UK Visa Sponsorship Jobs

Search our database of 60,000+ UK employers licensed to provide visa sponsorship opportunities.

About Us

This platform is designed for overseas nationals and UK workers/students with temporary stay status who would like to find employers to sponsor them for work opportunities in the United Kingdom. It is also helps UK employers who have obtained a sponsorship licence, to find overseas nationals using our candidate database. All of the employers listed in our platform have been given a licence by the UK Government to sponsor an overseas national on the Worker and Temporary Worker immigration routes.

What is visa sponsorship?

If a UK employer wishes to employ a person who is not a settled worker, or who does not otherwise have immigration permission to work for them in the UK, they will need to be authorised by the Home Office. This authorisation is known as a ‘sponsor licence’, and employers who hold a sponsor licence are known as ‘sponsors’. A worker must have an offer of a job which meets the relevant criteria from an approved sponsor before they can make a valid application to enter or stay in the UK on the Worker or Temporary Worker routes. The sponsor confirms this by assigning a Certificate of Sponsorship to the worker. Sponsorship plays two main roles in a worker’s application for permission to enter or stay in the UK:

where relevant, it provides evidence that the worker will fill a genuine vacancy in a skilled occupation and will be paid appropriately
it involves a pledge from the sponsor that it accepts all of the duties of sponsorship.

Types of sponsor licence

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 fortheir 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.