What are my chances of getting a fully funded PhD in UK as an international student?

Thanks a lot for answering! I am a fourth-year bachelor's student in Industrial Engineering, and I am mostly interested in fields related to Operations Research, or Supply Chain Management. I am open to considering a range of universities that offer strong programs in this area.

I have a (first class) bachelor's degree as an international student. I have a class rank, good English scores, and some super-curricular activities like being a teacher assistant and also completing a few courses.

Hi @sagharrz,
You've named areas of interest in which Cranfield School of Management is exceptionally strong. For example, our Logistics and Supply Chain Management MSc was ranked 2nd in the UK and 14th in the world by QS World University Rankings: Masters in Supply Chain Management Rankings 2024. We have one of the largest specialist faculties for this in Europe.
You might be interested in looking at Research Degrees at the Cranfield School of Management:
Research Degrees (cranfield.ac.uk).
In particular, you might be interested in the Centre for Logistics, Procurement and Supply Chain Management (cranfield.ac.uk)) and the Centre for Business Performance (cranfield.ac.uk).
Let us know if anything sparks your interest! We'd be happy to answer more questions here.
Gemma
PhD Student
Student Ambassador

You have a decent chance of getting an offer, you have a very small chance of getting fully funded simply because full funding is rare, and very competitive. You will be up against people with Masters degrees (so proven dissertation experience) and or relevant career experience. You should give it a go, but funding is more likely to come from your home country, unless you already have industry connections you can leverage.

Hi, so I am not an international student, but I recently completed my masters degree and a few of my friends who are international were trying to get into a PhD programme. I would say that your undergraduate results are great, however the competition is massively fierce, even for home students. Many students have at least a masters degree, so in theory if you’re against other students, who have additional postgraduate degree (or many years of experience), they are more likely selected for interviews. Even from a home student point of view, my friend tried to get onto a PhD after their undergraduate and gaining some experience, they didn’t get selected for any PhD interviews. They also had a 1st class bachelors! Only after the masters they were considered and successfully selected. I wouldn’t say it isn’t impossible, but it’s incredibly difficult. It’s quite rare for someone to go straight onto a PhD from an undergraduate in the UK. But this is what I found throughout the process.
I hope this helps 🙂