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UK Visa

The UK Sponsor Licence List: How to Use the Register of Licensed Sponsors

Last Updated: 30 September 2026

Reviewed by: UK Visa Jobs Editorial Team | Estimated reading time: 8–10 minutes

If you need a work visa to take a job in the UK, one document decides whether an employer can even consider you: the Home Office Register of Licensed Sponsors. It is a public list of every organisation permitted to sponsor a work visa, it is updated constantly, and almost every job seeker who needs sponsorship ends up looking at it.

It is also 143,116 rows of spreadsheet with no search that understands what you are looking for, no job titles, and no indication of whether anyone on it is hiring. This guide explains what the register is, how to read an entry properly, what it cannot tell you, and how to get from a name on a list to an actual job.

What the register actually is

The Home Office publishes the Register of Licensed Sponsors: Workers as a spreadsheet, usually refreshed every working day. UK Visa Jobs downloads it daily and keeps a dated copy, which is how the figures in this article can be stated precisely.

On 28 September 2026, the register held 143,116 entries covering 127,677 organisations. Each entry is one organisation on one visa route with one rating, so an employer licensed for two routes appears twice. Of those entries, 123,084 are for the Skilled Worker route and 10,450 are for Global Business Mobility: Senior or Specialist Worker, with the remainder spread across Creative Worker, Charity Worker, Religious Worker, International Sportsperson and the other temporary routes.

Being on that list means one thing only: the Home Office has approved the organisation to issue Certificates of Sponsorship. It says nothing about vacancies, and nothing about whether the employer will sponsor you.

The two gates every sponsored job has to pass

This is the part that costs people the most time, so it is worth stating plainly. A sponsored job has to clear two separate gates, and the register only tells you about the first.

Gate one: can this employer sponsor anyone at all? That is a question about the licence, and the register answers it definitively. No licence, no sponsorship, regardless of how much the employer likes you.

Gate two: will this employer sponsor this role, for you? That depends on the salary, the occupation code, whether the employer is willing to pay the fees and do the paperwork, and whether they have any interest in recruiting from overseas at all. Thousands of licensed employers have never sponsored a single overseas hire. The register cannot see any of this.

Most disappointment in a sponsored job search comes from treating gate one as if it were both gates. A licence is permission, not intent.

How to read an entry without being misled

It lists legal entities, not brands

The register uses registered company names. The brand you know may appear under a holding company, a services subsidiary, or several entities at once, and the one that holds the licence may not be the one advertising the job. Searching for a brand name and finding nothing does not always mean the employer is unlicensed.

The same name can belong to different companies

On the current register, 354 organisation names appear in more than one town. Some are branches of one business; others are unrelated companies that happen to share a name. Before concluding that the care home down the road is licensed, check that the town matches.

A licence is granted per route

An employer licensed for the Creative Worker route cannot sponsor you on Skilled Worker. 12,960 organisations hold more than one route, but most hold exactly one, so always read the route column rather than assuming a licence is a licence.

The rating is a quality signal, not a guarantee

Nearly every entry carries an A rating. Only 86 entries across the whole register carry a B rating, which means the sponsor is on a Home Office action plan and has restrictions on issuing new Certificates of Sponsorship. A B rating is worth noticing, but its rarity means it will almost never be the reason an application fails.

What the register will not tell you

It carries no job titles, no vacancies, no salaries and no indication of whether an employer has ever sponsored anybody. It does not distinguish an employer that sponsors fifty people a year from one that took a licence out in 2019 and has not used it since.

It also lags reality in both directions. A company that has just been granted a licence appears before it has advertised anything; a company that has surrendered or lost a licence disappears while its old job adverts are still live on other sites.

How to use it without reading 143,116 rows

Reading the spreadsheet by hand works if you are checking one employer. It does not work as a job search. These pages are built from the same daily download, organised so you can actually use it.

Licensed sponsors by city — every licensed employer grouped by where the Home Office lists them, so you can see who can sponsor within commuting distance. Each company page shows the routes, the rating, how long the licence has been held and whether UK Visa Jobs has seen sponsored vacancies from them.

Sponsors licensed this week — organisations that appeared on the register in the last seven days, rebuilt every morning. This is the most perishable list on the site, and the most useful one to act on. A company that has just been through the licensing process did so because it intends to sponsor, and it has no queue of applicants yet; its first sponsored vacancy usually reaches the job boards weeks later.

That gap is worth using. Find the person who would manage your role, send one short message saying what you would do rather than attaching a CV, and say plainly that you need sponsorship. Most speculative approaches go nowhere, and a new licence is not an invitation — but you are writing to an employer that has already decided sponsorship is worth the paperwork, before anyone else has noticed it can sponsor at all.

Sponsored vacancies by role — the opposite view: which occupations currently have sponsored vacancies on UK Visa Jobs, and how many.

The UK Visa Jobs sponsor directory — licensed employers cross-referenced with evidence of actual sponsorship activity, which is the closest thing there is to an answer for gate two.

Checking one employer before you apply

If you are about to spend an hour on an application, the question is narrower: can this specific employer sponsor this specific job? Doing that by hand means finding the legal entity behind the brand, matching the town, and checking the route — three steps, per application.

How to check if a UK employer can sponsor your visa before you apply covers how to do that quickly, including the ambiguous cases where the honest answer is that the register cannot tell you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the sponsorship companies list the same as the Tier 2 list?

Yes. Tier 2 (General) was renamed the Skilled Worker route in December 2020. Older articles and forum posts still say “Tier 2 list”, but it is the same register, and the Skilled Worker route is where most sponsorship now happens.

How often is the register updated?

The Home Office republishes it most working days. Licences are granted and removed continuously, so a copy downloaded a month ago is already wrong in both directions.

If a company is on the register, will it sponsor me?

Not necessarily, and usually not. The licence clears gate one. Whether the employer sponsors this role, at this salary, for a candidate who needs a visa is a separate decision, and many licensed employers never take it.

The employer I want is not on the list. Is that final?

Check the legal entity name and the town before giving up, because brands and registered names often differ. If the organisation genuinely holds no licence, it cannot sponsor you, however well the interview goes.

Does a B rating mean I should avoid the employer?

It means the sponsor is on an action plan and is restricted while it is in place. With only 86 B-rated entries on the register, it is rare enough that you are unlikely to meet one, but it is worth knowing if you do.

Final Thoughts

The register is the most reliable document in a sponsored job search and the most frequently misread. Used properly, it eliminates employers who cannot help you, which is valuable. Used as a list of employers who will sponsor you, it produces months of applications to companies that were never going to.

Start from the licence, then look for evidence of actual sponsorship, then apply. Browse sponsored vacancies on UK Visa Jobs to skip the first two steps entirely.

About This Guide

This guide is written and maintained by the UK Visa Jobs editorial team. The figures come from the Home Office Register of Licensed Sponsors as published on 28 September 2026, which UK Visa Jobs downloads and checks every day. We update this article as the register and the rules change rather than publishing a new version each year.

Disclaimer

A sponsor licence means an employer is permitted to sponsor a work visa. It does not mean the employer is hiring, that it will sponsor a particular role, or that a vacancy meets the salary and skill requirements of the route. Immigration rules, salary thresholds and going rates change; confirm the current position on GOV.UK before you apply or make plans. This article is information, not immigration advice.