What is Visa Sponsorship in the UK?

Visa sponsorship in plain English

UK visa sponsorship means a licensed UK employer takes legal responsibility for bringing you to the UK (or keeping you here) on a work visa. For the Skilled Worker route — formerly called Tier 2 — that employer must hold a sponsor licence and assign you a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS).

You generally cannot apply for a Skilled Worker visa without a job offer and a CoS from a licensed sponsor.

Employer sponsorship vs self-sponsorship

Employer sponsorship is the standard path: a company on the Register of Licensed Sponsors sponsors your role. FindMySponsor helps you search that register.

Self-sponsorship usually means setting up (or using) a UK company that obtains its own sponsor licence, then sponsoring yourself as a worker. It is a different product with higher cost and compliance risk — it is not the same as asking an existing employer to sponsor you.

Does a company need to be on the register?

Yes. To sponsor most worker routes (including Skilled Worker / Tier 2), the organisation must appear on the official Register of Licensed Sponsors. If they are not listed, they cannot legally assign a CoS for that route — regardless of what a job advert claims.

Check an employer's exact legal or trading name with the sponsor licence checker, or read how to check a UK sponsor licence. Similar names can refer to different legal entities, so a broad brand-name match is not reliable identity verification.

What sponsorship does (and does not) guarantee

• Being on the register means the employer can sponsor eligible roles — not that they are hiring you.
• Your role must still meet salary, skill, and English language rules for the visa route.
• An A-rating is the normal compliant status; a B-rating usually means the employer cannot issue new CoS until they recover.

Next steps

• How to get visa sponsorship in the UK
• Skilled Worker eligibility
• Avoid fake sponsorship scams
• Search the UK sponsor register