By Jai Choudhary, Founder of Passion Projects · Updated April 2026
Quick answer: The Home Office Register of Licensed Sponsors lists over 126,000 organisations with active Worker or Temporary Worker licences as of April 2026. But our analysis of 42,000+ live job listings shows that fewer than one in five are actively advertising sponsored roles right now. The most active sponsors include NHS trusts, the Big 4 accountancy firms, Amazon UK, HSBC, major universities and a growing cluster of mid-sized tech and engineering companies. Below, we break down who is actually hiring, sector by sector, using real data rather than recycled lists.
How many UK companies sponsor visas in 2026?
More than at any point in British immigration history. The Home Office register contained approximately 123,911 active licensed sponsors at the end of December 2025, according to Home Office Sponsorship Transparency Data analysed by the Work Rights Centre in March 2026. Live third-party mirrors of the register show the figure has since climbed past 125,600.
To put that in context: in early 2021, the register listed just 32,019 organisations. The number has nearly quadrupled in five years.
| Date | Total Licensed Sponsors | Source |
|---|---|---|
| End of 2019 (pre-Brexit) | ~29,000 | Migration Observatory |
| Q1 2021 | 32,019 | Home Office Sponsorship Transparency Data |
| December 2023 | ~73,500 | Migration Observatory |
| December 2025 | 123,911 | Home Office / Work Rights Centre |
| April 2026 (live mirrors) | ~125,600 | sponsorlist.co.uk |
Three things drove this explosion. First, the end of EU freedom of movement in January 2021 forced thousands of employers who previously relied on EU workers to get sponsor licences. Second, the post-pandemic labour shortage hit healthcare, hospitality and logistics hard, pushing companies to recruit internationally. Third, the government temporarily lowered the skill threshold to RQF Level 3 between 2020 and July 2025, making sponsorship viable for roles that previously would not have qualified.
But raw licence counts are misleading. A licence means an organisation can sponsor. It does not mean they are sponsoring. And the register is churning fast: the Home Office revoked a record 3,100 sponsor licences in calendar year 2025, according to the Work Rights Centre, the highest annual total since records began in 2012.
The 30 most active UK visa sponsors by sector
Here is the problem with every "top sponsors" list you have seen online: the UK Home Office does not publish company-level Certificate of Sponsorship volumes. Unlike the US Department of Labor, which releases H-1B employer data annually, the Home Office holds this data but routinely refuses Freedom of Information requests for it.
Every existing "Top 10 Sponsors" ranking you find on the internet is based on a proxy. Sites rank companies by headcount, by the number of times a company name appears on the register, or by how many job postings they scrape. None of them reflect verified visa volumes. We think that distinction matters, and we are going to be upfront about it.
What we can confirm: the following organisations hold active A-rated Skilled Worker sponsor licences as of April 2026, verified against the GOV.UK register. We have cross-referenced them with our database of 42,000+ live job listings to identify which are actively advertising sponsored roles right now.
Rankings below reflect the volume of active sponsored job listings on passion-project.co.uk as of April 2026, not Home Office visa issuance data (which is not publicly available).
| Rank | Company | Sector | HQ City |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust | Healthcare / NHS | Manchester |
| 2 | Barts Health NHS Trust | Healthcare / NHS | London |
| 3 | Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust | Healthcare / NHS | London |
| 4 | Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust | Healthcare / NHS | Nottingham |
| 5 | PwC UK | Professional Services | London |
| 6 | Deloitte UK | Professional Services | London |
| 7 | EY UK | Professional Services | London |
| 8 | KPMG UK | Professional Services | London |
| 9 | Amazon UK | Technology / Retail | London |
| 10 | Google UK | Technology | London |
| 11 | Microsoft UK | Technology | Reading |
| 12 | Meta UK | Technology | London |
| 13 | HSBC | Banking | London |
| 14 | Barclays | Banking | London |
| 15 | JP Morgan | Banking | London |
| 16 | Goldman Sachs | Banking | London |
| 17 | University of Oxford | Education | Oxford |
| 18 | University College London (UCL) | Education | London |
| 19 | Imperial College London | Education | London |
| 20 | University of Cambridge | Education | Cambridge |
| 21 | University of Manchester | Education | Manchester |
| 22 | Rolls-Royce | Engineering / Aerospace | Derby |
| 23 | BAE Systems | Engineering / Defence | London |
| 24 | AstraZeneca | Pharmaceuticals | Cambridge |
| 25 | GSK | Pharmaceuticals | London |
| 26 | Revolut | Fintech | London |
| 27 | Tesco Stores Ltd | Retail (corporate/tech roles) | Welwyn Garden City |
| 28 | Jaguar Land Rover | Automotive / Engineering | Coventry |
| 29 | NHS Lothian | Healthcare / NHS | Edinburgh |
| 30 | Lloyds Banking Group | Banking | London |
A note on retail: companies like Tesco and Sainsbury's hold sponsor licences, but they sponsor specialist roles in technology, supply chain, finance and data analytics. They do not sponsor entry-level retail positions. If you see a job listing for a "shop floor assistant" claiming visa sponsorship at a major retailer, treat it with caution.
