Most overseas graduates switching visas are working in care

Care work is the most common occupation for “overqualified” international students who switch from the graduate route on to longer-term work visas in the UK, new analysis reveals.

Freedom of Information Act requests to the Home Office from the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford show that international students are becoming more likely to stay in the UK to work after their studies.

The graduate route, introduced in summer 2021, allows international students to stay on to work in the UK, usually for two years, with those wanting to stay longer typically needing long-term skilled work visas.

Of the 2021 cohort of students from outside the European Union, 8 per cent held long-term skilled worker visas within one to two years – up from just 1 per cent of the 2019 cohort.

Post-Brexit, students wanting to switch to long-term skilled work visas have had a wider range of jobs to choose from, including care work, which was added to the list of eligible jobs in early 2022.

The Migration Observatory research reveals that among international students who have switched to long-term work, the care sector has been the most popular destination.

In the 12 months to June 2023, 26,200 former students became care or senior care workers – around 62 per cent of those all those who moved from the graduate route to the skilled worker visa.

This was up from 27 per cent in the year to June 2022.

The Migration Observatory said the data suggested that many former international students were overqualified for their skilled worker route jobs.

Before Brexit, graduate jobs would have been the only option for most students switching into work, but the analysis shows that they now make up just under a quarter of the total.

“Most international students graduate from master’s programmes in subjects like business, engineering and computer science, so it is striking to see so many take roles in care, which requires few formal qualifications,” said Ben Brindle, a researcher at the Migration Observatory and co-author of the report.

“Some workers who take care roles may genuinely want to work in the sector. Others will have made a pragmatic choice to take on care work despite being heavily overqualified for it, because it provides a route to remaining in the UK.”

The findings come after a report from the Migration Advisory Committee found that many overseas graduates end up in low-wage jobs.

This is further bad news for the sector, which has become concerned that a government review of the graduate visa will threaten its existence.

The Migration Observatory said the trend of students staying longer in the UK was likely to mean that the student visa route contributed more to net migration than in previous years. However, the data suggested that in the medium term it would be the care route, not the graduate route, driving this change.

Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory and co-author of the report, said students who were overqualified for their jobs lost opportunities to build skills, but there were benefits to be had from using international students in care, rather than hiring directly from abroad.

“Exploitation in the care sector has been a big problem recently, and former students with good language skills and more local knowledge may be less vulnerable to it,” added Dr Sumption.

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com