UK ELT reports challenging enrolment trends continued through last quarter of 2025
- The number of student weeks in the UK’s ELT sector fell by -21% from Q4 2024 to the last quarter of 2025
- Student weeks for the quarter are down by -43% from pre-COVID volumes (compared to Q4 2019)
- The decline was buffered slightly by a 5% increase in junior bookings in the last quarter of 2025
Continuing a pattern from the first half of the year, English UK’s (Quarterly Intelligence Cohort) makes it clear that 2025 was a challenging year for the country's ELT sector.
The Q4 data reveals an overall year-over-year increase from the same quarter in 2024, but an even deeper, long-term drop from pre-COVID volumes. The number of student weeks fell by -21% from Q4 2024 to the last quarter of 2025. Comparing the same quarter from last year to 2019, the declining volume – at -43% – is even more severe.
The bright spot, as has generally been the case over the last several years, is in the junior category. While junior weeks are still down by -35% from the pre-COVID benchmark in Q4 2019, they rose by 5% from Q4 2024 to Q4 2025 on the strength of stronger bookings from Spain and Chile.
The additional chart below reflects the absolute changes in student weeks volumes for each quarter in 2025, compared to the same quarter in 2024 and broken down into the junior and adult categories.
General English programmes remain by far the most popular course type across UK ELT, accounting for 89% of junior bookings and 88% of adult enrolments in the last quarter of 2025.
Saudi Arabia continues to be the leading sending market for UK ELT, followed by Türkiye, Japan, Brazil, South Korea to round out the top five.
Stepping back to look at other important segment characteristics for 2025 as a whole, English UK notes that nearly eight in ten ELT enrolments (77%) during the year came via an agent, and that a similar proportion (78%) were for individual (as opposed to group) bookings.
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