Top sponsors by sector
Healthcare and the NHS
Healthcare remains the single largest sponsoring sector in the UK. Home Office statistics for the year ending December 2025 show that Health and Care Worker visas accounted for 13,286 main applicant grants, though this was down 51% year-on-year. Nursing Professional visas specifically fell 73% to just 1,777, reflecting the wind-down of centrally funded international nurse recruitment.
The critical change: overseas recruitment for care workers and senior care workers closed entirely on 22 July 2025. If you are abroad and looking for a care worker role in the UK, this route is no longer available. Workers already in the UK on other visas (Student, Graduate) can still switch to a care role until 22 July 2028, provided they have been employed by the sponsor for at least three continuous months.
Doctors, registered nurses, midwives, paramedics, pharmacists and other degree-level health professionals can still be sponsored under the Health and Care Worker visa, which carries lower fees (£324 for up to 3 years from April 2026) and exemption from the £1,035 annual Immigration Health Surcharge.
Notable NHS sponsors: Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Barts Health NHS Trust, Guy's and St Thomas', Nottingham University Hospitals, NHS Lothian, Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust, King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
Technology
IT remains a major sponsorship sector, but it is shrinking. The Home Office reported 9,671 Skilled Worker visas issued to IT Professionals in the year ending December 2025, an 18% drop. The Migration Observatory notes that IT-sector skilled worker visas in 2024 were 40% lower than the 2010 to 2019 average, despite IT having over 10,000 licensed sponsors on the register.
Notable tech sponsors: Google UK, Amazon UK, Microsoft UK, Meta UK, Apple UK, Revolut, Monzo, Wise, Starling Bank, ClearBank, Arm, Darktrace.
Finance and professional services
The City of London cluster remains one of the strongest for sponsorship. Migration Observatory's analysis of Skilled Worker grants between October 2024 and March 2025 found that "Finance Analyst" was the single most common SOC occupation code, accounting for 12% of all EU Skilled Worker grants. Salaries in finance and professional services routinely exceed the £41,700 threshold, making these roles relatively straightforward to sponsor.
Notable sponsors: HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds, NatWest, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, PwC, Deloitte, EY, KPMG.
Engineering and construction
Engineering sponsors are active but the construction sector faces a stark mismatch between policy and need. Just 1,660 Skilled Worker visas were issued to the entire construction sector in the year to September 2025, against an estimated 61,000 new construction workers needed annually to hit government housing targets. The visa route is delivering roughly 3% of stated workforce need.
Notable sponsors: Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems, Airbus UK, Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, BMW UK, McLaren.
Education
Russell Group universities are consistent, high-volume sponsors across Skilled Worker, Global Talent and Government Authorised Exchange routes. Academic and research roles at UK universities often qualify for salary discounts under the national pay scale framework, with a lower floor of £25,000.
Notable sponsors: University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, UCL, Imperial College London, King's College London, University of Edinburgh, University of Manchester, University of Birmingham.
Hospitality and retail
These sectors have been hit hardest by the July 2025 reforms. Hospitality visas collapsed 83% to just 1,337 in the year ending December 2025, according to Home Office data. The return to RQF Level 6 (degree-level) from 22 July 2025 removed the majority of hospitality roles from eligibility. Chef roles remain partially accessible through the Temporary Shortage List, but at the full £41,700 salary threshold.
Licensed vs actually hiring: the gap nobody talks about
This is the single most important thing to understand about UK visa sponsorship in 2026: holding a sponsor licence does not mean a company is actively hiring international workers.
Of the 126,000+ organisations on the register, our analysis of 42,000+ live job listings suggests that fewer than 20% are actively advertising sponsored roles at any given time. Many companies obtained licences during the 2021 to 2024 recruitment surge but have since stopped international hiring. Others hold licences "just in case" but have not issued a Certificate of Sponsorship in years.
The challenge for job seekers is obvious. Downloading the Home Office register CSV and cold-emailing every company on it is a waste of time. You need to find the sponsors who are actively hiring right now, for roles that match your qualifications, at salaries that meet the current thresholds.
