Sponsored Jobs UK vs UK Tier 2 Sponsor List: Directory or Live Jobs?

Sponsored Jobs UK and UK Tier 2 Sponsor List both help you navigate UK visa sponsorship, but they are not really trying to do the same job. One is built around live vacancies. The other is built around a searchable company directory plus a set of visa calculators. Knowing which is which will save you time.

I run Sponsored Jobs UK, so treat this as a comparison written by someone with a stake in it. I've tried to be fair about what UK Tier 2 Sponsor List actually does well. The two sites overlap less than you'd expect, so for a lot of people the honest answer is to use both for different parts of the job hunt.

What Each Site Is Actually Built For

UK Tier 2 Sponsor List is a free directory that lets you search over 30,000 UK sponsor companies by name, location, industry, and licence status. Alongside the directory it offers a set of tools: a Visa Cost Calculator, a Visa Points Calculator, a SOC codes lookup, a Sponsor Licence Checker, browsing by "Tier 2 Sponsors By City", and a Favourites feature to save companies you're tracking. The product is the lookup and the maths, not a stream of new vacancies.

Sponsored Jobs UK is built from the same starting point, the Home Office register of licensed sponsors, but the product on top is different. I track 126,777 licensed sponsors from that register, and I run scrapers that pull live vacancies from company career pages, NHS Jobs, jobs.ac.uk, and other ATS feeds, then cross-check every hiring company against the register daily. That gives 1,791 live sponsored jobs across 182 companies at the time of writing, not just a list of who holds a licence.

Put simply: UK Tier 2 Sponsor List answers "can this company sponsor me, and what would my visa cost or score?" Sponsored Jobs UK answers "which of these companies has an actual open role right now?"

How Many Sponsors and Roles You Can See

UK Tier 2 Sponsor List's own homepage advertises "+30,000 United Kingdom Sponsors" in its directory. That's a solid number of companies to browse by name or location, and more than enough for checking a specific employer.

Sponsored Jobs UK tracks a considerably larger slice of the same register, 126,777 licensed sponsors, and unlike a pure directory it separates out which of those companies have a live vacancy today. You can browse the sponsor directory and narrow by city, industry, or visa route, but the point of the site is the 1,791 live roles sitting on top of that register, not the register count alone.

If your goal is simply "is this employer on the list", either site's directory will answer it. If your goal is "show me who is hiring right now", a directory of licence holders doesn't tell you that on its own, live vacancy data does.

Visa Calculators and Licence Checking

This is where UK Tier 2 Sponsor List genuinely stands apart. The Visa Cost Calculator and Visa Points Calculator help you work out what a route might cost and whether you'd clear the points threshold, without leaving the site. The SOC codes lookup is useful when you're trying to match a job title to the right occupation code, and the Sponsor Licence Checker gives you a quick yes/no on whether a company holds a licence at all. None of that is something I've built into Sponsored Jobs UK; it's a genuinely different kind of utility.

Sponsored Jobs UK doesn't offer visa cost or points calculators. What it does instead is filter every listed role against the same official register, so by the time you see a job, the sponsoring company has already been verified against gov.uk. That's verification baked into the listing rather than a standalone tool you run yourself.

How Often the Data Updates

A licence-status directory only needs to be as fresh as the underlying gov.uk register, since licence status doesn't change hour to hour. Vacancies are a different matter: roles open and close daily, so a directory built around companies rather than jobs isn't set up to tell you what's currently hiring.

Sponsored Jobs UK re-syncs against the gov.uk register daily and re-scrapes vacancy sources on the same cadence, so the 1,791 live roles reflect what's actually open today, not a snapshot from whenever a company was last added to a directory.

Signup and Price

UK Tier 2 Sponsor List is free to use, and its Favourites feature (saving companies you're tracking) is a nice touch for anyone building a shortlist of employers to approach.

Sponsored Jobs UK is also free and needs no account to browse. You can search the directory, open any company or city page, and click through to live jobs without signing in. There's an optional email digest if you want new roles pushed to you, but nothing is gated behind a login.

When It's the Better Choice

If what you need is a quick visa cost estimate, a points calculation, a SOC code for a job title, or a fast check on whether a specific company holds a sponsor licence, UK Tier 2 Sponsor List's tools do that job directly. Its Sponsor Licence Checker and calculators are built for exactly those questions, and Sponsored Jobs UK doesn't try to replicate them.

It's also a reasonable place to browse sponsors by city if you already know roughly where you want to work and just want to see who's locally licensed, independent of whether they're actively advertising.

When You Need Live Vacancies, Not Just a Licence List

If your actual task is "find a sponsored job I can apply to today", a directory of licence holders leaves you with the harder part still to do: working out which of those 30,000+ companies are hiring right now. Sponsored Jobs UK does that legwork, surfacing 1,791 live roles across 182 companies, checked daily against the same official register.

The register coverage is also broader, 126,777 tracked sponsors against the 30,000+ UK Tier 2 Sponsor List lists, and the vacancy sources include NHS Jobs and jobs.ac.uk, so healthcare and academic roles that many general job boards and directories miss show up here too.

Use the Right Tool for the Question You're Asking

These two sites answer different questions, so treating this as a straight rivalry misses the point. If your question is about the maths, a visa cost estimate, a points score, a SOC code, or a fast licence check on one named company, UK Tier 2 Sponsor List's calculators and checker are the right tool. If your question is "what sponsored jobs can I apply to today", you need live vacancy data, not a company list.

A sensible workflow: use Sponsored Jobs UK to find live, verified roles at licensed sponsors, then use a calculator to sanity-check the visa cost or points position once you have an actual offer in hand. One number worth keeping in mind either way: the general Skilled Worker salary threshold is £41,700 a year or the going rate for the role, whichever is higher, with a minimum RQF Level 6 skill level, both in force since 22 July 2025.

If you're weighing up job boards more broadly, the Indeed vs Sponsored Jobs UK comparison covers how general boards mislabel sponsorship, and the guide to finding a new sponsor walks through the search itself if you're already on a visa and need to move fast.