Learning how to make friends as an international student in the UK is one of the most important things you can do to make your time here genuinely fulfilling. The academic side of studying in Britain is exceptional. The social side, particularly in the first few weeks, is something that many international students find unexpectedly difficult. This guide sets out practical, honest advice on building real friendships in the UK, covering everything from the first days of arrival through to settling in for the longer term.
At Briggate Educational Consultants, we support international students and their families throughout the process of moving to the UK. We see first-hand how the social adjustment affects students, and how profoundly things improve when they find their people. The advice in this guide comes from that experience.
Why Making Friends as an International Student in the UK Feels Harder Than Expected
Most students arrive in the UK expecting the social side of university to take care of itself. They imagine freshers’ week, packed common rooms and instant friendships. The reality is more complicated.
British social culture is notably reserved compared with many of the countries international students come from. British students tend to take longer to warm up to new people, and the casual warmth of an early conversation does not necessarily translate into an ongoing friendship. Students from China, the Gulf states, India and East Asia in particular often find this confusing. Someone seems friendly, they exchange numbers, and then nothing follows. This is not unfriendliness. It is simply how social connection tends to develop in the UK. It takes more time and more repeated contact than students expect.
According to research published by Sheffield Hallam University in the Journal of Further and Higher Education, 72 per cent of international students surveyed had experienced loneliness since arriving in the UK, representing almost three out of four students, with a moderate average level of loneliness recorded on the De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale. These are not figures about students who have failed socially. They are figures about students navigating a genuine cultural adjustment, in a country where the weather, the social norms and the pace of friendship formation are all significantly different from what they are used to.
Understanding why it feels hard is the first step. The second step is knowing what actually works.
The First Two Weeks: When Everything Matters Most
The evidence is consistent: the friendships that last are most often formed in the first two weeks of term. This is the window when everyone is new, when social barriers are at their lowest, and when the effort you make compounds most quickly. After the first few weeks, social groups begin to crystallise and it becomes harder to break into established circles.
Attend international orientation before the main freshers’ week
Most UK universities run a dedicated international student orientation in the few days before the main freshers’ week. This is specifically designed for students in your position and is attended by people who are all starting from scratch. Go to everything that is offered, even the sessions that feel unnecessary. The value is not in the content of the programme. It is in the repeated contact with the same people across multiple sessions. That repetition is what creates the conditions for friendship to form.
Use the first day in halls strategically
If you are living in university accommodation, the day you arrive is one of the most valuable social opportunities you will have all year. Leave your room door open. Introduce yourself to every person on your corridor. Suggest getting dinner together as a group. These small acts feel awkward but they work. The students who make the most friends in halls are almost always the ones who initiated early contact rather than waiting for others to approach them.
Say yes to everything for the first two weeks
The first two weeks are not a normal period. Treat them as a sprint. Say yes to every social invitation, even ones that do not obviously appeal. The goal is not to enjoy every event. It is to meet as many people as possible and identify the few with whom you have real common ground. You cannot do that from your room.
How to Actually Make Friends at a UK University: What Works
Join one society and go consistently
Every UK university has dozens of student societies covering almost every interest imaginable. The students who make the deepest friendships through societies are almost never the ones who attend a large number of events once each. They are the ones who commit to one or two societies and go back repeatedly.
Repeated contact is what builds friendship. The first time you meet someone at a society session you are a stranger. The third time, you are someone familiar. The fifth time, you are someone they are genuinely pleased to see. Choose something you are actually interested in rather than something that seems sociable in the abstract. Shared genuine interest gives you an immediate basis for conversation that does not require effort.
The University of Warwick runs One World Warwick, an annual programme of events celebrating its international student community, and the International Student House in London organises regular social events and trips for international students. Most UK universities run similar international student social programmes through their international offices. These are worth attending in the early weeks because everyone in the room is in a version of your situation.
Talk to your course mates
The classroom or lecture hall is underused as a social setting by international students. The students on your course share your academic interests and will spend three or four years in the same environment as you. They are the people most likely to become long-term friends.
Practical approaches: sit next to someone different each week for the first few weeks; ask a course mate if they want to grab coffee before or after a lecture; suggest forming a study group for an upcoming assignment. Study groups are particularly effective because they give a practical reason to meet repeatedly, which removes the social awkwardness of suggesting friendship for its own sake.
