Graduate jobs in the UK: international students

Realistically, only a small number of graduates are able to switch into a Skilled worker visa after their studies.

The Graduate visa has made it possible for more students to stay in the UK for post-study work for two years: in the first half of 2022 Graduate route: permission to stay was granted to 30,453 Graduates (UKCISA)

Whether you succeed in finding a job in the UK is partly down to you as an individual - do you have valuable skills, experience and knowledge that make you competitive in the job market? Read on to find out what you can do to give yourself the best chance of success.

British Council Study UK blog: Building your career in the UK

UK employers are interested in your skills and experience as well as your academic qualifications. You have already taken the big step of coming to another country to study, so make the most of your time here, step out of your comfort zone and get involved in activities and experiences that will help you develop your skills further. 

Take some time early in your course to look at job ads and requirements to see what skills are needed. You may want to gain some new skills or enhance existing skills so that you can apply for the kind of job you want. Use your time here to do this before applying for jobs.

Develop your skills and strengths

UK employers are interested in extra-curricular experience as well as your degree, so look beyond your course. Completing our development programmes, joining societies or volunteering are great ways to broaden your skills, get to know people, experience a different culture, and will give you opportunities to practise your spoken English. 

• Make the most of all the University of York has to offer you:
  • our development programmes - York Strengths, York Award and York Leaders - will help you to understand yourself better, identify your personal strengths, reflect on your experiences, and stand out in future job applications.
• Get involved in sports and university societies, or activities in your college
• Take part in our volunteering opportunities - there's a range of projects, so find one that appeals to you. 
• Find an online course to help you develop your employability skills, for example with FutureLearn (free short online courses on a range of topics from universities around the world, including York), Google Digital Garage or the Open University.
• Try online volunteering - for example, with United Nations UNV online volunteering or Zooniverse where online volunteering tasks contribute to research across a range of subject disciplines. 

Find work experience

• Work experience at home or in the UK is very valuable. You could consider part-time work, a summer internship, or possibly a placement year.
  • Check your visa restrictions before you take a job or if you would like to switch into a placement year programme.
• Virtual/online work experience
  • York Internships advertise some virtual (paid) internships, but most of their projects are in a workplace
  • Forage offers virtual work experience programmes (unpaid) in a range of areas, including law, accounting, finance, tech consulting, marketing and engineering. Programmes consist of resources and tasks designed to simulate real-world experience, and help you build your commercial awareness; they are free to use, and are designed and endorsed by leading companies.   

English language skills

A high standard of English is essential if you want to get a job in the UK, and we can support you to become more confident.

• Use the Writing Centre, which offers workshops and support for academic English to succeed in your studies. Their training sessions on academic writing include some grammar workshops.
• Attend our English for Employability sessions. These sessions are led by international students for international students, to help you build confidence in your English skills. Search English for Employability in Handshake events.

The British Council also offers online courses:

• English for the workplace (free access for six weeks from registration) covers English for job hunting, interviews and starting a job
• Study UK: Preparing for work
• Business English

You can also read news sites and business stories in English - and watch Netflix in English too!

Make sure you understand what UK employers are looking for - keep up with business news, read job descriptions and company websites carefully to check your meet their requirements. Do not waste time on lots of applications where you are not clear that the job is suitable for you; instead spend your time on a few good quality, targeted applications.

