There are two broad types of sponsor licence employers can apply for:

• Worker: for skilled or long-term employment
• Temporary Worker: for specific types of temporary employment

Within these two types, there are a number of individual ‘routes’. Employers can apply to be licensed on as many routes as they feel appropriate for their business or organisation.

There is a brief description of these routes below. For more detailed information, refer to the route-specific guidance.

Worker routes

These routes allow employers to sponsor people in different types of skilled employment. The work can be short-term, long-term, or permanent, depending on the route. The routes are:

• Skilled Worker: this allows employers to recruit people to work in the UK in a specific job – a Skilled Worker must have a job offer in an eligible skilled occupation and meet the salary and going rate requirements
• Global Business Mobility – Senior or Specialist Worker: this is for senior managers or specialist employees being transferred by their overseas employer to a branch in the UK; it has replaced the Intra-Company Transfer route
• T2 Minister of Religion: this for a person who has a key leading role within their faith-based organisation or a religious order in the UK
• International Sportsperson: this for an elite sportsperson or qualified coach who is sponsored in a role where they will make a significant contribution to the development of sport at the highest level in the UK

Temporary Worker routes

The Temporary Worker routes allow employers to recruit workers in a variety of temporary roles with an organisation in the UK to help satisfy cultural, charitable, religious or international objectives, including volunteering and job shadowing, and for meeting seasonal employment needs in the edible horticultural sector.

There are 6 Temporary Worker routes on which employers can sponsor workers:

• Charity Worker: this is for a person who wants to come to the UK to do voluntary work with a charitable organisation for no more than 12 months
• Creative Worker: this is for a person who wants to work within the creative sector (for example, as an artist, dancer, musician or entertainer, or as a model in the fashion industry) in the UK for up to 12 months (with the possibility to extend for up to a maximum of 24 months if working for the same sponsor)
• the following Global Business Mobility routes:
  • Graduate Trainee: this is for employees being transferred to the UK by their overseas employer as part of a graduate training programme for a managerial or specialist role with their overseas employer; it has replaced the Intra-Company Graduate Trainee route
  • UK Expansion Worker: this is for overseas workers establishing a branch or subsidiary of their overseas employer in the UK; it has replaced the (unsponsored) sole representative provisions of the Representative of an Overseas Business route
  • Service Supplier: this is for overseas workers providing a service under contract to a UK business as a contractual service supplier or an independent professional under an eligible trade agreement; it has replaced the provisions for contractual service suppliers and independent professionals on the International Agreement route
  • Secondment Worker: this is for overseas workers being seconded to the UK as part of a high-value contract or investment by their overseas employer; this is a new route
• Government Authorised Exchange: this is for a person who wants to come to the UK on an approved scheme for a period of no more than 12 or 24 months (depending on the scheme)
• International Agreement: this for a person who wants to come to the UK to provide a service covered under international law, such as private servants in diplomatic households or employees of overseas governments and international organisations – workers sponsored on this route can stay in the UK for a maximum period of 2 years
• Religious Worker: this for a person who wants to support the activities of religious institutions in the UK by conducting religious work, such as working in a religious order or undertaking non-pastoral work for a religious organisation, for a maximum of 2 years – the work must not include employment as a minister of religion
• Seasonal Worker: this is for workers in the horticulture sector doing seasonal work in the UK with a sponsor (who must be an approved scheme operator) for up to 6 months in any 12-month period.