Work rules during your studies

Your Student visa is granted for the length of your course plus 4 additional months. Once you have reached the official course end date for your course (as detailed on your CAS) you can work full-time during those final 4 months of your visa.

The formal course end date for PhD students will be completion of academic work, i.e. submitting your dissertation/thesis including final corrections).

You can work full-time hours on a temporary contract up until your visa expiry date.

Before your visa expires you must:

• Apply for the Graduate Visaif you are eligible,
• Look for sponsorship from an employer and apply for the Skilled Workervisa,
• Apply for another visa that would allow you to remain in the UK, or
• Leave the UK before your Student visa expires.

Employee

The UK Government defines being an employee as follows: 

“Someone who works for a business is probably an employee if most of the following are true:

• they’re required to work regularly unless they’re on leave, eg holiday, sick leave or maternity leave
• they’re required to do a minimum number of hours and expect to be paid for the time worked.   A manager or supervisor is responsible for their workload, saying when a piece of work should be finished and how it should be done
• they can’t send someone else to do their work
• the business deducts tax and National Insurance contributions from their wages
• they get paid holiday
• they’re entitled to contractual or Statutory Sick Pay, and maternity or paternity pay
• the business’s disciplinary and grievance procedures apply to them
• they work at the business’s premises or at an address specified by the business
• the business provides the materials, tools and equipment for their work
• they only work for the business or if they do have another job, it’s completely different from their work for the business
• their contract, statement of terms and conditions or offer letter (which can be described as an ‘employment contract’) uses terms like ‘employer’ and ‘employee’”

Self-employed

The UK Government gives some advice about how acting as ‘self employed’ can be defined:

“Someone is probably self-employed and doesn’t have the rights of an employee if they’re exempt from PAYE and most of the following are also true:

• they put in bids or give quotes to get work
• they’re not under direct supervision when working
• they submit invoices for the work they’ve done
• they’re responsible for paying their own National Insurance and tax
• they don’t get holiday or sick pay when they’re not working
• they operate under a contract (sometimes known as a ‘contract for services’ or ‘consultancy agreement’) that uses terms like ‘self-employed’, ‘consultant’ or an ‘independent contractor’”

If you are not sure if you are being asked to work as self-employed, please check with the International Student Support team BEFORE commencing the work. Working in breach of your immigration permission is a serious offence and can have implications on your ability to remain in the UK.

For further information, visit UKCISA.

You can work full-time on a work placement if:

• You have a Student visa,
• The work placement is not more than 50% of the total time on your course
• Your work placement is an assessed part of your course, and
• Your employer is monitoring your attendance and reporting back to your department who remain responsible for you during the work placement.

Some UK companies offer students an opportunity to undertake an internship during their vacations. All Student visa holders are permitted to undertake an internship during the Christmas and Easter holidays. However, only undergraduate students can undertake an internship during the summer vacation. The summer vacation starts after the formal end of term.

Postgraduate students who wish to undertake employment during the summer must either be doing a work placement as an assessed part of the course or not exceeding the 20 hours per week term-time work restriction.