UK Visa Sponsors: H1 2026 in Numbers | Sponsored Jobs UK
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UK Visa Sponsors: H1 2026 in Numbers

Every change to the Home Office register of licensed sponsors, 2 January – 30 June 2026

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Between 2026-01-02 and 2026-06-30, the UK Home Office register of licensed visa sponsors gained 14,990 new organisations and lost 12,833. Net, the register grew by 2,157 licensed sponsors — from 124,620 to 126,777.

This is a straight diff of two register snapshots we hold from the start and end of the first half of 2026 — every organisation whose name, town, licence rating, or visa route changed between the two dates. No modelling, no estimates. Methodology below; full row-level data downloadable at the bottom of this page.

14,990 Sponsors added
12,833 Sponsors removed
8,814 Modified (location / route / rating)
126,777 Total licensed sponsors, 30 Jun 2026
By Visa Route

Where the register grew — and shrank

Net change (additions minus removals) per visa route. Skilled Worker dwarfs every other route — it's the only route with a genuinely large net gain. Most Global Business Mobility sub-routes shrank.

Net gainers
  1. Skilled Worker
    +6,487
  2. Tier 2 Ministers of Religion
    +275
  3. International Sportsperson
    +26
  4. Intra Company Transfers (ICT)
    +1
Net losers
  1. Global Business Mobility: Senior or Specialist Worker
    -3,198
  2. Global Business Mobility: Graduate Trainee
    -503
  3. Charity Worker
    -309
  4. Creative Worker
    -269
  5. Religious Worker
    -173
  6. Government Authorised Exchange
    -64
  7. Global Business Mobility: UK Expansion Worker
    -44
  8. Scale-up
    -37
  9. Global Business Mobility: Service Supplier
    -27
  10. Global Business Mobility: Secondment Worker
    -5
By City

Where sponsors are concentrating

Net change per town/city (top 10 gainers and losers by absolute net change). London dominates both directions simply on volume — it's still the single biggest net gainer.

Net gainers
  1. London
    +731
  2. Manchester
    +33
  3. Glasgow
    +31
  4. Slough
    +28
  5. Liverpool
    +28
  6. Bristol
    +28
  7. Edinburgh
    +27
  8. Belfast
    +24
  9. Harrow
    +21
  10. Birmingham
    +18
Net losers
  1. Reading
    -17
  2. Ilford
    -16
  3. Croydon
    -15
  4. England
    -13
  5. Luton
    -12
  6. Uxbridge
    -12
  7. Rochdale
    -9
  8. Barking
    -9
  9. Ruislip
    -6
  10. Sutton
    -5
Full Data

Download every row

The CSV below has one row per change — every organisation added or removed, with town, county, licence rating, and visa route. 27,823 rows total. Leave your email and we'll send the link straight through — same list as the digest, unsubscribe anytime.

Methodology

How this was built

We hold daily snapshots of the UK Home Office's public register of licensed sponsors (Worker and Temporary Worker). This report diffs the snapshot closest to the start of H1 2026 (2026-01-02) against the snapshot closest to the end (2026-06-30) by organisation name. An organisation counts as added if its name doesn't appear in the earlier snapshot, removed if it doesn't appear in the later one, and modified if the name appears in both but the town, county, licence rating, or visa route changed — a modification is counted as one removal plus one addition in the row-level totals above, which is why "rows added" and "rows removed" are each larger than "unique organisations added/removed".

No estimation, no sampling — every number on this page is a direct count from the two CSV snapshots, and the download above is the literal row-level diff. Generated 2026-08-12.