International recruitment: hiring skilled staff from abroad

Start with the job, not the candidate. From 22 July 2025, a Skilled Worker role must normally be skilled to graduate level, RQF level 6 or the equivalent in Scotland and Wales, unless the occupation is on the Immigration Salary List or the Temporary Shortage List. It must also meet the salary requirements for its occupation code, and the pay has to comply with the National Minimum Wage and working time rules. Workers sponsored in medium-skilled roles before that date have transitional protection.

In practice, many roles in hospitality, driving, warehousing and some trades no longer qualify unless they appear on one of those lists. Look up the occupation code for your job in the Home Office guidance before paying for a search. If the role cannot be sponsored, international recruitment may still reach people who already have the right to work in the UK, such as those with settled or pre-settled status.

Source: gov.uk

To sponsor a Skilled Worker, the employer applies to UK Visas and Immigration for a sponsor licence, appoints people to manage it through the Sponsor Management System, and then assigns a certificate of sponsorship for each worker. UKVI may visit to check that your HR systems can meet sponsor duties: keeping records, reporting changes, and making sure the worker does the job described.

An agency cannot sponsor a worker and then hire them out to you. The Home Office sponsor guidance says a sponsor must have full responsibility for the duties and outcomes of the job, and that hiring a worker out to fill a position with another organisation, temporary or permanent, cannot be sponsored. So in most cases the business where the person will work holds the licence. Be wary of any provider that offers sponsored staff supplied on its own licence.

The licence fee, the certificate of sponsorship fee and the Immigration Skills Charge are the employer's costs, and the Home Office says a licence may be revoked if the employer asks the sponsored worker to pay them or recoups them. The worker pays their own visa application fee and the immigration health surcharge. Current employer charges are listed on this page.

Recruiter fees are a separate commercial matter between you and the recruiter. UK agencies cannot charge candidates for finding them work, and you should ask any recruiter how it ensures that partners abroad do not charge candidates either. Workers who borrowed to pay recruitment fees are easy to exploit, and that risk lands on your business too.

Advice about a particular person's visa or immigration position is regulated under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Only qualified persons may give it: advisers registered with the Immigration Advice Authority, formerly the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner, or those authorised by a designated professional body, such as solicitors. It is a criminal offence for anyone else to provide such advice or services.

A recruitment agency that is not registered or otherwise authorised may not be allowed to advise candidates on their individual visa applications, however experienced it is. It can explain the process in general and pass on official guidance. Ask whether the recruiter or its partner is regulated, and check the IAA register or the relevant professional body yourself. For your own sponsor licence, you may also want a regulated adviser or immigration solicitor.

Source: legislation.gov.uk

Every employer must check that each employee has the right to work in the UK before employment starts, and keep a record, whether or not the person is sponsored. A correct check gives you a statutory excuse against a civil penalty if the person turns out not to have the right to work. Sponsors must also carry out right to work checks on every worker they sponsor. The government has legislated to extend the duty to organisations that engage individuals under a worker's contract or as individual subcontractors; check the Home Office's current guidance for when it applies to you.

Apply the same checks to all applicants and do not assume from someone's name, accent or appearance that they need sponsorship or cannot work here. Choosing or rejecting candidates because of nationality or ethnic origin is discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. Recruit for the skills and qualifications the job needs; candidates with foreign qualifications can get a statement of comparability from UK ENIC, and regulated professions have their own recognition procedures.

Source: legislation.gov.uk

The form asks about your company size, job field, number of vacancies, the English level the job needs, whether you can offer accommodation, and the start date. After you confirm your phone number via text-message code and your email via a link, we offer the brief, without your name or contact details, to recruiters working in international recruitment. Exactly one of them can buy it, and it pays Offrano; the service is free for you.

Before that recruiter sees your details, we email you its name, address and phone number. A recruiter may not take the brief, and unsold requests are withdrawn after 21 days. You are never obliged to accept its terms. Offrano only checks that it is a registered business. Whether it may give immigration advice depends on its regulation, which you should check yourself.

• the occupation code and whether the role meets the skill and salary rules
• whether you already hold a sponsor licence and its rating
• the salary, hours and location
• English level genuinely needed for the job
• qualifications or registrations the role legally requires
• who handles sponsorship and immigration advice, and whether they are regulated