GBTT — Great British Think Tank

A vape shop can sponsor a "Skilled Worker"

The Skilled Worker visa was sold as a route for skilled professionals. The Home Office has licensed more than 125,000 businesses to use it. The list has tripled since 2022, and this is some of what is on it.

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All licensed right now to sponsor a "Skilled Worker" visa from overseas

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Licensed sponsors
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Low-skill-ceiling sectors
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Growth since 2022

Here they are, across the country

Every dot is a business licensed to sponsor a Skilled Worker visa. This view shows only the sectors where that makes little sense — vape shops, nail bars, car washes, barbers, phone shops. Pick a single sector to see just those.

And the list has tripled since 2022

There is no official record of how the register has grown. Reconstructed from National Archives snapshots, the number of licensed sponsors has more than tripled in four years.

Footnotes

Who owns them

Ownership is concentrated.

From the public register of persons with significant control, a number of individuals are each the controlling owner of several licensed sponsor companies that are recently incorporated in low-skill sectors. They are not named here: owning multiple companies is lawful, and these characteristics are not in themselves evidence of wrongdoing. Shared registered offices are a weaker signal still, because the highest counts are formation agents and virtual offices where unrelated businesses simply buy the same mailing address.

Most-used registered officesSponsors here
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