Growth in revenue from UK education exports has slowed, with declining university enrolments blamed for the sluggish performance.
Statistics released by the Department for Education (DfE) on 2 July show that higher education accounted for 72.4 per cent of all education-related exports and transnational education (TNE) activity in 2024.
But this figure represents a drop of 1.5 percentage points from 2023.
Overall, total UK education exports and TNE activity expanded by 2.5 per cent between 2023 and 2024 to £36.7 billion – a notable decline on the 10.8 per cent growth rate recorded between 2022 and 2023. The government’s recent International Education Strategy targeted increasing education exports to £40 billion by 2030.
Higher education exports did rise in 2024, but only minimally, up 0.5 per cent, from £26.4 billion to £26.6 billion.
