Non-sponsoring employer statement

You’ll usually need a sponsor licence to employ someone to work for you from outside the UK. If you don’t want to obtain one, we’ve produced statement wording that you can include in your recruitment material but be aware of the risk of race discrimination.

Sponsor licences

Whilst you don’t need a sponsor licence to employ British and Irish citizens, EEA citizens with settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, foreign workers with indefinite leave to remain in the UK and foreign workers who hold a type of visa that doesn’t require sponsorship (e.g. a Graduate visa), you will need a sponsor licence to employ most other foreign workers. For example, you must have a sponsor licence to employ a foreign worker under the Skilled Worker route. A sponsor licence is valid for four years and it brings with it various responsibilities relating to monitoring sponsored employees, reporting business changes and managing sponsorship in your business. In addition to the cost of the sponsor licence, there’s a fee for assigning a Certificate of Sponsorship to each foreign worker and you’ll also need to pay the Immigration Skills Charge in some cases, including for most workers sponsored under the Skilled Worker route.

Statement wording

Our Non-Sponsoring Employer Statement provides that you’re not a sponsoring employer under the UK’s immigration system and therefore the successful job applicant must already possess the right to work in the UK or be able to secure the right to work in the UK independently. Whilst this may seem a reasonable statement to make if you don’t have, and don’t want to acquire, a sponsor licence, the problem with it is potentially one of indirect race discrimination.

Race discrimination

Whilst it won’t be possible to secure a visa under the UK’s immigration system for many low-skilled, low-paid roles (as there’s no general low-skilled work route), that’s not necessarily the case for skilled, higher paid roles. For example, the skill level for a Skilled Worker visa is A-level or equivalent. If you receive job applications from foreign workers for such vacant roles but you simply reject them on the basis that they need a visa and you’re not a sponsoring employer, you risk an indirect race discrimination claim, and our statement wording isn’t going to help you here. If a foreign worker applies for a role, their right to work in the UK should be verified in the final stages of selection and they shouldn’t be rejected at the application stage, to ensure the appointment is based on merit alone. If your preferred candidate is a foreign worker who needs a visa, but you don’t want to incur the fees of securing a sponsor licence and sponsorship, you can’t rely on costs alone to justify indirect race discrimination in rejecting them. However, if you can show that cost saving is coupled with another good reason, such as being subject to financial constraints in order to balance your books, that may potentially be enough to justify indirect race discrimination.