The number of students caught cheating at the UK’s top universities has shot up by a third in three years, with experts warning that institutions are ignoring the problem. A senior teaching fellow at Imperial College London and one of the UK’s leading experts on essay cheating, said: “A growing number of young people also feel more pressure than ever before, often turning to cheating to help them get through their degrees. It’s also easier to access websites that offer paid-to-order essays”.

A new Ministry of Education regulation to punish academic fraud has come into effect to clamp down on plagiarism and fabricating research data, as well as buying, selling or organizing trade in academic degree theses, including all forms of "ghostwriting" or buying of materials produced by essay mills.