In 2024 Q4, the 125 English UK member centres providing data – around a third of the association’s total membership – collectively delivered 110,507 student weeks, of which 95 per cent were for adult students.
2024 Q4 vs 2019 Q4: The October-to-December 2024 period was 28 per cent below Q4 2019 student week volumes for the providers that participated in both years’ surveys, the weakest recovery level of all quarters in 2024, English UK said. In both Q1 and Q2 the recovery level against 2019 was 81 per cent.
Graphic source - English UK/Bonard.
2024 Q4 vs 2023 Q4: However, student weeks in the Q4 2024 period – which is typically the quietest quarter of the year - were down around four per cent compared with the same period of 2023. There was a four per cent decrease in adult student weeks and an eight per cent drop in junior student weeks, the report shows.
Against 2023 levels, Q2 was the best quarter of 2024 at 99 per cent, while the peak Q3 summer period was 91 per cent of 2023 volumes.
English UK and research partner Bonard said that 2023 is likely to be considered as the new ‘Year Zero’ for the UK ELT sector, a benchmark year when data was no longer skewed by the Covid-19 pandemic and allowing for some consistency.
The association said that greater price sensitivity in source markets, exchange rates and in-market offering were affecting student recruitment. It added that it currently wasn’t clear what volume of market share had diverted to emerging and cheaper destinations such as Dubai, the Philippines and Malaysia.
English UK’s comprehensive report on 2024 with data from all member centres will be released in May and will provide a fuller picture of the performance of the UK ELT sector.
Top source markets by student weeks in 2024 Q4. Graphic source - English UK/Bonard.
Source markets: Saudi Arabia was the top source market in 2024 Q4 by the measure of student weeks with 22,228, while second-placed Turkey (11,808) had the largest absolute growth in student weeks for the second quarter in a row – up by 2,311 weeks compared with the Q4 of 2023.
The top five was completed by Kuwait, South Korea and Colombia – the latter rose by 705 student weeks.
Top source markets by student weeks in 2024 Q4. Graphic source - English UK/Bonard.
Switzerland had the largest absolute decline at 1,252 weeks, followed by Brazil (-1,113 weeks). Both markets were top five source countries in 2023 Q4.
English UK said that overall Latin America was a strong performing region, averaging 131 per cent recovery against 2019 levels in Q4 2024. However, the UK government’s removal of visa-free entry for Colombian visitors in November 2024 will likely impact enrolments from the country in early 2025, the association warned.
Booking channels: In Q4 2024 76 per cent of student weeks were attributable to agents, an increased ratio compared with 73 per cent in Q4 2023. Nine in ten student weeks were individual bookings – an identical ratio to the same quarter of the previous year.
Across the year as a whole, 77 per cent of student weeks came via agents for participants in the QUIC scheme.
Course type: General English accounted for 91 per cent of student weeks in 2024 Q4, followed by English for Academic Purposes on six per cent. The latter had a 25 per cent drop in student weeks compared with the same quarter of the previous year, driven primarily by a drop from China, English UK said.
