Navigating the New Norm: Why Sponsors Must Prioritise Compliance Amid Skilled Worker Changes

As of today, 22 July 2025, significant changes to the Immigration Rules have come into effect for the Skilled Worker route, as outlined previously in the Immigration White Paper. Given the implications of these changes, it is arguably now more important than ever that sponsors are compliant with their sponsorship duties. 

As we discussed in our recent article, more than 100 skilled occupations have now been removed from Appendix Skilled Occupations and, as a result, sponsors will be much more limited in the types of roles they can recruit migrant workers for in the UK.

Before the changes, many sponsors will have been grappling to get Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) assigned to ensure they could sponsor workers under the rules in place prior to 22 July 2025 – either where the occupation code was being removed from the list of eligible codes, or where they would be affected by increases to the salary thresholds. 

For the sponsors who managed to get their CoS assigned to workers, or who were already sponsoring workers under the Skilled Worker route, there will be transitional arrangements in place which will allow them to continue sponsoring those individuals. 

However, sponsors should not breathe a sigh of relief just yet as, in order to be able to continue sponsoring workers, organisations who hold a sponsor licence need to ensure they continue to remain compliant with the Home Office sponsor duties. 

In recent years, the Home Office has significantly ramped up their compliance efforts which has had detrimental impacts on sponsoring organisations. In the first quarter of 2025 (January to March), enforcement action resulted in 748 civil penalty notices issued and a total of £41.6 million in fines. In addition, 339 Skilled Worker sponsor licences were suspended and 276 were revoked. The recent Immigration White Paper, named ‘Restoring control over the immigration system’, suggests this trend will continue.

If a sponsoring organisation loses their ability to sponsor migrant workers, depending on the Home Office action taken, they may lose their existing sponsored workers or they may have to start the process again to become a registered sponsor, where permitted. 

Going forward, sponsors will be much more limited with the types of roles they can recruit sponsored workers to do, and this may significantly impact businesses who were already struggling to recruit certain roles from the UK workforce.    

So that organisations can continue sponsoring their existing workers and avoid compliance action from the Home Office, they must have effective processes in place to monitor their workers, make in-time reports to the Home Office, and keep up-to-date records for their workers. 

As well as ongoing checks, we would strongly advise that sponsors carry out an annual internal audit to ensure compliance with the various sponsorship duties. 

As the government continues to restrict the Skilled Worker route and increase its compliance action on sponsors, organisations must be proactive to ensure they can continue to sponsor migrant workers and protect their business operations. 

Our immigration team supports employers with right to work audits, compliance reviews and training to help safeguard against breaches and maintain workforce integrity. We provide clear, practical advice tailored to your business needs. 

Please do not hesitate to contact a member of the team for assistance.