Working during your studies

You should check your vignette (the entry clearance in your passport) or Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) to understand your working restrictions.

Who is permitted to work?

You are permitted to work in the UK if either your entry clearance or BRP state one of the following:

• Work (and any changes) must be authorised
• Able to work as authorised by the Secretary of State
• Work as in Tier 4 or Student route rules
• Restricted work (part-time term time, full-time vacations)
• Restricted work (term-time)
• Work limited to a maximum 20 hours per week during term time
• Work limited to a maximum ten hours per week during term time

Who is not permitted to work?

Your entry clearance or BRP might say something a bit different from these examples, but you can work if it does not say:

• no work
• work prohibited.

If your entry clearance or BRP says 'No work' or 'Work prohibited' you must not work because this would be a breach of your immigration conditions and a criminal offence. The Home Office can check whether someone has been working by making unannounced visits to employers and by obtaining information from the tax department, HMRC.

Please note: students studying at the UWE Bristol International College are not permitted to undertake any work. 

You can download and use the letter stating the rules about international students working in the UK. This letter will confirm Home Office guidance on working during your study and the University’s vacation period based on the level of the programme you study.

• Undergraduate student working hours letter 2023/24 (PDF) 
• Postgraduate student working hours letter 2023/24 (PDF)

Additionally, your student status letter confirms your name, the start and end date of your programme plus your student number and home address. If you have any problem downloading status letter please contact infopoint@uwe.ac.uk. 

Confirmation of your individual academic situation from the Status letter plus the vacation dates and government rules on international students working in the UK should be sufficient enough to satisfy employment queries. Your employer is required to confirm your ability to work by calling the Home Office Employers’ Helpline on 0300 123 4699 or visiting the government's information on checking a job applicant’s right to work.

Please refer to An employer's guide to right to work checks on GOV.UK (produced by the Home Office on 6 April 2022). In particular, please refer to:

• 2. Biometric card holders
• 10. Annex D: Digital identity verification – Guidance for employers and Identity Service Providers.

Working full time during the wrap-up period

If you submitted your final piece of coursework and would like to work full-time during your wrap-up period, and your employer has asked you to provide a letter from your university, you can complete and submit this form.

Request working hours letter during the wrap-up period 

Please only complete the form if you have submitted all your assessments and are awaiting the publication of the award board. If you have a resit or retake, you will need to restrict your working hour to the hours stated on your BRP.

We aim to respond to you within 10 working days.

Conditions for accepting a permanent full-time job

You may be able to start working in the UK whilst your Graduate route visa application is pending but this will depend on when you originally obtained your student leave. If you made your most recent student application before 6 April 2022, you must wait for a decision on your Graduate application before you can start:

• a permanent full-time job
• self-employment
• work as an entertainer

If you made your most recent Student application on or after 6 April 2022, you can start a full-time permanent job after making your Graduate route application. However, you must wait for the decision if you are planning to work as an entertainer or be self-employed.

You must not work as a professional sportsperson with Graduate permission. The date on which you applied for Student or Graduate permission makes no difference. 

Visit UKCISA International student advice and guidance - graduate route for further information.

If you are in the UK as a Standard Visitor, your entry clearance or the stamp in your passport will say 'No work' or 'Work prohibited'. This means that you are not allowed to:

• take paid employment
• take unpaid employment (except volunteering as defined in paragraph PA3 of the Immigration Rules Appendix Visitor: Permitted Activities)
• do a work placement, even if it is part of your course.

If you want to be able to work, and you want to apply for a Student Visa (if eligible), you will have to return to the country where you usually live and make an entry clearance application there.

If you are in the UK but are not a resident, a holder of a Student/Tier 4 Visa or on a standard visitor visa, check what your entry clearance or any other documents issued by the Home Office say about employment.

You can usually work without restriction if the only condition in your passport is 'no recourse to public funds'. If it says 'no employment as a doctor in training', you can do any kind of work except employment as a doctor in training.

You can do most kinds of work, but you must not:

• be self-employed
• be employed as a professional sportsperson including as a sports coach
• be employed as an entertainer
• take a permanent full-time job
• work as a doctor or dentist in training.