• Use the time you have now to research and plan for your career, using the University of York careers website, Prospects and TARGETjobs. If you’d like to talk to a careers consultant about your questions or plans, book an appointment. You don't need to apply for jobs until later in your Masters year (unless you are applying for graduate schemes, which recruit very early). Remember you will not be available until you have completed your course. A good time to apply is just a few months before you finish.
• GoinGlobal country guide for the UK has job search resources, industry trends, and tips for applying for work in the UK (UoY log-in needed for access).
• Make a LinkedIn profile, and start building your network; read Prospects guide to social media and job hunting
• Tell the employer about your international experience in a relevant way; you could mention cross-cultural communication, flexibility in adapting to a different culture, confidence to work in global business, knowledge and understanding of your home culture - and don't forget your language skills.
• Apply only to companies you really want to work for - not just because they are a visa sponsor. The recruitment process will test whether you are genuinely motivated to work for them.
• Understand how the application process works, the timescales and different stages in recruitment.
• Use our resources to make sure you have an up-to-date, clear CV that will get attention. Make sure your CV is right for the UK job market Preparing a CV for the UK job market (PDF , 171kb)
• Practise, practise, practise. We have resources to help you with online tests - practise these in advance to give yourself the best chance. Look especially at verbal reasoning tests to practise your comprehension and extend your vocabulary. The Maths Skills Centre also offers support with numeracy for employability.
• Use our online practice interview resource too, and practise listening to interview questions and giving your answers in a set period of time. No login needed, just register for each practice interview with your University email address.

After you have completed your degree, you are likely to have four months left on your visa before it expires. You can use this time to work and to look for a longer term job.

You could:

• Look for part-time or short-term vacancies on Handshake 
• Use the information on our Work while you study page to help with your job search
• Search Handshake for vacancies which match your language or skills. Identify relevant companies and contact them speculatively, for example to do market research, marketing, social media, web design, translation
• Get in touch with employers or organisations you've had contact with during your time at York to see if they have any opportunities; be proactive - suggest a project you could do to help their business.

Visa restrictions

Make sure you let prospective employers know you don't need a new visa to work during this period: you can include this information on your application/cover letter.

Remember that during this time the work regulations for Student visa holders still apply to the type of work you can do, so you cannot accept a permanent job at this time.

When to start

• You should find out about recruitment deadlines for the kind of job you are interested in. Our graduate jobs page explains the difference between graduate schemes (structured graduate training programmes with larger organisations) and direct entry graduate jobs (later in the year, variable deadlines).
  • See also the TARGETjobs Guide to job hunting for international students.
• Start early if you are hoping to get a place on a graduate scheme. Some big companies close their applications in mid-November for the following year. If you are a Masters student, this means you need to start thinking about your next steps straight away!
• Starting early will mean you'll have time to learn from your experiences of applications, assessment centres and feedback from interviews, and if you are not successful initially you will be able to learn and practise for next time.

Where to look

• Some graduate employers advertise on Handshake. Others rely on their own websites and other jobs boards. See the graduate jobs page and our job hunting toolkit for more details.
• Student Circus is a jobs board for international students and graduates. It has jobs listed from over a thousand employers, ranging from small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to huge multinational corporations (MNCs), creative agencies, and boutique firms. Use it to find UK employers offering Skilled Worker Visa sponsorship. Sign up using your York email and create a new password (do not use your University password).
• Visa Sponsor Jobs (based in Australia but advertising UK jobs) is a jobs boards for employers offering visa sponsorship
• Careers events and fairs are a good way to meet employers and learn more about their company culture and what they are looking for in their recruits.
• Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) recruit a large number of graduates each year and can be a good option for international students. Find out more on our blog.
• For more specific vacancy sites see individual job sector pages and the Science careers page.

What to find out

• Research industry news to try and understand where companies are more likely to recruit international students. Keep up with current affairs and labour market information (LMI) affecting that industry. The government's Skilled Worker visa: immigration salary list can give you an indication of jobs where you are more likely to be successful.
• Research the companies you are interested in - their website is the best place to start and will give you a lot of information about the company and issues affecting them. Be prepared to spend a lot of time researching the companies that interest you the most.
• Use LinkedIn, alumni networks and York profiles and mentors to find previous international students who have found jobs in the UK; see where they are working and consider contacting them for advice.
• Make sure you understand the timescales for applications, and the terminology used in job ads. The Job hunting toolkit will help you with this.
• If you are looking for a job which will sponsor a Skilled Worker visa, check whether the employer you are interested in is able to sponsor you. (Use Ctrl F to find an employer on the register of sponsors.) If they're not already on this list, might they be prepared to become a sponsor to recruit you - do you have specialist, in-demand skills that make this feasible? Note that not all companies listed on the register of sponsors are currently recruiting international students to graduate roles.
• Check if the job is at the right skill and salary level, by using the eligible occupation codes. If it's not, it won't be possible to get sponsorship. 