Language exchange partnerships
If English is not your first language, a language exchange is one of the most effective friendship-building tools available. You find a British student who wants to practise your language; you meet regularly to speak each language in turn. The structure of the exchange means you meet someone repeatedly and with clear purpose, which is exactly what friendship formation requires. Most universities can match you with a language exchange partner through their international student office.
Go where British students go
One of the most common patterns among international students who struggle to form mixed friendships is that they spend almost all their social time with other students from their home country. This is understandable. It is comfortable, it involves no cultural translation, and it provides genuine support. It is also limiting.
Making friends with British students requires going where British students spend their time. In practice this usually means the student union bar, sports clubs, volunteer schemes and academic societies rather than international student events. This does not mean abandoning your cultural community. It means actively adding British social settings to the spaces you spend time in, even when they feel less immediately comfortable.
Use structured social activities rather than open-ended socialising
Open-ended social situations, such as a party or a large fresher event, are actually among the harder settings for making lasting friends. There is no natural reason to talk to any particular person, conversations are short and forgettable, and there is no mechanism for following up.
Structured activities, where you do something alongside someone rather than simply talking at them, tend to produce stronger connections. Sport, cooking classes, volunteering, society events with a practical activity, walking groups, pub quizzes: all of these provide a shared focus that makes conversation easier and gives you an automatic reason to see the same person again. Most UK universities run dozens of student societies. A quick search for your university name alongside “student societies” will show you what is available at your institution.
Dealing with Loneliness While You Are Still Building Your Social Circle
Making friends takes time. There will almost certainly be a period, which for most students lasts between four and eight weeks, when you have acquaintances but not yet real friends. This period is normal. It does not mean you have failed or that you will not make friends.
Keep a routine
The students who manage loneliness best during the early weeks are those who maintain a structured daily routine. Getting up at the same time, eating regularly, studying in the library rather than your room, exercising: these are not glamorous interventions but the evidence is consistent that routine supports mental health and reduces the intensity of loneliness during a difficult adjustment period.
Stay connected with home, but not at the expense of engaging here
Regular contact with family and friends at home is important and should not be abandoned. A video call with your parents or close friends provides genuine emotional support. However, students who spend the majority of their evenings on video calls to home often report that this actually intensifies their loneliness by preventing them from engaging with the social life around them. The goal is balance: scheduled regular contact with home, combined with an active effort to be present and engaged in the UK.
Recognise when loneliness is affecting your wellbeing
Temporary loneliness during a period of adjustment is normal. Loneliness that persists beyond the first two months, or that significantly affects your sleep, appetite, academic performance or mood, is worth addressing directly. Every UK university has a student wellbeing service, a counselling service and an international student support team. These services are free, confidential and used by a significant proportion of the student population. Using them is a sign of self-awareness, not weakness.
If you are in the UK and experiencing distress, Student Minds is the UK’s leading student mental health charity and offers resources and guidance specifically for students.
Making Friends as a Boarding School Student in the UK
The advice above focuses primarily on university students, but international students at UK boarding schools face a version of the same challenge, often at a younger age and in a more structured environment.
For boarding school students, the house system is the central social structure. Your housemates will be the people you see most, eat with, and live alongside. Investing in those relationships early, through shared activities in house, participation in house events and genuine openness to your housemates’ backgrounds and interests, is the most reliable route to building a social circle.
UK boarding schools also typically offer a wide range of structured activities, from sports and music to drama and community service. These serve the same function as university societies: they provide repeated contact with the same people around a shared interest. Students who participate broadly in school life typically build stronger friendship networks than those who focus only on academic work.
One important difference from university is that boarding school friendships are more geographically constrained. You will form relationships with the students in your school and house, and building friendships outside that environment requires more deliberate effort. School trips, community volunteering and sports fixtures against other schools all provide opportunities to meet students from beyond your immediate circle.
For parents: the first half of the first term is the most critical period. Regular but not excessive contact from home is important. Students who feel that their parents are anxious about their social life often mirror that anxiety. Parents who communicate calm confidence in their child’s ability to settle tend to help more than those who check in daily for social updates.
