The UK sponsor register looks stable from a distance. The Home Office file published on 24 September 2026 holds about 143,000 entries, almost the same as a month earlier. Underneath, it churns: roughly 1,000 organisations leave every month and about as many join. Holding a licence also says nothing about whether an employer is hiring. In the 30 days to 2 October 2026, fewer than 3% of licensed organisations advertised a single job.

This analysis uses weekly Home Office register snapshots from July to September 2026, enriched with Companies House records and job adverts collected by SkilledJobs. Every figure carries the date it was taken.

How big is the UK sponsor register?

The register CSV dated 24 September 2026 contains 143,127 entries. Of those, 128,521 are on the Skilled Worker route; the rest cover Global Business Mobility, Ministers of Religion, Creative Worker, International Sportsperson, Charity Worker and smaller routes.

One organisation can hold several entries. The Home Office lists an organisation once per route and, where it applies, once per rating, and sometimes separately for different towns. Counting distinct organisation names, the 24 September file covers roughly 127,000 organisations (127,283 as of the 28 September 2026 sync).

Almost every entry is A-rated: 146,309 of the 146,499 active entries in our register copy on 28 September 2026, or 99.9%. A B rating applied to just 87 entries.

So when a site advertises "the sponsor list", the useful number is about 127,000 organisations, not 143,000 "sponsors".

How many employers leave the register each month?

The Home Office republishes the register regularly. SkilledJobs takes a weekly snapshot and compares it with the previous one. From 22 July to 28 September 2026 the picture was steady: a few hundred entries added and a few hundred removed every week.

Snapshot fetchedRegister CSV dateRegister entriesAddedRemoved
22 Jul 202622 Jul 2026142,5451,5551,178
27 Jul 202624 Jul 2026142,5677872
3 Aug 202631 Jul 2026142,649325295