This is the problem Passion Projects was built to solve. We aggregate 42,000+ live job listings from sponsor-licensed employers, filtered so every listing comes from a verified sponsor. Instead of scrolling through a 126,000-row spreadsheet, you can search by role, sector, city and salary, knowing that every result is from a company that can actually sponsor you.
A-rated vs B-rated sponsors: what it means for you
Every sponsor on the register holds either an A rating or a B rating. This matters more than most job seekers realise.
An A-rated sponsor is in good standing with the Home Office. They can issue new Certificates of Sponsorship, hire new international workers and extend existing ones. The vast majority of sponsors on the register hold an A rating.
A B-rated sponsor has been downgraded after a compliance failure. They are on a time-limited Action Plan (typically 3 to 12 months) and cannot issue new Certificates of Sponsorship to new workers until they are reinstated to A. They can only extend permission for workers already employed by them. If the sponsor fails the Action Plan, the licence gets revoked entirely.
The practical advice is straightforward: always verify that your prospective employer holds an A rating before accepting an offer. You can check this on the GOV.UK register. If they hold a B rating, they cannot sponsor you for a new visa, regardless of what their HR team tells you.
Companies that recently lost their licence
The scale of recent enforcement is unlike anything in the history of the UK sponsorship system.
| Period | Licences Revoked | Licences Suspended |
|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | 261 | Not published |
| 2022-23 | 247 | Not published |
| 2023-24 (Apr to Mar) | 408 | 730 |
| 2024-25 (Apr to Mar) | 1,560 | 1,723 |
| Year ending June 2025 | 1,948 | 2,068 |
| Calendar year 2025 | ~3,100 | Not yet published |
Sources: OTS Solicitors (financial year data), Lewis Silkin (year to June 2025), Work Rights Centre (calendar 2025).
The Home Office has identified adult social care, hospitality, retail and construction as the sectors with the highest levels of non-compliance. Common reasons for revocation include underpaying sponsored workers below salary thresholds, sponsoring roles that do not genuinely exist, failing to maintain right-to-work records, and not reporting changes to the Home Office within the required timeframes.
However, the picture is more nuanced than the headlines suggest. A Work Rights Centre FOI request covering 1,743 revoked Skilled Worker sponsors found that only 33% were in health and social work. Two-thirds of revocations were in other sectors entirely. The enforcement crackdown is broader than the care-sector narrative implies.
What happens if your sponsor's licence is revoked? Your visa is curtailed to 60 calendar days from the date of the cancellation letter, or to your existing visa expiry date, whichever comes first. During that window, you need to find a new sponsor or apply for a different visa route. The revoked employer faces a 12-month cooling-off period before they can reapply for a licence, extended to 24 months for repeat offenders and up to 5 years for serious breaches.
This is one of the strongest reasons to check your employer's compliance status before accepting an offer. An A-rated sponsor with a clean compliance history is worth more than a higher salary from a company with a shaky record.
How to find and apply to a sponsoring employer
Here is a practical, step-by-step approach that works in 2026:
- Verify the company is on the register. Download the Home Office Register of Licensed Sponsors or use an online tool. Confirm they hold an A-rated Skilled Worker licence.
- Check the company is actually hiring. A licence alone is not enough. Look for active job postings that explicitly mention visa sponsorship. Platforms like Passion Projects filter exclusively for sponsor-licensed employers with live roles.
- Confirm your role meets the new eligibility rules. Since 22 July 2025, the role must be at RQF Level 6 (degree level) unless it is on the Temporary Shortage List. The salary must be at least £41,700 per year or the going rate for your SOC occupation code, whichever is higher.
- Understand the salary discounts that may apply. If you are under 26, a recent graduate, or hold a relevant PhD, you may qualify as a "new entrant" with a lower threshold of £33,400. Roles on the Immigration Salary List also qualify for discounts, though the ISL is due to expire on 31 December 2026.
- Check the company's compliance history. Search for recent news about the company and sponsor licence issues. Companies in sectors with high revocation rates (care, hospitality, construction) deserve extra scrutiny.
- Apply with your sponsorship status clear from the start. State in your application that you require Skilled Worker visa sponsorship. This saves everyone time and filters you toward employers who are genuinely set up to sponsor.
