Search the Home Office ‘Register of licensed sponsors: workers’ on GOV.UK. Download or open the list, then search for the employer by their legal company name (not the brand or trading name). If they appear with the ‘Skilled Worker’ route, they hold a licence to sponsor — though that alone doesn't mean they're currently hiring or that every role qualifies.
One check can save you weeks of wasted applications. A UK employer can only sponsor your visa if they hold a Home Office sponsor licence — and that information is public. This guide shows you exactly how to check, step by step, using the official register, and explains the traps that catch most people: trading names, ratings, and the difference between ‘licensed’ and ‘actually hiring’.
What is the register of licensed sponsors?
The register is the Home Office's official, public list of every organisation licensed to sponsor workers on visas such as the Skilled Worker visa. It's published as a downloadable file (usually a spreadsheet) and updated regularly. If an employer isn't on it, they cannot legally sponsor your visa — full stop. That makes the register the single most useful filter in your whole job search.
How to check an employer, step by step
- 1Go to the GOV.UK ‘Register of licensed sponsors: workers’ page and open or download the current list.
- 2Search within it — use Ctrl+F (or Cmd+F on a Mac) to find the employer quickly rather than scrolling.
- 3Search by the employer's legal company name, not the brand you see on adverts (more on this below).
- 4Check the ‘Route’ column shows ‘Skilled Worker’ (or the specific route you need), not only a temporary or other route.
- 5Note the rating — an ‘A rating’ is the standard licence; a ‘B rating’ means the sponsor is on an action plan to fix issues.
The biggest gotcha: legal name vs trading name
This is where most people wrongly conclude a company ‘isn't a sponsor’. Employers appear on the register under their registered legal name, which is often different from the brand on the job advert. A shop, restaurant, or care home you know by one name may be licensed under a parent company or a limited-company name ending in ‘Ltd’. If you can't find an employer, search for variations, the parent group, or look up their legal name on Companies House first, then search the register for that.
What the register columns mean
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Organisation name | The sponsor's legal name — search by this, not the trading/brand name. |
| Town/City & County | Where the licensed entity is based — helps distinguish similarly named firms. |
| Type & rating | The licence type and whether it's an A rating (standard) or B rating (on an action plan). |
| Route | Which visa routes they can sponsor — look for ‘Skilled Worker’ for most roles. |
What being ‘on the register’ does and doesn't mean
A listing tells you an employer is licensed to sponsor. It does not tell you everything, so be clear on the limits:
- It does NOT mean they're currently hiring, or hiring for a role you can do.
- It does NOT mean every job they advertise is eligible for sponsorship — the role still has to meet the skill level and salary threshold.
- It does NOT guarantee they'll choose to sponsor a given candidate; sponsorship has a cost and administrative burden, and some employers reserve it for hard-to-fill roles.
- It DOES mean sponsorship is legally possible — which is the essential first hurdle every other job fails.
Checker tools and shortcuts
Several websites let you search the register more comfortably than the raw spreadsheet, with cleaner filtering by name, location, or route. They can be handy, but they're only as current as their last update of the official data — always treat GOV.UK as the source of truth. The bigger limitation of any manual check is that it tells you a company is licensed, not whether the specific job in front of you is one that can actually be sponsored — and, if offered, that comes with a Certificate of Sponsorship. For the wider picture of who sponsors, see our roundup of UK companies that sponsor Skilled Worker visas, and the full workflow in our complete guide to UK visa sponsorship jobs.
Let Hirely do the checking for you
Checking each employer by hand works, but it's slow — and it only answers half the question. Hirely cross-checks every listing against the Home Office register automatically, so every role you see comes from an employer with an active sponsor licence. Instead of vetting companies one by one, you spend your time applying to jobs that can genuinely sponsor you. Create a free profile to see sponsor-verified roles matched to your experience.