Essay cheating is flourishing at UK universities, despite a law introduced in April 2022 making it illegal to provide essays to students in post-16 education in England. According to a BBC investigation, not a single prosecution has been brought under the Skills and Post-16 Education Act as of December 17, 2025, even as the market for custom-written essays and model answers continues to thrive. The investigation uncovered a world where essay mills, artificial intelligence, and a culture of academic misconduct collide, raising serious questions about the integrity of higher education in Britain.
The BBC spoke with a range of individuals involved in or affected by the essay cheating industry. One former lecturer described the situation as an "open secret," and many students—especially those from overseas—are reportedly turning to essay-writing companies to complete their assignments. The ease of access is striking: dozens of companies continue to advertise their services online and on social media, openly soliciting UK university students in defiance of the law.
Barclay Littlewood, a businessman originally from Huddersfield and now based in Dubai, claims to have made millions selling "model answer" essays to university students since 2003. His company employs a global network of 3,000 freelance writers, some of whom are lecturers themselves, and covers a wide array of subjects including law, business, and sociology. Prices start at £200 for a basic essay, but can soar to as much as £20,000 for extensive doctorate or master's-level work. Littlewood told the BBC that he has developed his own artificial intelligence system, trained on hundreds of thousands of essays produced by his company, which can generate a university-level, "guaranteed grade" essay in mere minutes.
When challenged about the legality of his operations, Littlewood denied breaking English law, insisting that his essays are intended as "model answers" for students to use as a reference. "My essays are meant to provide a 'model answer' for students to work from," he said. This legal gray area appears to be one reason why, despite the ban, enforcement has been nonexistent. Both the Crown Prosecution Service and the Department for Education confirmed to the BBC that there have been no recorded offences reaching a first hearing in a magistrate's court under the Skills and Post-16 Education Act.
The BBC arranged for Steve Foster, a former lecturer who spent eight years teaching English language at the International Study Centre affiliated with the University of Lincoln, and four more lecturing at the university's business school, to assess an essay generated by Littlewood's AI tool. Foster said he could tell the essay was not written by a student because it lacked a "human touch," but noted that it was of a solid 2:1 degree standard and contained "no mistakes whatsoever." Foster, who left academia in 2024, cited the rampant cheating as a key reason for his departure. "The scale of essay cheating was an 'open secret' and one of the reasons I left the sector," he told the BBC.
Foster described seeing receipts from essay-writing services fall out of student papers and recounted instances of dramatic disparities between students' exam and essay marks. "When you get that kind of disparity in the marks, it's clear the student has been cheating," he observed. "When you see a student who clearly struggled with the language and they submit an essay which William Shakespeare would have been proud of, then immediately that's going to arouse suspicion." Foster also claimed that many teachers "turned a blind eye" to the issue, allowing the problem to "snowball." He posed a sobering question: "Would you want to travel over a bridge that's been designed by one of these students? Would you like to put this accountant in charge of your business's operations?"
The BBC's investigation found that international students are disproportionately represented in academic misconduct cases. Freedom of Information requests sent to every UK university revealed that, of the 53 institutions providing usable data, 48 reported that international students were overrepresented in formal investigations into essay cheating for the academic year ending in summer 2024. At the University of Lincoln, for example, 78% of 387 misconduct investigations involved non-UK students, even though they make up only 22% of the student population. Penalties for cheating can range from warnings and zero marks to suspension or expulsion, though the effectiveness of these deterrents is under question.
One international student, identified as Alia to protect her privacy, shared her experience with the BBC. She described her master's course at the University of Lincoln as a "dream come true," but soon found herself isolated as many of her 20 overseas classmates struggled with English and turned to essay mills charging about £20 for every 1,000 words. "It was both their lack of knowledge in English language and the fact that they did not care for the lesson and were talking to each other or playing on their phones," Alia said. She was determined to do her own work, but classmates laughed at her and called her "stupid" for not simply paying someone else to do the assignments. "You are losing sleep, missing your meals and getting so tired—just pay someone," they told her. By the second module, about a third of her cohort missed every class, and some would only show up to register their presence before leaving.
Alia's frustration was compounded when she saw that those who cheated often received better grades. "When the grades were released, for most of the modules they got better grades and were laughing at me. I am not proud of this degree anymore," she said. She also expressed concern about her future job prospects: "How is the employer going to see the difference between someone like me and these people?"
Universities UK, representing 141 institutions, said in a statement that severe penalties exist for students caught submitting work that is not their own. "All universities have codes of conduct that include severe penalties for students found to be submitting work that is not their own," the organization stated. The Home Office sets the level of English required for student visas, but the gap between policy and practice is evident.
Detection technology is also struggling to keep up. Higher education institutions routinely use software such as Turnitin to detect plagiarism and false authorship. Annie Chechitelli, chief product officer at Turnitin, noted that the rise of AI has made detection and deterrence "more critical than ever." Since 2023, Turnitin's detection tool has found that, in more than one in ten papers reviewed, AI wrote at least 20% of the material. Despite these efforts, essay mills remain popular, with students seeking out services that can evade AI detection.
Eve Alcock, director of public affairs at the Quality Assurance Agency, which seeks to improve standards in higher education, described essay mills as a "threat to academic integrity across the UK." She encouraged universities to move away from essay-based assessments in favor of more "authentic" evaluations, particularly in light of the rise of generative AI tools. The University of Lincoln, for its part, said it took "appropriate responses" when it caught students cheating and recognized academic misconduct as a "sector-wide challenge." Alleged breaches are "thoroughly investigated and addressed through our established processes, with appropriate responses where misconduct is confirmed," a spokesperson said.
With international students now making up a quarter of the UK's student population and universities increasingly reliant on their higher fees, the stakes have never been higher. As traditional essay assessments come under scrutiny and enforcement of anti-cheating laws remains elusive, the future of academic integrity in the UK hangs in the balance.