What Families Can Do to Help
Parents play a more important role in their child’s social adjustment than many realise, even at a distance.
The most useful thing a parent can do is prepare their child before they leave. This means talking honestly about the fact that making friends in the UK takes longer than in many other cultures, that the early weeks may feel lonely, and that this is temporary and normal. Students who arrive expecting an immediate social life are more distressed by the adjustment period than students who arrive understanding that it takes time.
Before departure, it is also worth helping your child to identify specific, concrete things they plan to do in the first two weeks: which society they will join, which sports team they will try out for, what the orientation programme looks like. Students with a specific social plan are less likely to retreat to their rooms when the initial excitement fades.
At Briggate, our pre-arrival support includes detailed guidance on the social landscape of the student’s destination city and university, specific recommendations for societies and activities suited to their interests, and honest preparation for the cultural adjustment of UK student life. This kind of preparation makes a material difference to how quickly students find their footing.
A Note on Safety and Wellbeing
For families sending a child to the UK from overseas, the social and emotional adjustment is one part of a wider picture that includes physical safety and security. International students face specific vulnerabilities that domestic students do not, including targeted fraud, accommodation risks and the particular isolation that comes from being far from family when something goes wrong.
Briggate’s dedicated student security programme, run by former police detectives, provides airport pickup on arrival, a professional security assessment of the student’s accommodation, and 24/7 ongoing support throughout the student’s time in the UK. For families who want to know that their child is not navigating these risks alone, this support makes a meaningful difference.
You can read more about our security service and how it protects international students on our student security page.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to make friends as an international student in the UK? Most students begin to form genuine friendships within four to eight weeks of arriving, though this varies considerably. The early weeks feel harder than they are. Students who engage actively with university life, join at least one society and go to their course consistently typically find their social circle forming by the end of the first term.
Is it hard to make British friends as an international student? It can be, initially. British social culture is more reserved than that of many countries, and early friendliness does not always lead quickly to closer friendship. The key is repeated contact over time. Students who share a course, a society, a sports team or a volunteering commitment with British students consistently report forming genuine cross-cultural friendships, but it takes longer than it might at home.
Should I spend time with other students from my home country? Yes, but not exclusively. A community of students from your home country provides important emotional support and cultural familiarity, especially in the first weeks. However, students who spend almost all their social time within a single national community often miss the broader university experience and can struggle with loneliness when that community becomes unavailable. The aim is to build a mixed social circle that includes both.
What should I do if I am feeling very lonely at university? First, recognise that what you are experiencing is very common. Speak to your university’s international student support team or student wellbeing service, which are free and confidential. Talk to your family at home. Maintain your routine and keep attending your course and any societies you have joined, even when it feels pointless. If loneliness persists or significantly affects your daily life, seek support from your university counselling service.
What is the fastest way to make friends at a UK university? The fastest route is a combination of: living in halls and actively engaging with housemates from day one; attending every orientation event in the first week; joining one society that meets regularly; talking to course mates. The students who form the strongest social networks fastest are almost always those who initiated contact rather than waited to be approached.
How can parents help their child make friends in the UK? Prepare your child before they leave by being honest about the adjustment period. Help them identify specific social plans for the first two weeks. Maintain regular but not excessive contact from home. Communicate calm confidence rather than anxiety about their social life. Consider pre-arrival support from a consultancy who can prepare your child specifically for the social landscape of their destination.
How Briggate Can Help
Supporting international students through the full experience of studying in the UK, not just the admissions process, is central to what we do at Briggate Educational Consultants. Our pre-arrival guidance covers the social and cultural adjustment in detail, helping students arrive prepared rather than surprised. Our security team provides ongoing support throughout the student’s time in the UK, ensuring that families have a trusted point of contact when things feel difficult.
If you are a family preparing to send a child to a UK university or boarding school, a conversation with one of our consultants is a practical starting point.
This article was written by the Briggate Educational Consultants team. Loneliness statistics are drawn from published research by Sheffield Hallam University: Wawera and McCamley (2019), Loneliness among international students in the UK, Journal of Further and Higher Education. Student mental health resources referenced include Student Minds, the UK’s leading student mental health charity. Always seek support from your university’s international student team if you are struggling.
