Held under the theme UK-China Higher Education: Shared Future, New Horizons, the conference brought together university leaders and international education experts to examine the changing dynamics of UK-China engagement amid declining student mobility and tightening policy environments.
Opening the event, Kai Liu, chief operating officer of the University of Portsmouth’s London Campus, argued that institutions must rethink how they measure success as Chinese students’ priorities evolve and partnership models become increasingly important.
Conference speakers pointed to a continued slowdown in outbound Chinese student mobility. British Council data showed that 570,600 Chinese students studied overseas in 2025, down from a pre-pandemic peak of more than 700,000 in 2019.
The decline is reflected in UK visa data, with Chinese nationals receiving 89,019 sponsored study visas in 2025, a 15% fall year-on-year. Similar declines have been recorded in other major destinations, including the US and Canada.
Delegates also discussed the growing regulatory pressures facing UK universities, including the Home Office’s revised Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) requirements, introduced in June 2026, alongside Department for Education figures showing higher education export growth slowed to just 0.5% in 2024 despite total UK education exports reaching £36.5 billion.
Despite the slowdown, speakers stressed that China remains the UK’s second-largest higher education export market, contributing £4.92bn.
Sessions throughout the day suggested the downturn has been concentrated in postgraduate recruitment, while undergraduate demand has remained comparatively resilient. Delegates also heard that Chinese students are diversifying their subject choices, with business programmes accounting for a smaller share of demand than in previous years.
Rather than relying primarily on traditional recruitment agents, institutions were encouraged to develop long-term partnerships with Chinese universities through articulation agreements and pathway programmes, including 2+2 and 3+1 models.
The conference also highlighted continued growth in UK transnational education (TNE) in China, with enrolments increasing by 7.6% in 2024/25.
Speakers attributed part of that growth to streamlined approval processes introduced by China’s Ministry of Education, with 219 new TNE partnerships approved in May 2026 alone. The UK accounted for 23% of those approvals, particularly in areas such as artificial intelligence, big data and computer science.
However, delegates argued that successful partnerships now extend well beyond programme delivery, requiring joint research, industry collaboration and greater mobility opportunities for UK students.
Employability also emerged as a central theme. According to data presented during the conference, nearly half of prospective Chinese students now rank graduate employment outcomes among their top priorities when choosing a university, while families increasingly assess institutions on overall value for money rather than reputation alone.
Speakers warned that UK universities must strengthen links with Chinese employers and embed practical workplace skills into curricula if they are to remain competitive in the market.
Closing the conference, BUCA chair Anney An said the future of UK-China collaboration lay in long-term institutional partnerships built on mutual benefit rather than short-term recruitment targets.
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