If your employer is outside the UK, your hours of work undertaken in the UK still count towards your limit of ten or 20 hours a week in term-time.

Professional or amateur sportsperson?

You might need to decide whether your sports activities are professional or amateur. The Immigration Rules define an 'amateur' as 'a person who engages in a sport or creative activity solely for personal enjoyment and who is not seeking to derive a living from the activity'. If you meet this definition, your sports activities are not 'professional' and so you can pursue them with Student/Tier 4 immigration permission.

What about volunteering?

You might want to be a volunteer. However, there's a difference between unpaid employment (voluntary work) and volunteering, so you should always check with the organisation offering you a volunteering opportunity whether it can be regarded as unpaid employment. This is because time you spend doing unpaid employment counts towards your maximum number of hours of work a week.

If you are subject to a work prohibition, perhaps because you are studying at the UWE Bristol International College or have a standard visitor visa, you should be very careful not to undertake any activities that could be regarded as unpaid employment because this would be a breach of your work conditions.

The maximum hours you can work during term time are normally printed on your entry clearance or Biometric Residence Permit (BRP), and will depend mainly on when you made your most recent immigration application. If you are not sure how many hours per week you are allowed to work please ask a UWE Bristol Immigration Adviser.

Working during term time

As a student at UWE Bristol you can work a maximum of:

• 20 hours a week if you are studying at degree level or above (this includes undergraduate, Masters and PhD courses)
• 20 hours a week if you are on a study abroad programme at UWE Bristol
• ten hours per week if you are studying a course below degree level at UWE Bristol
• ten hours per week if you have immigration permission as a Tier 4 (Child).

If you have permission to work, you shouldn't work more than the maximum number of hours (20 or ten) in any one week in term time, even if you sometimes work under the maximum number of hours a week in other weeks.

A ‘week’ has been defined by UKVI as meaning a period of seven days beginning with a Monday. If you work irregular hours and/or have more than one employer, you'll need to keep detailed records of how many hours you work each day so that you can be sure that you are not in danger of breaching your work condition.

If you have permission to work, you can work full-time before your course starts and after your course has ended. If you are a full-time student, you may find your studies suffer if you work more than 16 hours a week.

Vacations

Regardless of the endorsement on your visa, not all students are allowed to work full time during UWE Bristol vacations (see UWE Bristol's term-time and vacation dates). If you are a postgraduate student, please view the ‘postgraduate and research students’ section below.

If you should be doing academic study during this time, you should limit your employment to 20 (or ten) hours per week. Academic study includes:

• attending classes and lectures
• preparing for exams
• doing coursework
• writing essays, a dissertation or thesis.

This means that your entitlement to work during vacations may depend on the type of course you are doing. For example, if you are supposed to research and write a dissertation or thesis while other students are on holiday, this is term time for you and you should restrict your work to 20 (or ten) hours a week during this time.

Employers have a legal obligation to check your term dates before you can start work. You must provide your employer with one of the following:

• A printout from UWE Bristol's website showing the term and vacation dates for your course
• A letter from UWE Bristol to your employer confirming these dates is available to download from this page

Postgraduate and research students

Postgraduate students on taught courses can work unlimited hours only during the published vacation periods over Christmas and Easter. They must restrict their working hours to no more than the maximum stated on the BRP at all other times until they have completed their studies in the UK.

Postgraduate research students do not have published vacation times and should therefore restrict their working hours to no more than the maximum stated on the BRP until they have completed their studies in the UK.

If in doubt, speak to an Immigration Adviser or email immigrationadvice@uwe.ac.uk.

f you finish your course early, UWE Bristol has a legal obligation to report this to UKVI.

If you have more than 60 days' permission from when you report that you've finished your course, UKVI will contact you to let you know that your immigration permission will be cut short (curtailed). Permission is usually curtailed to the new end date plus the additional period you were originally granted, for example two or four months after the new end date.

You can work full time between the new end date of your course and the new expiry date of your immigration permission. Employers will need to see confirmation from UWE Bristol if you complete your course early.