Presentation slides and resources

• Understanding the UK job market (March 2024)
  • Understanding the UK labour market: useful resources and links
• Applying for jobs in the UK (April 2024)
  • Applying for jobs in the UK: useful resources and links
• Student Circus: Navigating the UK job market (PDF , 2,777kb) (June 2023)

• At the start of your job hunting, make an application for a National Insurance Number which your employer will expect you to have in place either when you start work or shortly afterwards.
  • See your rights at work for instructions on how to do this.
• Your NI number is a unique personal reference number for your tax/employment affairs - everyone working in the UK needs to have one, issued free of charge.
• It can take several weeks to get your National Insurance Numbers but you should be able to start work while you are waiting for it to arrive.

Some job vacancies state that you must have a work permit or permission to work in the UK. This type of wording can be quite off-putting and confusing. You should check with the employer exactly what they mean.

• Employers are legally required to check that their employees have the right to work in the UK; they may use this wording to try to protect themselves against recruiting someone who does not have the correct permission to work in the UK. Some jobs have nationality requirements (eg national security, civil service).
• Often employers use this type of wording because they do not understand that you cannot change your visa status from a student visa until after successful completion of your course; you need a job offer and employer sponsorship to apply for a Skilled Worker visa; you can apply for a Graduate visa without employer sponsorship. See above sections for more information.
• This type of wording should not be used by employers to stop international students from applying for positions for which they meet the specified job criteria.
• If you are completing an online application form and are unable to proceed, contact the company for advice. 
• If you are planning to apply for a Graduate visa, you could mention to the employer that you should be able to obtain the right to work without any cost or bureaucracy for the employer.
• The information for employers in Recruiting International Graduates 2021 (PDF , 312kb) can be useful to help you understand some key issues.
• We provide information for employers on our website on Recruiting international talent. You can provide this link to employers to help them understand the rules too.

Careers and Placements staff are not immigration advisers and are not permitted to give individual immigration advice, but we might be able to answer your initial queries about this issue. If you have any questions please talk to us. 

Employers may ask you to include how many UCAS points you have on your application.

• UCAS points are awarded to some post-16 UK qualifications, which are used for entry to UK Higher Education. Universities can require a specified number of UCAS points for a place on a course.
• Although UCAS does not endorse their use for job applications, many UK employers ask for a specified number of UCAS points as a way of filtering graduate job applications. This is more likely for graduate schemes than direct entry jobs.
• If you are unable to complete an online application when it asks for UCAS points the best thing to do is contact the company's graduate recruitment team and ask for their advice. 
• You may be able to provide an estimate of how your qualifications relate to UCAS points (but check with the company first that they are happy for you to do this). You could check how many UCAS points were required for entry onto your course and add wording like: "The entry requirement for my course of study is (X) UCAS points suggesting my qualifications from (home country) are equivalent".
• If it is possible in the notes part of the application, list your qualifications as obtained with the percentage mark achieved. Add comments to indicate level of qualification, for example "equivalent to UK A level Grade A" or "equivalent to UK honours degree". The University of York's study pages for international students (country-specific information) may also help with this.

Check out the information provided by:

• Our Immigration Advice Service
• UKCISA
• UK Visas and Immigration

You can also talk to us in Careers and Placements. We cannot give you specific individual immigration advice, but we may be able to answer your initial questions, provide general information and signpost you to sources of help.

If you need specialist immigration advice you can contact a solicitor through the Immigration Law Practitioners Association.

The Graduate route visa introduced in 2021 should make it easier to stay and work in the UK when you have finished your degree.

However, it may be challenging to find a longer term graduate job with Skilled worker visa sponsorship and you may find you need to consider working in another country or returning home to look for work.

Start exploring the possibilities as early as you can, research the job market and plan to make the best use of your UK experience. See the section on Working in your home country for more help, as well as our pages on international work and GoinGlobal.