After you graduate
Rules read 17 Aug 2026
What United Kingdom's own immigration authority currently publishes. Not a ranking, not a guarantee, and not the same as what any agent or forum will tell you. Whether someone actually obtains residence depends on occupation, points, funds and policy that can change between application and graduation.
Money you must prove before the visa
£1,171per month, for each month of the course up to a maximum of 9 months, for a course OUTSIDE London — a course in London requires £1,529 for each month instead, on the same 9-month cap
Shown as a balance in a bank account. You keep control of it.
Figure published for: 31 December 2025 — the date gov.uk records against this guidance, whose change log for it reads 'Updated the How much money you need - Student visa section to reflect the changes in the living cost requirements'. The same log shows the previous rates (£1,136 outside London, £1,483 in London) applied to applications made on or after 2 January 2025, so the figure has moved each year. This amount is revised regularly, so check it again before you transfer anything.
This is living costs only and is IN ADDITION to course fees: the applicant must separately show enough to pay one academic year's tuition (up to 9 months), at the amount printed on their Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS). London means the City of London and the 32 London boroughs. The money must have been held for 28 days in a row, counted back from the closing balance on the most recent evidence provided, and that 28-day period must end within 31 days of the application date. Each dependant brought along needs a further £680 per month outside London or £845 per month in London, again capped at 9 months. Someone boarding at a residential independent school shows the boarding fees instead. No financial evidence is needed at all if the applicant has already been in the UK on a valid visa for at least 12 months, is applying as a Student Union Sabbatical Officer, is applying to study as a doctor or dentist in training, or is a British national overseas or a national of one of the countries on the differential evidence requirement list (which includes Australia, Canada, China, Brazil, Japan, Malaysia, Qatar, the UAE and the USA among others). A student loan or financial sponsorship is accepted but needs evidence from the loan or sponsorship company.
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United Kingdom also requires proof of health cover for this visa. See what's required →
Work during study
A Student visa holder on a full-time degree-level course sponsored by a higher-education provider with a track record of compliance may work up to 20 hours per week during term-time, and full-time outside of term-time. A student on a full-time course below degree level (sponsored by such a provider) is limited to 10 hours per week during term-time, also full-time outside of term-time. All other study, including any part-time study, permits no employment at all under the visa. Work that is an assessed, integral part of the course (a work placement) is separately permitted, as is an elected Student Union Sabbatical Officer or National Union of Students role, for up to 2 years.
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Post-study work visa
Graduate visa . Up to 3 years
Available to a Student visa holder who has successfully completed an eligible UK bachelor's degree, postgraduate degree or other eligible course for a minimum required period on that visa, and whose education provider has confirmed completion to the Home Office. It cannot be extended, and cannot be applied for from outside the UK. For a bachelor's or master's graduate it currently lasts 2 years — but only for an application made on or before 31 December 2026; for an application made on or after 1 January 2027 it will last only 18 months instead, a reduction already confirmed on the Home Office's own page. A PhD or other doctoral graduate gets 3 years regardless. It permits working in most jobs, being self-employed, and looking for work, but not most public funds and not professional sport. There is no route to extend a Graduate visa itself — a holder who wants to stay longer must separately qualify for and switch to a different visa (typically Skilled Worker) before it expires.
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Route to permanent residence
The Graduate visa does not itself lead to settlement and cannot be extended — a graduate who wants to remain permanently must switch to a different, qualifying visa (commonly Skilled Worker, which requires a job offer from a Home-Office-approved sponsor, a role on the list of eligible occupations, and a minimum salary) before the Graduate visa expires. Time spent on the Graduate visa (or as a Student) does not itself count towards the 5-year continuous-residence period ordinarily required for indefinite leave to remain (ILR, 'settlement') under a work route — that clock generally starts once the switch to a qualifying work visa is made, though it is counted as lawful residence towards the separate 10-year long-residence settlement route. After 5 years on an eligible work visa, a person who still meets salary and other eligibility rules may apply for indefinite leave to remain, which removes all immigration time limits. This 5-year figure is itself under active review: the Government's May 2025 immigration white paper proposed replacing automatic settlement after a fixed period with an 'earned settlement' model built around a 10-year baseline qualifying period, adjustable by contribution, integration, residence and character; a public consultation on implementing this closed on 12 February 2026 and the Home Office's own consultation page still states only that it is 'analysing your feedback', with no outcome or Immigration Rules change published as of this reading.
