A Sponsor licence allows eligible employers to sponsor skilled workers from overseas and hire them to work for their company in the UK.
According to the Home Office September statistics. So, there have been 99,345 visa applications for Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) for work permit to the UK.
That means that companies sponsoring overseas skilled workers are in great demand for skilled workers.
There is a substantial skill gap that needs to be bridged. Furthermore, out of these visa applications, the maximum number of applicants were skilled workers.
The benefits of becoming a licenced sponsor in the UK are two fold, first is that you can hire skilled workers to fill the skill gap in your organisation and secondly you will be able to exponentially increase your business.
Apply for a sponsor licence
If you have a small, medium or large organisation in the UK and are facing skilled worker shortages, you need to apply for a sponsor licence.
Step 1: Identify the vacancy and plan a job role accordingly
Step 2: Check whether you are eligible or not
The Home Office intends to see that you meet all the set requirements to become a sponsor licence.
Here’s what you need to show
- Your organisation is credible, honest, dependable and genuinely trading in the UK
- Your organisation has a robust Human resources setup, which is highly important to carry out recruitment tasks. You also need to have key personnels for the same, authorising office, level 1 user, etc.
- Your organisation must offer a genuine, eligible job to sponsor overseas talent
- This eligible job means paying the set threshold of salary genuinely
Step 3: Begin your online application process
So, you can do this on your own or take legal advice from immigration specialists who can handhold you through the process.
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Step 4: Your need to procure all the documents to validate your eligibility for the sponsor licence application.
4 sets of documents which you need as:
- VAT certificate
- Employers registration number
- PAYE reference number
- Latest accounts statements of the organisation
Other documents may be required as per Home Offices’s requirements, and if they found your case to be complex and demanding additional documents.
Following the application process, there will be a sheet generated which must be filled by the Authorising office.
Your application fee will be charged as per the type of your organisation.
Small or charitable firms/organisations have to pay £536, whereas if you are a medium or a large organisation, you should pay £1,476 as your sponsor licence fee.
You also need to wait for at least 8 weeks before the Home Offices decides on your application
What happens when your application is approved?
Once the Home Office approves your application successfully, you are given an A-rating sponsorship licence.
This signifies that you can now start sponsoring your prospective employers. So, sponsoring is done by means of assigning a Certificate Of Sponsorship(CoS) to the prospective employees.
So, this CoS contains job details, employers details. Unless you receive a valid Certificate of sponsorship, your skilled worker visa will not be applicable.
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