Calendar year 2021

UK revenue from education related exports and transnational education activity

This is the latest data
Published
Release type

Introduction

Annual estimates of UK revenue from education-related exports and transnational education (TNE) activity for 2021.

TNE activity includes education programmes that take place outside the UK, either through partner institutions, or directly through distance learning or international campuses.

Related information

Releases in this series

View releases (2) for UK revenue from education related exports and transnational education activity

Methodologies


Headline facts and figures - 2021

Explore data and files used in this release

  • View or create your own tables

    View tables that we have built for you, or create your own tables from open data using our table tool

  • Data catalogue

    Browse and download open data files from this release in our data catalogue

  • Data guidance

    Learn more about the data files used in this release using our online guidance

  • Download all data (ZIP)

    Download all data available in this release as a compressed ZIP file

Figure 1 below shows the increase in UK education related exports and TNE activity to £27.90 billion (current prices) in 2021. The revenue from UK education related exports and TNE activity has grown steadily since 2010. The overall revenue has increased by 75.72% or £12.02 billion in current prices since 2010. UK education related exports account for £10.70 billion of the £12.02 billion increase with UK TNE accounting for the remaining £1.32 billion. 

Since 2010, total UK education related exports have grown by 72.23% in current prices. TNE activity has grown at a significantly faster rate of 123.90% over the same period. However, this growth has occurred from a lower base, £1.07 billion for TNE activity compared to £14.81 billion for total UK education related exports.

Between 2020 and 2021 total UK education exports and TNE activity grew by 6.23%, This is 5.49 percentage points higher than the rate of growth seen between 2019 and 2020. This reflects the higher growth rate in total UK education related exports which grew by 6.42% between 2020 and 2021, compared to 0.44% in the previous year. Moreover, UK TNE activity has grown by 4.34% between 2020 and 2021. This is the third consecutive year of TNE activity growth since it decreased by 0.39% between 2017 and 2018.

Figures 2a and 2b below show the composition of revenue streams in total UK education related exports and TNE activity in 2021. 

Higher Education was the main contributor with £21.74 billion of export revenue. In comparison, Further Education, which consists of non-EU students only, accounted for £0.24 billion (see methodology for further information on how this is calculated). 

The income generated from Education Products and Services and TNE activity is broadly similar, with around £2.15 billion and £2.40 billion worth of revenue generated, respectively. English Language Training and Independent Schools generated £0.46 billion and £0.92 billion, respectively.

Over the period 2010 to 2021, the share of Higher Education to the total revenue from UK education related exports and TNE activity has increased by 17.91 percentage points from 60.00% to 77.91%. 

UK TNE activity has increased by 1.85 percentage points over the same period from 6.75% to 8.60%. The share of English Language Training (ELT) and Further Education (non-EU students only) have both fallen by 12.38 and 4.94 percentage points, respectively: the ELT share dropping from 14.03% to 1.65% and the Further Education share dropping from 5.78% to 0.84%.

In 2021, international (EU and non-EU) Higher Education students at UK universities generated an estimated £20.65 billion in exports through living expenditure and tuition fees (£19.36 billion in 2020), which accounts for around 74.41% of the total value of education exports and TNE activity (73.72% in 2020).

Tuition fee income and living expenditure from non-EU students make up £15.94 billion in exports. They represent the largest portion of HE education-related exports (74%), and a large proportion of total education-related exports and TNE activity (57%).

International students at pathway providers created £0.45 billion in education-related exports in 2021, and this has been relatively stable over the past few years.

Fee income and living expenditure from EU students have fallen slightly in 2021. This is due to falls in EU student numbers.

Table 4 below shows total revenue from education-related exports and TNE activity in UK Further Education from 2010 to 2021. 

The total revenue peaked at £1.02 billion in 2011 and then declined steadily over the years, reaching a low of £0.16 billion in 2020. In 2021, the total revenue increased slightly to £0.24 billion, with fee income contributing £0.07 billion, living expenditure £0.12 billion, and other income £0.05 billion.

Table 5 below shows the total revenue from education-related exports and TNE activity for schools in the UK from 2010 to 2021. 

The total revenue increased steadily over the years, growing from £0.63 billion in 2010 to £1.05 billion in 2019 when it peaked. The revenue has been slowly decreasing since 2020 - reaching £0.92 billion in 2021.

The total revenue from education-related exports and TNE activity for ELT in the UK saw a declining trend from 2010 to 2016, dropping from £2.23 billion in 2010 to £1.55 billion in 2016. However, the revenue started recovering from 2017 onwards, reaching £1.84 billion in 2019. 

In 2020, ELT revenue plummeted to £0.49 billion. While there was a slight recovery in 2021 with £0.46 billion in revenue, it remained significantly lower relative to the period spanning 2010 to 2019.

The total revenue from education-related products and services exports saw a steady increase from £1.51 billion in 2010 to £2.21 billion in 2019. The major contributors were education-related publishing (growing from £0.87 billion to £1.00 billion) and education-related equipment (£0.48 billion to £0.86 billion). Revenue from qualification awarding bodies also expanded from £0.14 billion to £0.34 billion over the period. However in 2020 there was a slight dip in total revenue to £2.09 billion. 

In 2021 the total revenue had recovered to £2.15 billion, with qualification awarding bodies becoming the fastest growing segment at £0.39 billion.

The transnational education (TNE) revenue across higher education, further education, schools, English language training, and early years saw consistent growth from 2010 to 2020. Schools generated the highest TNE revenue, increasing from £0.61 billion in 2010 to £1.38 billion in 2020. Higher education TNE revenue also expanded significantly from £0.35 billion to £0.77 billion over the same period. Further education, English language training, and early years contributed smaller but steadily rising revenues. In 2021, schools was still the largest contributor to TNE activity followed by Higher Education.

Help and support

Methodology

Find out how and why we collect, process and publish these statistics.

Official statistics in development

These statistics are undergoing a development. They have been developed under the guidance of the Head of Profession for Statistics and published to involve users and stakeholders at an early stage in assessing their suitability and quality.

They have been produced as far as possible in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

This can be broadly interpreted to mean that these statistics are:

  • managed impartially and objectively in the public interest
  • meet identified user needs
  • produced according to sound methods
  • well explained and readily accessible

Find out more about the standards we follow to produce these statistics through our Standards for official statistics published by DfE guidance.

Contact us

If you have a specific enquiry about UK revenue from education related exports and transnational education activity statistics and data:

Higher Education Analysis

Email: he.statistics@education.gov.uk
Contact name: Matt Poullin
Telephone: 07880107283

Press office

If you have a media enquiry:

Telephone: 020 7783 8300

Public enquiries

If you have a general enquiry about the Department for Education (DfE) or education:

Telephone: 037 0000 2288

Opening times:
Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 5pm (excluding bank holidays)