UK Cities With the Most Licensed Visa Sponsors (2026)

The top 50 towns and cities

Organisations currently on the register, by the town they give. Share is of all 11,726 organisations we publish from the register. Added and removed cover the last 90 days.

Rank	Town or city	Sponsors	Share	Removed
1	London	3,677	31.4%	41
2	Manchester	283	2.4%	3
3	Birmingham	273	2.3%	6
4	Bristol	166	1.4%	1
5	Cambridge	143	1.2%	1
6	Glasgow	132	1.1%	0
7	Edinburgh	114	1.0%	0
8	Leicester	107	0.9%	3
9	Reading	90	0.8%	1
10	Nottingham	89	0.8%	0
11	Milton Keynes	84	0.7%	0
12	Slough	83	0.7%	2
13	Leeds	81	0.7%	3
14	Ilford	74	0.6%	1
15	Coventry	73	0.6%	2
16	Sheffield	69	0.6%	2
17	Bradford	64	0.5%	0
18	Luton	62	0.5%	0
19	Harrow	60	0.5%	1
20	Cardiff	59	0.5%	3
21	Belfast	57	0.5%	2
22	Liverpool	57	0.5%	0
23	Bolton	56	0.5%	1
24	Oxford	53	0.5%	0
25	Southampton	53	0.5%	0
26	Watford	46	0.4%	1
27	Derby	44	0.4%	0
28	Croydon	41	0.3%	1
29	Hounslow	41	0.3%	0
30	Romford	41	0.3%	1
31	Wolverhampton	41	0.3%	1
32	Brighton	39	0.3%	0
33	Northampton	38	0.3%	1
34	Newcastle upon Tyne	37	0.3%	1
35	Stockport	36	0.3%	0
36	Preston	35	0.3%	1
37	Norwich	34	0.3%	2
38	Southall	34	0.3%	1
39	Uxbridge	34	0.3%	4
40	Bedford	33	0.3%	0
41	Kent	33	0.3%	0
42	Aberdeen	32	0.3%	0
43	Peterborough	32	0.3%	0
44	Bournemouth	31	0.3%	0
45	Hayes	31	0.3%	1
46	Huddersfield	31	0.3%	0
47	Blackburn	30	0.3%	0
48	Stoke-on-Trent	30	0.3%	0
49	Wembley	30	0.3%	0
50	Colchester	29	0.2%	0

How these figures are made

The Home Office publishes the register of licensed sponsors as a spreadsheet, most working days. SkilledJobs downloads it daily. This table counts the organisations we publish from it that are on the current copy, grouped by the town or city each one gives on the register. Spellings of the same place are counted together: upper and lower case, extra spaces and hyphens are ignored, so Stoke-on-Trent and Stoke On Trent are one entry. Organisations without a town are left out of the table but counted in the total, so shares are of the whole published register.

The town is where the organisation says it is based, usually its registered or head office, not every site it runs. Added counts organisations first seen in the last 90 days that are still on the register; removed counts those that left it in the same window. The register does not say why a licence ended, so this page says removed and nothing more. Month-by-month totals for the whole register are on register changes by month, and any single employer can be checked with the free sponsor licence check.

Common questions

Which UK city has the most licensed visa sponsors?

London, with 3,677 organisations on the Home Office register of licensed sponsors, 31.4% of the register. The table on this page gives the count and share for the top fifty towns and cities, rebuilt daily from our copy of the register.

How is a sponsor assigned to a city?

By the town or city the organisation gives on the register, which is usually its registered or head office. An employer with sites across the country counts once, in the town it lists. Different spellings of the same place, such as upper and lower case or hyphens, are counted together.

What do the added and removed columns show?

Added counts organisations in that town that first appeared on the register in the last 90 days and are still on it. Removed counts organisations in that town that left the register in the same window. The register does not publish why a licence ends, so we say removed and nothing more.

Can I use these figures?

Yes. Cite the page and the date. The source is the public Home Office register of licensed sponsors, published under the Open Government Licence; the city counts, shares and 90-day columns are our own derived data, rebuilt daily.

← The full UK sponsor list

UK cities with the most licensed visa sponsors