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Understand your operational resourcing and performance against industry standards

We’ve developed an accurate and cost-effective way of pinpointing how well your organisation’s international student recruitment operations are resourced compared with others’, and how your cost per acquisition stacks up against others’ in the same region.

Edified’s Benchmarking International Recruitment Operations (BIRO) is a syndicated research program designed to help higher education providers understand the resourcing and cost-effectiveness of their international recruitment operations, when compared with other institutions.

We gather a large range of data, including application and enrolment numbers, recruitment channel and market data, staff levels and budget to build a profile of your institution. Our experts then benchmark this data against the sector aggregate so you can understand your performance and resourcing effectiveness.

Participants receive a customised report that features useful insights into:

  • how their student acquisition costs compare with other providers by source market
  • how their recruitment staffing compares with other providers
  • the relative effectiveness of different organisational models and systems.

This data is extremely useful when it comes to making a case for extra investment, identifying which areas need improvement, and building on areas of success.

Expect real clarification on problematic questions such as ‘How many staff do we need to recruit 500 students, and are we properly equipped to be competitive?’, or ‘What’s the most productive channel to recruit with in Pakistan, China, India, etc.?

You can rely on the veracity and relevance of the data and the findings. All data is carefully verified and cleaned, and findings are presented to you in an exceptionally clear report that makes it easy to assess top-line results, but which also has plenty of useful detail.

Participation is low-risk and easy to complete. The power of the insights unlocked can be significant.

Key benefits

Accurately measure your
recruitment effectiveness

Compare your
cost-per-acquisition

Identify areas
for improvement

Know the resources
needed to meet objectives

Build a strong case
for investment

Gain
competitor insights

How it works

Data-gathering for the BIRO runs from December to January, with reports made available at the beginning of March, in line with your future budget-setting processes.
1
December

Registration deadline

2
December - January

Data gathering

3
February

Data analysis and benchmarking

4
March

Report delivery and results

Methodology

We map your previous year’s budget and resourcing against your Autumn intake recruitment outcomes. A January intake market performance extension pack is also available for those who want it.

You will be asked to input your institution’s information into a safe and secure data-gathering tool, co-designed to elicit good comparative data across operating models and institution types.

The 2024/25 BIRO will include an optional deep-dive comparison of in-country office operations.

As a participant, you’ll typically need less than two hours to complete the process, depending on how easily you’re able to access the required information. Edified staff can help with any queries.

Here are some examples of the data collected in the survey:

Benchmarking

Edified verify and clean the data, then aggregate it to understand key benchmarks, answering questions like:

  • How many admissions staff does it take to recruit 500 international students?
  • Are we appropriately resourced to be competitive?
  • Is there a correlation between systems and recruitment outcomes or resource requirements?
  • For every pound or euro spent on international recruitment, how much income is generated? Are we more or less efficient than the sector?
  • What is the correlation between admissions decision turnarounds and enrolments?
  • What is our cost of acquisition from our key source markets, relative to other institutions?
  • Which is the most productive channel to recruit through in our key markets?
  • Where are institutions looking to diversify their student numbers?

Benchmarks are presented for your whole international student recruitment operation and by recruitment market, so you can see, for example, whether your institution’s cost per acquisition from India is higher or lower than the sector’s and how your budget spend compares with the relative spend on marketing vs. scholarships.

What you get

You’ll receive a personalised report containing tables, graphs, infographics and insights designed to give you a clear picture of how your operational resourcing compares with other institutions’ and relative performance by regions. You can download a sample report based on adapted data* from the 2023/24 BIRO.

*Please note that the fake data and benchmarks in this report are for illustrative purposes only.  

See an example report
from 2023/24.
Download
The final report and write-up was the most useful I’ve received in 12 years of working with multiple consultancies.
Marcus Williams
Director of Student Recruitment
These guys are best in class right now. Clear comms, frequent updates, cultural sensitivity. They’re the bee’s knees in education consultancy.
Brett Berquist
Amokapua | Assistant Vice-Chancellor Engagement
The Edified team are just a delight to work with: flexible, knowledgeable and deliver great outputs.
Vik Singh
Trade and Investment Commissioner, South Asia
BIRO provided us granular insights into our relative, benchmarked position in key markets and through key recruitment channels. The report enabled us to get a clearer sense of relative ROI per market that is helping inform more strategic budget allocation for upcoming intakes.
Gareth Topp
Associate Director International

Join the 2025 BIRO

The BIRO is a must-have for any data-driven student recruitment team.

Understand how your international student recruitment operations perform and are resourced compared with aggregated averages for the sector.

You'll get timely, comparative data to inform your strategic planning.

Participation is simple and easy

  1. Register your institution before 31 December 2024
  2. Input your data into the BIRO questionnaire
  3. Edified check and validate the data and develop benchmark reports
  4. You receive your personalised report in March
Registration options

Select your region

Essentials
£ 3,450

Includes

  • Sector benchmark report
  • Market performance benchmark report (top 5 markets)
Standard
£ 3,450

Includes

  • Sector benchmark report
  • Market performance benchmark report (any 5 of 10 markets)
  • Bespoke competitor set benchmark (min 5, max 8 competitors)
  • Presentation of results
Premium
£ 6,250

Includes

  • Sector benchmark report
  • Market performance benchmark report (all 10 markets)
  • Bespoke competitor set benchmark (min 5, max 8 competitors)
  • Presentation of results
  • Best practice insights
  • 2-hour ‘action plan’ workshop with leadership team

Market performance extension pack at £ 500

  • Includes January intake
  • Compares recruitment outcomes for intake*
  • Requires second data collection in late February
  • Can be added to any of the three packages
  • Covers same markets as the chosen package

*subject to a minimum of 5 participating institutions

Essentials
€ 4,150

Includes: 

  • Sector benchmark report
  • Market performance benchmark report (top 5 markets)
Standard
€ 5,950

Includes

  • Sector benchmark report
  • Market performance benchmark report (any 5 of 10 markets)
  • Bespoke competitor set benchmark (min 5, max 8 competitors)
  • Presentation of results
Premium
€ 7,450

Includes

  • Sector benchmark report
  • Market performance benchmark report (all 10 markets)
  • Bespoke competitor set benchmark (min 5, max 8 competitors)
  • Presentation of results
  • Best practice insights
  • 2-hour ‘action plan’ workshop with leadership team

Market performance extension pack at £ 600

  • Includes January intake
  • Compares recruitment outcomes for intake*
  • Requires second data collection in late February
  • Can be added to any of the three packages
  • Covers same markets as the chosen package

*subject to a minimum of 5 participating institutions

Register for the 2025 BIRO

Sign up here to be part of the 2025 research. Registrations close on 31 December 2024.

Edified is an Australian company so there is no need to add VAT to these prices.

For any questions, please get in touch at [email protected]

Insights

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