How to get visa sponsorship in the UK from abroad

GOV.UK sets out the current requirements for the Skilled Worker route. They fall into four parts, each of which is a fact about the job or the applicant that can be checked against published data.

• An eligible occupation code. Every UK job maps to a four-digit SOC 2020 code, and the Home Office publishes which codes are eligible for sponsorship. The occupation directory lists each code with its eligibility and going rate.
• A salary at or above the threshold. The general threshold is £41,700 a year, or the going rate for the occupation if that is higher. A lower figure of £33,400 applies in set cases, including new entrants and some roles on the Immigration Salary List. The salary threshold guide explains the arithmetic and the salary calculator compares any salary with any code. Figures checked against GOV.UK on 5 Sept 2026.
• English language. Applicants must show English at the level GOV.UK specifies, through an approved test, a degree taught in English or nationality of a listed majority-English-speaking country.
• The Immigration Salary List. Occupations on this list (formerly the Shortage Occupation List) can be paid below the general threshold within the published limits. The Immigration Salary List page tracks the current entries.

The eligibility checker puts an occupation and a salary against these published figures and shows what the data says. It compares numbers; it does not decide anyone’s immigration position, and GOV.UK remains the authority on the current rules.

Tens of thousands of organisations hold a licence, but they are not spread evenly across the economy. The register and the job feeds on this site show sponsorship concentrated in a handful of sectors. Each sector page lists current jobs at licensed sponsors in that field.

• NHS and healthcare: nurses, doctors, radiographers, pharmacists and allied health roles, usually on the Health and Care Worker route.
• Social care: senior care and managerial roles; the care worker and senior care worker codes themselves are closed to new overseas applications.
• IT and software: developers, data and cloud engineers, cyber security and IT architects.
• Engineering: civil, mechanical, electrical and design engineers.
• Construction trades: bricklayers, roofers, carpenters and plasterers listed on the Immigration Salary List.
• Hospitality and chefs: chefs and kitchen leads at hotel and restaurant groups that hold a licence.
• Education: secondary teachers, further education lecturers and some early years roles.
• Councils and public sector: social workers, planners and specialist officers at local authorities.

The full board at jobs at licensed sponsors can be filtered by sector, occupation code and whether the advertised salary meets the published threshold, and the free weekly alert sends new matches by email.

Because the licence sits with the employer, the first check on any advert is whether the organisation is on the register. Two free tools on this site do this against the published Home Office data.

• The sponsor licence check takes an employer name and returns whether it appears on the register, its rating and the routes its licence covers.
• The UK sponsor list is browsable by town, sector and route, with a page for each licensed organisation.

A licence is a fact about the employer, not about the vacancy. An organisation on the register is permitted to assign a Certificate of Sponsorship; whether it chooses to do so for a particular role is a decision it makes case by case. The questions below are what to confirm with the employer directly.

• Whether the organisation holds a current Skilled Worker licence and intends to use it for this role.
• Which occupation code the role will be assigned under, and the salary that will appear on the CoS.
• Whether the role is full-time, and if not, how the salary compares with the pro-rated going rate.
• Who pays the visa application fee and the Immigration Health Surcharge, since employers differ on this.
• The expected start date, because a CoS carries a start date and the visa application must follow its assignment.

Home Office sponsor guidance is explicit that certain costs are the sponsor’s own and must not be recovered from the worker. Published guidance names the sponsor licence fee, the Certificate of Sponsorship fee and the Immigration Skills Charge, which is levied on the employer for each sponsored worker. A sponsor found to have recouped these can have its licence revoked. The worker’s own visa application fee and the Immigration Health Surcharge are not on that list: they are payable by the applicant unless the employer agrees to cover them, and GOV.UK publishes the current amounts.

1. Find the occupation code for the kind of work involved in the occupation directory and note whether it is eligible and what its going rate is.
2. Put the expected salary through the salary calculator to see how it compares with the general threshold and the going rate.
3. Search jobs at licensed sponsors in the relevant sector, filtered to adverts whose salary meets the published threshold.
4. Run each employer through the sponsor licence check before spending time on an application.
5. Apply through the employer’s own advert and ask the questions listed above at interview or offer stage.
6. Once an offer is made, the employer assigns the Certificate of Sponsorship and passes on its reference number.
7. Submit the visa application on GOV.UK with the CoS reference, the English language evidence and the other documents GOV.UK lists for the route.
8. Set up a free weekly alert so that new jobs at licensed sponsors in the chosen occupation arrive by email while the search runs.

• Jobs at licensed sponsors — every listing is from an employer matched to the Home Office register.
• UK sponsor list — browse licensed organisations by town, sector and route.
• Sponsor licence check — confirm any employer against the register before applying.
• Salary threshold and going rates — the current figures for every eligible occupation code.