How we check a job offers UK visa sponsorship

1. The GOV.UK Register of Licensed Sponsors

The UK Home Office publishes a Register of Licensed Sponsors (Workers) — the official, public list of every employer allowed to sponsor overseas workers. We download the latest version straight from GOV.UK every night, so our checks run against a current copy of the register, not a stale snapshot. You can download the same file yourself and search it.

2. Our pipeline, step by step

Each night, after the register refreshes, we:

• Fetch advertised jobs from our job-listing provider (Adzuna), across the professions we cover.
• Match the employer name to the register — first an exact match, then a deliberately conservative fuzzy match for the many ways a trust or company writes its own name. Recruitment agencies are excluded, because the sponsor is the end employer, not the agency.
• Filter out occupations that are closed or ineligible for the Skilled Worker route (for example care-worker roles closed to new overseas recruitment), so you never see a job you could not actually be sponsored for.
• Check the advertised salary against the GOV.UK floors and going rates for the occupation (figures effective 22 July 2025, last verified against GOV.UK on 27 September 2026). For healthcare roles that means the NHS national pay-scale going rate for the band; for other occupations it means the higher of the general threshold and the published going rate.
• Publish the role with a tier label and a sponsorship likelihood indicator (explained below).

3. What the labels mean

We show two separate things on every role. First, a salary tier, which is about how confident we are in the pay figure:

• Licensed sponsor · annual salary stated — the advert states an annual salary and the employer is a licensed sponsor.
• Licensed sponsor · salary to verify — the employer is a licensed sponsor, but the advertised salary needs confirming (for example it was not stated, or is below the going rate we checked and may be a different band). It is not a sign of an unverified sponsor.

Second, a sponsorship likelihood indicator — our honest read on how likely this employer is to sponsor this role. It is an indicator, never a guarantee:

• Sponsorship likely — the advert itself mentions sponsorship, or it is an NHS trust (essentially always a licensed A-rated sponsor of clinical roles).
• Sponsorship possible — an exact-matched, A-rated licensed sponsor in an eligible occupation, with no explicit mention in the advert.
• Verify sponsorship — the sponsor's licence is currently B-rated (on a Home Office action plan, so it may be unable to sponsor new hires), or we only matched the employer approximately. Confirm before you rely on it.

4. What we do not claim

• A licence is not a promise to sponsor. It means an employer can sponsor a Skilled Worker visa — it does not mean they are hiring, have a vacancy, or would sponsor you for any given role. Whether any specific role is sponsored is the employer's decision at hiring time. Always confirm sponsorship for the role before applying.
• We are not affiliated with the Home Office, the NHS or any UK government body. We are an independent service that reads the public register.
• This is information, not immigration advice. Rules change — always confirm your situation on GOV.UK or with a qualified adviser.
• Never pay a fee for visa sponsorship. A legitimate sponsor does not charge you for a Certificate of Sponsorship.

5. Why this beats an "AI-verified" black box

Some boards claim jobs are "AI-verified" without saying what that means. Our source is a single public document — the GOV.UK register — and our method is the plain, auditable process above. You do not have to take our word for it: use our free sponsor licence checker to look up any employer against the register yourself, or download the register from GOV.UK and check it directly.