UK Licensed Overseas Worker Sponsors
Source: Home Office - Register of Licensed Sponsors (Worker and Temporary Worker), 29 May 2026Any UK employer wishing to hire a worker from outside the UK (or an EU citizen without settled status) under the points-based immigration system must first obtain a sponsor licence from the Home Office. The Home Office publishes the full register of licensed sponsors as an open dataset. This page presents the May 2026 edition of that register.
A licence is not the same as a visa. An organisation holding a Skilled Worker licence is authorised to issue Certificates of Sponsorship to eligible overseas workers, but is not required to do so. The actual number of workers sponsored at any one time is lower than the number of licensed sponsors. Licences can be suspended or revoked for non-compliance with sponsorship duties.
The data has two tiers: Worker licences (primarily Skilled Worker, for medium- and long-term employment) and Temporary Worker licences (for shorter-duration routes including Charity Worker, International Sportsperson and Creative Worker). The Skilled Worker route alone accounts for 121,723 of the 141,566 sponsors. The remaining ~20k cover routes ranging from Global Business Mobility (intra-company transfers and senior specialist workers) to Ministers of Religion.
London dominates geographically, with over 43,000 licensed sponsors - more than the next seven cities combined. Birmingham (2,990), Manchester (2,799) and Glasgow (1,336) are the next largest. The geographic distribution broadly tracks the distribution of office-based and professional-service employment in the UK.
Top 20 Cities by Number of Licensed Sponsors
London's 43,000+ sponsors dwarf all other UK cities. Over 100 cities have at least one licensed sponsor.
Sponsor Licences by Route
Skilled Worker accounts for 86% of all licences. Global Business Mobility (senior/specialist workers and graduate trainees) accounts for a further 8%.
Top Counties by Number of Sponsors
Surrey, Essex and the West Midlands rank highly, reflecting major commercial and industrial employment centres outside London.
Search the Sponsor Register
Search 141,566 licensed sponsors by organisation name or city. Data source: Home Office, May 2026.
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What Does This Mean for Immigration Numbers?
The sponsored worker register shows the infrastructure that supports legal work-based migration to the UK. Net migration peaked at 906,000 in the year ending December 2023, driven significantly by the expansion of work visa routes from 2021 onwards. Skilled Worker visas granted rose from around 100,000 in 2019 to approximately 299,000 in 2024.
Key structural drivers of high sponsored worker numbers include the NHS and social care sector (a substantial share of licensed sponsors are health trusts and care homes), the technology sector concentrated in London and the South East, and the education sector (universities and schools are heavily represented on the register).
The Government's Immigration White Paper (May 2025) proposed raising the Skilled Worker salary threshold, tightening English language requirements, and extending the settlement pathway - measures designed to reduce the number of sponsored workers and their dependants arriving each year.
See also: Labour Market data - UK employment by nationality | Why UK immigration is so high - the policy decisions behind the numbers