education and mobility programmes.

“However, we recognise that the success of this strategy will ultimately depend on effective implementation, genuine sector engagement, regulatory clarity and appropriate support to develop sustainable partnerships that protect the quality and reputation of UK education in increasingly competitive global markets.”

Another expert, Ruth Arnold, executive director of external affairs at Study Group, told University World News: “The authors of the new IES had a difficult balance to strike politically,” but said she wished they had gone further in recognising that international education is a key driver of wider inward investment, economic activity and jobs, which were “sorely needed right across the regions of the UK”.

As for the Independent Higher Education group, which represents independent providers such as the Royal Academy and Le Cordon Bleu as well as the Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology and global education pathway providers Kaplan and Study Group, its chief executive, Alex Proudfoot, said: “The UK offers safe harbour in an unpredictable world, with a diverse ecosystem of provision and collaborative instincts that make us education partners of choice for governments and global business.”

Nic Mitchell is a UK-based freelance journalist and PR consultant specialising in European and international higher education. He blogs at www.delacourcommunications.com.