This paper explores the complex and changing relationship between academic capitalism that encourages global mobility of highly‐skilled international students on the one hand and recent changes to immigration policy in the UK that prevent such mobility on the other. The paper is based on a longitudinal study that traces the experiences and aspirations of postgraduates from three Asian countries and their pathways from the UK universities to post study work and realities. Taking a multi‐scalar approach, the analysis of international students’ narratives unpacks the unevenness of career opportunities, barriers to settlement and various “assemblages of power” that shape students’ life trajectories. The paper illustrates how the individual‐scale projects intersect with states’ policies of both receiving and sending countries and other institutions and structures of power that operate within and beyond the nation‐states.