2. Getting here: visas and the sponsorship system
Migrant workers in the UK may be employed under a range of immigration statuses. These include the Skilled Worker, Health and Care Worker, and Graduate visas, as well as other work-related visas, family or partner routes, asylum or humanitarian protection, and legacy statuses such as EU Settlement Scheme holders. Each of these categories carries its own rights and restrictions around employment, switching visa types, and accessing public funds.
From 2021, the Health and Care Worker visa( a sub-category of the Skilled Worker visa), became the most common route for migrant workers entering the health and social care sectors. These visas are only issued after the worker has received a job offer from an employer licensed to sponsor them. This‘ tying’ of visas to jobs significantly shifts the balance of power in favour of employers, as migrant workers become dependent on them not only for income but for their right to remain in the country. New visas are no longer being issued for social care but nursing and healthcare assistants can still be recruited.
Since the introduction of these visas, there has been an explosion of licensed employers with the numbers increasing year on year. In May 2025, there were 131,277 licensed sponsors listed on the Home Office register( see further reading) ranging from large NHS Trusts to tiny micro-firms. Many sponsors in the care sector are relatively new private companies, some of which are taking advantage of weak regulation around hiring international staff and exploiting workers. Growing numbers of these more‘ fly-by-night’ employers are being reported for abuse and having their licences revoked but many are still operating without proper scrutiny of their employment practices.
This chapter outlines how the sponsorship model developed, why it embeds abuse, and the processes workers follow to get jobs in the UK. It also explains the different visa types and how the system has evolved in recent years.
The visa sponsorship model
The UK’ s system for employer sponsorship began in 2008 with the then Gordon Brownled Labour government’ s introduction of the Tier 2( General) visa to recruit skilled workers from outside the European Economic Area( which links EU member states with Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway). Employers who wanted to recruit international( non-EU) workers were required to hold a sponsor licence, maintain detailed records, and follow strict compliance rules. Throughout the 2010s, this was the main route for skilled workers from outside the European Union to get jobs in the UK.
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