Migration

Enforcement against employers who sponsor overseas workers has risen sharply. In the year ending June 2025, the Home Office revoked 1,948 Skilled Worker sponsor licences and suspended a further 2,068, according to Home Office data reported by immigration-law firms. That is more than double the 937 licences revoked in the year to June 2024, and up from 261 in 2021–22 and 247 in 2022–23 — an almost eightfold rise over four years. DLA Piper’s analysis of Home Office data found that 3,187 employers had a licence suspended or revoked in 2024, a 252% increase on the prior year.

This enforcement has grown alongside a rapidly expanding sponsor base. According to Home Office data, the number of businesses holding a Skilled Worker sponsor licence rose from around 30,278 at the end of 2020, when free movement ended, to 67,432 by June 2023 and 100,082 by June 2024.

The large majority of these revocations stem from administrative and compliance failures rather than criminal fraud. Sponsor licence holders take on ongoing duties — record-keeping, reporting relevant changes to the Home Office, monitoring their sponsored workers, and complying with wider immigration law and behaviour conducive to the public good. Failing to keep the required records, monitor workers, or report changes on time can lead to suspension or revocation even where no fraud has occurred. The Home Office has identified adult social care, hospitality, retail and construction as the sectors with the highest non-compliance. Fraud, covered below, is a smaller, higher-profile subset.

The consequences of revocation fall on both employer and worker. When a licence is revoked, sponsored workers’ visas are curtailed — typically leaving them 60 days to find a new sponsor — there is generally no right of appeal, and a 12-month cooling-off period applies before the employer can re-apply.

The scale of these record-keeping obligations — and the sharp rise in revocations for administrative and compliance failures — has driven demand for dedicated sponsor-compliance software. Tools such as Soteriaa help licence-holders track their sponsored workers, monitor visa and right-to-work expiry dates, and maintain the audit-ready records the Home Office can request during a compliance visit.

Separately from these compliance failures, the Skilled Worker route has been the subject of reported fraud. An undercover investigation by The Times, reported in early 2026, found agents openly marketing fake jobs and selling certificates of sponsorship linked to non-existent jobs to help migrants fraudulently obtain skilled-worker visas; migrants reportedly paid up to £13,000 to falsify documentation. The Home Office said it had opened a probe following the reporting.

In early 2026 it became a standalone criminal offence to advertise the sale of false visa sponsorships, a law the government said targets organised fraud in the route. Over the same period, Home Office data released in January 2026 showed skilled-worker visa applications fell to 85,500 in 2025, down 36% from 132,700 the previous year.

The route has also drawn political criticism. Chris Philp, the Conservative shadow home secretary, publicly criticised the government’s handling of the route. In a post on X, he said he had heard that dozens of convenience stores, mobile-phone shops and bazaars on Whitechapel Road in East London were sponsoring skilled-worker visas, and that he had gone to investigate. These are his own statements rather than established findings.