The Graduate visa is a popular option that allows UK graduates to gain work experience and explore career prospects for up to three years. This means employers can also attract talented graduates to work with them without a huge upfront investment in visa fees. However, the catch is this visa cannot be extended, which means graduates would eventually either need to leave the UK or switch to another visa category before the end of their current permission.

One of the most popular choices is to switch from a Graduate to a Skilled Worker visa. This article will guide you through the process of how to apply for a sponsor licence in the UK and how to get a Skilled Worker visa for your employees.

To be eligible for a Skilled Worker visa, your employee would generally need to meet certain requirements, including being issued with a certificate of sponsorship, having a genuine job or job offer that meets the salary requirement and meeting the English language requirement. It is worth noting here that the roles graduates fill often tick several of these boxes already.

As a sponsor, you can support your graduate employee by issuing them a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) to use for their application.

How to get a sponsor licence

To issue a CoS, you need to get a sponsor licence for your company. This means meeting specific requirements set by the Home Office. Here is an overview of the process, timeline and costs involved.

Meeting the eligibility and suitability requirements

The first step in the application process is to ensure you meet the requirements to become a licensed sponsor. To summarise these requirements, you will need to evidence the following:

• Your business is genuine and operating lawfully in the UK.
• You have systems in place (HR, record keeping and reporting etc.) to help comply with the Sponsor Duties should your application be granted.
• You have at least one suitable settled employee who can fulfil the sponsor’s duties.
• You are offering a genuine vacancy that meets the skill level requirement and any salary requirements.

As part of the online application form, you would be asked the number of certificates of sponsorships (CoS) you want. It is important to include the number of certificates and explain the reasons in the relevant section. This step eliminates the need to apply for additional certificates after the licence is granted. By including this information upfront, you can secure your licence with the necessary number of certificates for your employees.

As well as completing the online form, please note you would need to provide further information and documents listed in Appendix A. This is something sometimes overlooked by sponsors and can lead to a refusal if these are not provided.

Another critical aspect is to demonstrate how you intend to fulfil your Sponsor Duties. The Home Office views the sponsor licence as a privilege, trusting sponsors to uphold the integrity of the immigration system. Therefore, one of the ways they ensure sponsors are compliant is by conducting compliance visits. In these visits, they aim to check if sponsors are adhering to their duties, maintaining records of migrant workers, ensuring they are doing the roles they are being sponsored for, and all necessary details are reported and up to date. However, providing all the required information and demonstrating a commitment to fulfilling sponsor duties would make it less likely to have a compliance visit.

How much does a sponsor licence cost?

The sponsor licence fee, which would need to be paid at the time of submitting the application online, depends on the type of licence you’re applying for and your organisation’s category.

Type of licence	Fee for small or charitable sponsors	Fee for medium or large sponsors
Worker	£536	£1,476
Temporary Worker	£536	£536
Worker and Temporary Worker	£536	£ 1,476

You are usually a small sponsor if at least 2 of the following apply:

• Your annual turnover is £10.2 million or less.
• Your total assets are worth £5.1 million or less.
• You have 50 employees or fewer.

You are usually considered a charity if you are in the register for charities in England or Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland unless you are an excepted charity.

How long does it take to get a sponsor licence?

Once the application is submitted, a decision is usually made within 8 weeks (standard processing time).

If you do not wish to wait that long, maybe because your employee’s visa is due to expire soon, you can ask to be considered for the expedited pre-licence priority service to get a decision within 10 working days.

That would come at an extra cost of £500, and currently, the selection system works like a lottery. A consideration email would need to be sent to the Home Office between 9 am and 5 pm every day until they confirm you have been selected and provide you with a payment link. Because of this system, it can be challenging to get accepted for this service. However, we have managed to secure a spot for our clients before within 10 working days.

What would you need to do after you have been granted the licence?

