Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate her Department has made of the number of international graduates who have remained in the UK via the Graduate Route visa since its introduction; and what assessment she has made with Cabinet colleagues of their contribution to the economy.

The Home Office publishes data on extensions of stay as part of the Immigration System Statistics quarterly release. Data on the number of grants issued under the Graduate route since its introduction are published in table Exe_D01 of the Extensions detailed datasets. The latest data is available up to the end of June 2026.

These statistics relate to grants rather than unique individuals and, therefore, should not be interpreted as a direct count of people. However, they should provide a reasonable proxy for the number of individuals who have extended their stay in the UK under the Graduate route. The data can be broken down between main applicants and their dependants.

Migration Statistics are not currently aware of any estimates of the contribution of these individuals to the UK economy.