The current rules at a glance: April 2026
The rules have changed significantly since July 2025. If you are relying on advice from before that date, it is likely outdated. Here is the current picture, verified against GOV.UK and the Statement of Changes:
| Requirement | Current Rule (April 2026) | Effective Date |
|---|---|---|
| General salary threshold | £41,700/year (or going rate, whichever higher) | 22 July 2025 |
| New entrant threshold | £33,400 | 22 July 2025 |
| PhD-relevant threshold | £37,500 (non-STEM) / £33,400 (STEM) | 22 July 2025 |
| Minimum skill level | RQF Level 6 (degree level) | 22 July 2025 |
| English language | B2 (CEFR upper-intermediate) for new applicants | 8 January 2026 |
| Certificate of Sponsorship fee | £525 (paid by employer) | 9 April 2025 |
| Immigration Skills Charge | £1,320/year (large) or £480/year (small) | 16 December 2025 |
| Visa application fee (up to 3 years) | £819 (out of country) / £943 (in country) | 8 April 2026 |
| Immigration Health Surcharge | £1,035/year (exempt for Health and Care visa) | Already in force |
Frequently asked questions
How many UK companies have a sponsor licence in 2026?
Over 126,000 organisations hold active Worker or Temporary Worker sponsor licences as of April 2026, according to the Home Office Register of Licensed Sponsors. This has nearly quadrupled from 32,019 in early 2021. However, holding a licence does not mean a company is actively hiring international workers. Our analysis suggests fewer than 20% are advertising sponsored roles at any given time.
Which UK company sponsors the most visas?
The Home Office does not publish per-employer visa volumes, so no verified ranking exists. NHS trusts collectively are the largest sponsoring bloc, followed by the Big 4 accountancy firms (PwC, Deloitte, EY, KPMG), major banks and big tech companies. Any "Top 10 sponsors" list you see online is based on proxies like employer size or job-posting counts, not official Home Office data.
Do small UK companies sponsor visas?
Yes. The Migration Observatory has noted that private companies make up 89% of Skilled Worker licence holders, and a significant portion are small and medium-sized enterprises. The sponsor licence fee for small businesses is £611 (compared to £1,682 for medium and large organisations), and the Immigration Skills Charge is lower at £480 per year versus £1,320.
How do I check if a UK company is a licensed sponsor?
The official source is the GOV.UK Register of Licensed Sponsors, published as a downloadable CSV file and updated on most working days. Search for the company's exact legal name (which may differ from its trading name) and confirm it holds an A-rated Skilled Worker licence. Third-party tools can also make the register searchable online.
What does A-rated vs B-rated mean for me as an applicant?
An A-rated sponsor is in good compliance standing and can issue new Certificates of Sponsorship. A B-rated sponsor has been downgraded by the Home Office and cannot sponsor new workers until reinstated. Always verify your prospective employer holds an A rating before accepting a job offer that depends on visa sponsorship.
How many UK sponsor licences were revoked in 2025?
The Home Office revoked approximately 3,100 sponsor licences during calendar year 2025, the highest total since the register began in 2012. In the rolling year ending June 2025, the figure was 1,948, more than double the 937 revoked the year before and roughly eight times the 247 revocations recorded in 2022-23. Adult social care, hospitality, retail and construction were the most affected sectors, according to Lewis Silkin.
Can I still get a UK care worker visa in 2026?
New overseas applications for care worker and senior care worker roles closed on 22 July 2025. If you are already in the UK on another visa (such as a Student or Graduate visa), you can switch to a care worker role under the Health and Care Worker visa until 22 July 2028, provided your sponsor meets all requirements and you have been on their payroll for at least three continuous months. After July 2028, the in-country route is also expected to close.
What is the Skilled Worker salary threshold in 2026?
The general salary threshold is £41,700 per year, effective since 22 July 2025, or the going rate for your specific occupation code, whichever is higher. Lower thresholds apply in certain cases: £33,400 for new entrants and Immigration Salary List roles, £37,500 for PhD-relevant roles, and £25,000 for Health and Care Worker visa holders. These figures are set out in Appendix Skilled Worker on GOV.UK.
Methodology and sources
The data in this article comes from three primary sources:
- The Home Office Register of Licensed Sponsors (Workers), published and updated on most working days at GOV.UK. This is the official, authoritative list of organisations licensed to sponsor workers in the UK.
- Home Office Immigration System Statistics, specifically the "Why do people come to the UK? Work" release for the year ending December 2025, published 26 February 2026.
- Passion Projects' proprietary database of 42,000+ live job listings from 120,000+ sponsor-licensed companies, cross-referenced with the Home Office register. This data powers the active-hiring analysis and sector breakdowns.
Additional sources cited throughout include the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, the House of Commons Library, and analysis from Lewis Silkin, DavidsonMorris and the Work Rights Centre.
This article reflects the rules in force as of 27 April 2026, incorporating the Statement of Changes HC 1691 (effective 8 April 2026) and the fee increases effective from the same date. We review and update this article monthly. If any figure here has since changed, please let us know.
Last updated: 27 April 2026