A new British Council report, 5 Signals from Sub-Saharan Africa, has highlighted new opportunities and strategic pressures for UK universities in the region, ushering in a new phase of engagement beyond student recruitment, based on partnership models across a wider range of countries.
“The report argues that the next phase of UK-Africa higher education engagement will not be defined by recruitment growth alone,” said Etom Ofem, British Council regional higher education insights lead for Sub-Saharan Africa.
“Success will increasingly depend on diversified market strategies, scalable partnerships, stronger compliance management and deeper alignment with Africa’s own higher education priorities,” Ofem added.
Mobility is happening in a more compliance driven market, with declines in visa issuance worsening year-on-year.
Q1 2026 visa data showed refusal rates for Sub-Saharan Africa rise to 22%, the highest for this period in recent years and considerably more than the previous year’s 6% Q1 denial rate.
Despite the UK’s increasingly restrictive recruitment landscape, the report said it remained “comparatively attractive” given Canada’s study permit caps, Australia’s enrolment controls and America’s travel ban on 25 African nations including the region’s dominant sending market, Nigeria.
It highlighted increased momentum in UK TNE enrolments across the region, which grew by 31% in 2024/25 to reach 42,500 students, as the number of enrolments through overseas partner organisations overtook distance learning for the first time.
Liverpool John Moores University, the University of East London, and the University of Suffolk were highlighted by Ofem as the forerunners of TNE provision in the region, with the three institutions partnering with Unicaf to deliver online degrees.
Sub-Saharan Africa is… a vast unexplored market with great opportunity for UK HEIs
Etom Ofem, British Council
Meanwhile, the report detailed the work of the University of Birmingham and Coventry University, advancing branch campus plans in Nigeria.
TNE expansions are set to continue as the enabling environment in Sub-Saharan Africa improves, driven by the UK’s new International Education Strategy which positioned TNE as a key driver of the government’s £40 billion education export target by 2030.
With taught master’s programs accounting for three quarters of TNE enrolments, the report highlighted a strong demand for flexible career-focused study, while emphasising the “employability imperative” of education in the region.
Rather than sole providers of academic credentials, the report said Sub-Saharan African universities are increasingly focussed on entrepreneurship and “being repositioned as engines of job creation”, driven by mounting labour market pressures.
It cites the World Bank’s Africa’s Pulse 2025 study, finding that Sub-Saharan Africa must create 25 million jobs annually over the next 25 years to absorb its growing workforce.
Elsewhere, Ofem said UK universities’ success will increasingly depend on diversified market strategies in TNE as well as student recruitment, singling out Kenya as the “quiet climber” of the region.
Unlike more volatile high-volume markets such as Nigeria, Kenya’s UK-bound student mobility has increased steadily in recent years, rising by 60% since 2022. In parallel, UK TNE enrolments have more than doubled in this time, pointing to a maturing and diversifying market.
Beyond dominant Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, the report notes shifts among “second tier” countries, with Zimbabwe and Uganda overtaking South Africa in UK study visa issuance in 2025 and both recording a near-doubling of TNE enrolments in the same period.
“Sub-Saharan Africa is to a great extent a vast unexplored market with great opportunity for UK HEIs,” said Ofem, highlighting further opportunities in Mauritius, Cameroon, Rwanda and Tanzania, among others.
He said it was imperative for universities to understand the unique context of each nation to deliver country-specific strategies.