Once you have obtained a sponsor licence, the Home Office will send you a grant letter with instructions for accessing the Sponsor Management System (SMS).

Depending on the number of Certificates of Sponsorships (CoS) and employees you would like to sponsor, you might have to apply for an in-year CoS increase. The CoS request usually takes 16 weeks to be approved, but there is a similar process to the sponsor licence fast-tracked service where you pay £200 for a 5-day decision. That is why it is important to apply for the certificate at the initial application stage so they are granted along with the licence, which saves you both time and money.

If you have been granted enough certificates, you can then login and assign them to your employees to use for the Skilled Worker application.

When assigning the CoS, you’ll need to provide the skill code for the relevant occupation from the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC). The fee for assigning the CoS is currently £199, and you would also need to pay the immigration skills charge.

Some jobs are exempt from the immigration skills charge (ISC), but in most cases, a specific ISC fee must be paid. The amount depends on two factors:

• The size of your organisation.
• The period you would like to sponsor the employee for.

Period	Small or charitable sponsors	Medium or large sponsors
First 12 months	£364	£1,000
Each additional 6 months	£182	£500

The immigration skills charge is refundable in part or full in certain cases, for example, if the application is withdrawn, refused, or the employee left before the end of the period they have been sponsored etc. Please note that unlike the Graduate visa, if you are sponsoring someone who holds a student visa, you would be exempted from paying the immigration skills charges above.

The Skilled Worker application process

Once you have obtained the licence and assigned the CoS to the employee, they will need to submit the Skilled Worker application.

The application process for the Skilled Worker visa involves the following steps:

• Submitting an online application to show how the employee meet the Skilled Worker visa requirements summarised at the start of the article.
• Uploading supporting documents to UK Visa and Citizenship Application Services.
• In some cases, applicants would need to go to a UKVCAS centre to have their fingerprints and photos taken.

To give you a better idea about the costs involved, let’s look at an example that outlines the costs associated with sponsoring a graduate employee for different durations.

In this example we are looking at a small company who paid £536 for a licence valid for period of 4 years.

Sponsor’s costs for sponsoring worker (must be paid by employer)
Years of sponsorship	2	3	5
Sponsor licence fee	£536	£536	£1,072
Assigning certificate of sponsorship	£199	£199	£199
Immigration skills charge (dependent on the period of sponsorship – 1-5 years)	£728	£1,092	£1,820
Total (including licence fee)	£1,463	£1,827	£3,091

 

Costs for visa application (to be agreed between sponsor and employee)
Years of sponsorship	2	3	5
Visa application fee	£625	£625	£1,235
Immigration health surcharge	£1,248	£1,872	£3,120
Total visa fees	£1,873	£2,497	£4,355

 

Overall total

£3,336

£4,324

£7,446

How long does it take to get a Skilled Worker visa?

In-country Skilled Worker decisions are currently taking 8 weeks to be processed, but there is also an option for priority or super-priority processing.

In fact, you might not need to opt for this service as graduates can continue to be employed with the same rights and conditions of the Graduate visa while their Skilled Worker visa application is being processed as long as the Skilled Worker visa was submitted before the Graduate visa expired.

You will just need the submitted application reference number and a few details to establish a Statutory Excuse for Right-to-Work checks using the Employer Checking Service. They will then have the right to continue to work for the next six months or until a decision is made about the application, whichever is the earliest.

Conclusion

In conclusion, to retain your graduate employee, two applications would need to be made – a sponsor licence application and a Skilled Worker visa application. The Skilled Worker application is dependent on the sponsor licence application being successful. The online application process is simple, but what is important is to provide evidence of how you and your employees meet the requirements discussed in this article.

How can we help?

Our services extend beyond simply guiding you through the online application. We also provide comprehensive guidance on the information, evidence, and duties necessary to obtain and maintain your licence. We have successfully assisted numerous SMEs through this process. If you would like to explore your options further with one of our advisors, please don’t hesitate to contact us.