Licensed sponsor register: search employers for UK visa sponsorship jobs
UK visa sponsorship jobs start with an employer on the Home Office register of licensed sponsors, and its 22 October 2026 edition has 143,192 listings for 127,744 organisations. The register names employers that can sponsor, not vacancies, and the search shows each listing's type, rating and route as published.
Type the start of the registered name, or a town or city.
- Licensed organisations127,744143,192 listings, edition of 22 October 2026
- Can sponsor Skilled Workers122,36995.8% of all organisations
- Based in London36,65628.7% of the register
- B-rated101cannot assign new certificates for now
Figures from the Home Office register of licensed sponsors (Open Government Licence).
How to find UK visa sponsorship jobs that are real
Step 1
Check the job can be sponsored
Each job has a SOC code with its own going rate. A new hire needs that rate or £41,700, whichever is higher. Check a job title and pay.
Step 2
Check the employer holds a licence
Search the name above. A firm that is not on the register cannot issue the certificate of sponsorship a work visa needs.
Step 3
Get the certificate reference number
The employer assigns a certificate of sponsorship. It holds a reference number, and you have 3 months to use it in your visa application.
The register lists employers that hold a licence, not open vacancies: being on it means a firm can sponsor, not that it is hiring. The employer pays the £611 or £1,682 licence fee itself, and asking the worker to pay it can cost the firm its licence.
Where the licensed sponsors are
| Town or city | Organisations | Listings | Share of organisations |
|---|---|---|---|
| London | 36,656 | 43,966 | 28.7% |
| Birmingham | 3,096 | 3,361 | 2.4% |
| Manchester | 2,880 | 3,126 | 2.3% |
| Leicester | 1,424 | 1,510 | 1.1% |
| Glasgow | 1,377 | 1,510 | 1.1% |
| Bristol | 1,293 | 1,471 | 1% |
| Edinburgh | 1,180 | 1,318 | 0.9% |
| Leeds | 1,083 | 1,192 | 0.8% |
| Nottingham | 1,050 | 1,134 | 0.8% |
| Ilford | 942 | 966 | 0.7% |
| Coventry | 915 | 999 | 0.7% |
| Reading | 913 | 1,098 | 0.7% |
| Slough | 863 | 942 | 0.7% |
| Milton Keynes | 847 | 987 | 0.7% |
| Cambridge | 841 | 988 | 0.7% |
| Harrow | 815 | 857 | 0.6% |
| Bradford | 740 | 787 | 0.6% |
| Liverpool | 739 | 813 | 0.6% |
| Luton | 708 | 752 | 0.6% |
| Sheffield | 693 | 758 | 0.5% |
| Cardiff | 628 | 693 | 0.5% |
| Oxford | 626 | 721 | 0.5% |
| Bolton | 593 | 615 | 0.5% |
| Southampton | 569 | 623 | 0.4% |
| Newcastle Upon Tyne | 551 | 599 | 0.4% |
| Belfast | 537 | 607 | 0.4% |
| Croydon | 536 | 579 | 0.4% |
| Northampton | 517 | 569 | 0.4% |
| Derby | 513 | 577 | 0.4% |
| Aberdeen | 497 | 619 | 0.4% |
| Wolverhampton | 497 | 543 | 0.4% |
| Hounslow | 492 | 532 | 0.4% |
| Watford | 488 | 547 | 0.4% |
| Essex | 454 | 476 | 0.4% |
| Romford | 446 | 461 | 0.3% |
| Southall | 423 | 444 | 0.3% |
| Hayes | 421 | 437 | 0.3% |
| Wembley | 418 | 437 | 0.3% |
| Norwich | 404 | 436 | 0.3% |
| Stoke on Trent | 401 | 419 | 0.3% |
| Brighton | 399 | 433 | 0.3% |
| Peterborough | 395 | 436 | 0.3% |
| Preston | 395 | 413 | 0.3% |
| Kent | 394 | 408 | 0.3% |
| Uxbridge | 363 | 428 | 0.3% |
| High Wycombe | 351 | 386 | 0.3% |
| Oldham | 347 | 364 | 0.3% |
| Walsall | 332 | 350 | 0.3% |
| Bedford | 331 | 350 | 0.3% |
| Surrey | 331 | 366 | 0.3% |
Which visa routes does the register cover?
Each listing is one organisation on one route, and one organisation can hold several routes, so the route totals add up to more than the 127,744 organisations. Skilled Worker is by far the most common; Health and Care Worker visa roles are sponsored under it, and the Senior or Specialist Worker visa and the Scale-up Worker visa have their own routes.
| Route | Listings | Organisations |
|---|---|---|
| Skilled Worker | 123,178 | 122,369 |
| Global Business Mobility: Senior or Specialist Worker | 10,420 | 10,351 |
| Tier 2 Ministers of Religion | 1,962 | 1,961 |
| Creative Worker | 1,582 | 1,574 |
| Charity Worker | 1,531 | 1,530 |
| International Sportsperson | 1,473 | 1,460 |
| Religious Worker | 1,436 | 1,436 |
| Global Business Mobility: Graduate Trainee | 622 | 621 |
| Global Business Mobility: UK Expansion Worker | 438 | 438 |
| Government Authorised Exchange | 248 | 246 |
| International Agreement | 134 | 134 |
| Scale-up | 93 | 93 |
| Global Business Mobility: Service Supplier | 56 | 56 |
| Global Business Mobility: Secondment Worker | 6 | 6 |
| Seasonal Worker | 6 | 6 |
| Tier 2 General | 5 | 5 |
| Intra Company Transfers (ICT) | 1 | 1 |
| Intra-company Routes | 1 | 1 |
What the rating next to a sponsor means
Your business is not on the register yet
To offer sponsorship, your business needs a sponsor licence of its own first. See how a sponsor licence application works and what the sponsor licence cost comes to for a small or a large business.
Questions about the sponsor register
How current is this search?
It uses the Home Office register edition of 22 October 2026, which GOV.UK publishes as a spreadsheet. A licence granted or removed since then shows on GOV.UK first.
Our business is licensed but not listed. Why?
Search by the exact registered name rather than a trading name, and drop words such as "The". A new licence appears once the Home Office adds it to the next edition.
Does a firm on the register have to sponsor me?
No. The licence lets the employer sponsor a worker for a job that qualifies; whether it offers sponsorship for a given vacancy is its own choice.
A listing about me is wrong. Who corrects it?
The Home Office keeps the register, so ask it to correct the entry. A sole trader who wants their name taken out of this search can write to us at the address on our legal page.
How we count: a listing is one row of the register, and an organisation is one name in one town, matched after case, accents and punctuation are set aside. That matching is only for search and counts; every row shows the published text. Figures come from the file SP_-_Worker_and_Temporary_Worker_Web_Register_-_2026-10-22.csv.
Source: Home Office, Register of licensed sponsors: workers, as published on 22 October 2026. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Counts compiled by sponsorlicence.org.uk. Counts by town and route (CSV)
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