Six months does not sound like much until you set it against a twelve-month degree. For applications made on or after 1 January 2027 the Graduate Route runs for 18 months rather than 24, and the fee is £937. For a student choosing between a UK master's and a Canadian or New Zealand alternative, that change is not a detail — it is a third of the working runway.
In preparation
The full guide is still being written.
We publish a guide once every figure in it has been checked against the government page it came from — and not before. The summary above is the whole of what we are prepared to state on this subject today. The official sources this piece will be built on are listed below, and until it is finished you are better served reading them than reading a draft of ours.
If this is the question in front of you now, put it to an advisor rather than waiting for the article. The answer for your file is always more specific than the answer for a page.
Built on these sources
SourceUKCISA — Student update: changes to the Student and Graduate rulesLast verified September 2026