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Route to citizenship
Naturalisation as a British citizen is decided by the Home Office — the same department that runs the visa system. The most common route is holding indefinite leave to remain (ILR, 'settlement') for at least 12 months before applying, on top of the qualifying period already needed to reach ILR itself (usually 5 years of lawful residence, so around 6 years in total); a person married to or in a civil partnership with a British citizen can instead apply as soon as they have lived in the UK for the last 3 years and hold ILR or settled status. Applicants generally must also prove knowledge of English to at least CEFR level B1 (or hold a degree taught or researched in English) and pass the Life in the UK Test, alongside a good-character requirement and limits on time spent outside the UK. The UK recognises dual nationality: Home Office guidance for passport staff, updated 13 October 2025, states the UK 'allows British nationals who have dual nationality, to hold a British passport' and that staff 'will never tell a customer to renounce another country's citizenship or cancel their foreign passport' — so becoming British does not require giving up an applicant's existing nationality, though other countries may not reciprocate.
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What the government currently prioritises
Skilled Worker visa sponsorship normally requires a salary at or above a standard threshold and the job's own 'going rate' — but an eligible job that appears on the Government's immigration salary list can be sponsored at a reduced salary floor and a lower visa fee, functioning as this route's shortage/priority-occupation mechanism. The list is a live, searchable Government tool rather than a fixed table reproduced here, and eligibility also depends on which part of the UK the role is based in. The Government's May 2025 immigration white paper announced this list is due to be replaced by a new 'Temporary Shortage List', with current sub-RQF6 immigration-salary-list occupations remaining usable only until December 2026 — so which occupations qualify, and under which list's name, is expected to change within the currency of this dataset.
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Read 17 August 2026. Two things anyone timing a UK application should know: (1) the Graduate visa's standard length is confirmed dropping from 2 years to 18 months for any application made on or after 1 January 2027 — someone graduating in mid-2026 who applies before the end of the year still gets 2 years, but the same graduate applying only a few months later would not, so timing genuinely matters here. (2) the entire post-Graduate-visa settlement picture (currently 5 years of qualifying work-visa residence for indefinite leave to remain) is under active Government reform towards a 10-year 'earned settlement' baseline; the relevant consultation closed 12 February 2026 with no published outcome yet, so this dataset records the rules as they stand today, not as they are proposed to become. Only gov.uk is treated as authoritative for UK immigration facts in this dataset. citizenshipRoute added 17 August 2026: the ILR-plus-12-months residence path is cited to gov.uk/british-citizenship (4f471446323716ff); the B1 English requirement to gov.uk/english-language (eb757cbe5a6152fc); and the dual-nationality statement to the Home Office's own modernised guidance publication 'Dual nationality' (gov.uk/government/publications/dual-citizens/dual-nationality, 54d0b653a6707230), version 4.0 dated 13 October 2025 — chosen over an older 2017-archived caseworker PDF found during this pass (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/.../dualnationality.pdf) precisely because it is current rather than an archived historical document, even though the substantive legal position (no UK-law bar on dual nationality since the British Nationality Act 1981) is unchanged between the two. naturalisationStatus set to 'published-route' on 18 August 2026: the authority already cited under citizenshipRoute publishes criteria a foreign resident could actually follow, which is the only claim this field makes. It is deliberately not a judgement about how attainable that route is in practice. citizenshipTerms records minimumResidenceYears 5 because 5 years is the residence figure GOV.UK itself states; the Home Office publishes no single years-to-citizenship number. Citizenship additionally requires having held ILR for the 12 months before applying, and most applicants only reach ILR at the 5-year point, so in practice the route usually takes about 6 years in the UK — a total the authority never states as a figure of its own, which is why it is not the number recorded here. studentVisaFunds added 19 August 2026. The Student route publishes two maintenance rates, not one, and the schema holds a single amount — so the OUTSIDE-London rate (£1,171/month) is recorded as the amount because it is the baseline the majority of this dataset's UK universities sit under, and the London rate (£1,529/month) is stated in both period and conditions and appears in the same quote, so it cannot be lost. Neither figure was multiplied out to a 9-month total: the Home Office publishes them per month with a 9-month cap and that is what is stored. Two Home Office pages were archived and agree exactly: the citizen-facing Student visa 'Money you need' page (750d58f58a4b7b53) and the caseworker-facing financial-evidence guidance (10a97c008f1eb9e8). The guidance page is cited because it alone carries the dated change log that gives effectiveFrom, plus the dependant rates and the exemption list. Note the trap here: search engines were still serving the superseded 2 January 2025 rates (£1,136 / £1,483) on the day this was collected, and those are the figures a student would find first.
Open the immigration authority's own page ↗