The University of Birmingham, home to over 2,000 Indian students, has partnered with the University of Glasgow to create a new in-country role in India employability relationship manager \u2013 who will be responsible for building links with employers, career services, and alumni networks to help graduates succeed in the local job market.<\/p>\n
According to a joint statement issued by the institutions, graduates will be offered practical support through pre-entry briefings, skills development programs, and post-graduation engagement.<\/p>\n
The two universities have also launched<\/a> an exclusive partnership with the Chinese graduate career support organisation, JOBShaigui<\/a>.<\/p>\n The career portal, well regarded in China for its links to top employers, will offer a range of bespoke services, including online seminars with the latest job market insights, guidance on recruitment processes, access to an extensive employer network, and in-country networking events with alumni and employers. <\/p>\n Both Birmingham and Glasgow, ranked among the QS global top 100, see China and India, with their combined 400,000 alumni worldwide, as priority markets. <\/p>\n Offering enhanced career support is seen as crucial, as recent trends<\/a> show a majority of students from these countries are choosing to return home after their study abroad journey.<\/p>\n \u201cMore and more students, quite reasonably, are saying: I want to know what my employment prospects are after getting a degree. We do a lot to prepare students for their future careers while they study with us, but it has become increasingly clear that we must also support them after they graduate,\u201d Robin Mason, pro-vice-chancellor (international) at the University of Birmingham, told The PIE News.<\/p>\n \u201cOur two largest cohorts of international students are from China and India, so we said: for these two really important countries, we\u2019re going to create in-country support for careers and employability career fairs, interview preparation, CV workshops, all those sorts of things.\u201d<\/p>\n Increasingly, after that period of work in the UK, Indian graduates are looking to come back home to India While both Birmingham<\/a> and Glasgow<\/a> already collaborate on joint research, particularly in the medical field, the career support initiative made sense as the cost could be shared between the two universities, according to Mason.<\/p>\n Moreover, the universities expect the initiative to be particularly successful in India, from where students make up the largest cohort<\/a> of graduate visa holders. <\/p>\n \u201cParticularly Indian students, more than Chinese students, want to stay in the UK after graduation. But increasingly, after that period of work in the UK, Indian graduates are looking to come back home to India,\u201d stated Mason. <\/p>\n According to Mason, while most Indian students prefer fields such as computer science, data science, engineering, business management, finance, economics, and health-related subjects, in principle students of any discipline, \u201ceven classics, English, or history\u201d, will be supported equally in their careers back in India.<\/p>\n The initiatives also come at a time when international students in the UK are being urg<\/a>e<\/a>d<\/a> to \u201csharpen their skills\u201d for both the UK and global job markets, as employers increasingly look beyond \u201ctextbook skills\u201d to focus on a candidate\u2019s ability to bring innovation to the table.<\/p>\n Further plans in India for University of Birmingham<\/p>\n Although the University of Birmingham operates an overseas campus in Dubai, an attractive option for Indian students given its proximity to the UK and large Indian community, the institution has no plans to establish a campus in India anytime soon.<\/p>\n Instead, it is focusing on initiatives such as the in-country employability role and partnerships with local institutions.<\/p>\n While the University of Birmingham offers dual degrees with Jinan University in China in fields such as maths, economics, statistics, and computing, it is now exploring a partnership with IIT Bombay in India in areas such as quantum technology, energy systems, AI, and healthcare, building on its successful venture with IIT Madras.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you do it properly, campuses are very expensive things. I don\u2019t think you do these things lightly. You have to make the investment and be there for the long term,\u201d said Mason. \u201cBirmingham is 125 years old this year, and you need to be thinking in terms of decades if you\u2019re going to build a campus. It\u2019s a really long-term commitment because it takes so much time and investment to build a high-quality university.\u201d<\/p>\n As part of its 125-year celebrations, the institution also announced scholarships for Indian students, offering funding of \u00a34,000 to \u00a35,000 for a wide range of postgraduate taught master\u2019s degrees starting in September 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cAs part of our 125th anniversary celebrations, we introduced a special scholarship, offering up to 40% funding for students joining our Dubai campus,\u201d stated Devesh Anand, regional director, South Asia and Middle East, University of Birmingham. <\/p>\n \u201cThis was combined with academic and merit-based scholarships, giving students the opportunity to access multiple forms of support. The response has been fantastic, as students saw it as a real achievement and recognition of their efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n The number of Indian students studying in the UK remains high, with the Home Office data showing 98,014 study visas granted in the year ending June 2025. <\/p>\n
Robin Mason, University of Birmingham<\/p>\n