Your Employer Has New Legal Duties Under Updated Skilled Worker Sponsor Guidance
13 Mar 2026
If you are on a Skilled Worker visa, your employer has new compliance duties under guidance updated on 6 March 2026. These go beyond the salary per-pay-period rule already covered here — and some employers may not yet be aware of them.
Employers must now prove they told you your rights. The updated sponsor guidance introduces an explicit requirement for sponsors to retain documented evidence that they have informed all sponsored workers of their UK employment rights. This applies to existing employees, not just new hires — meaning employers who cannot prove they have done this for current staff are already non-compliant. In practice, this means your employer should be able to show a record (an email, a letter, a signed acknowledgement) that they covered your employment rights with you. If you have started a new role recently and received no such communication, that is worth flagging to HR.
A stricter "eligible role" test is now in force. The updated guidance introduces a new defined concept of an "eligible role." A role can only be sponsored if it genuinely exists at the point the Certificate of Sponsorship is assigned, requires the worker to perform the specific duties and hours stated on that certificate, meets the skill level and salary requirements of the Skilled Worker route, and is appropriate to the sponsor's actual business model and scale. Critically, if the Home Office finds a sponsored worker is performing duties that do not match the occupation code or job description on their CoS, that is now a mandatory ground for licence revocation — meaning your employer's sponsor licence could be removed without discretion. This is a significant tightening that particularly affects self-sponsored roles and any arrangements where job descriptions have drifted from what is on the certificate.
What you should do. You cannot control your employer's compliance, but you can protect yourself by staying informed. Ask your HR or payroll team whether they are aware of the 6 March 2026 sponsor guidance update. Confirm that your job description still matches the occupation code and duties on your Certificate of Sponsorship — if your role has changed significantly since your visa was granted, that needs to be reviewed. If your employer's sponsor licence is ever suspended or revoked, your visa status can be directly affected, so it is worth taking an interest in your employer's compliance posture even if it feels like an internal HR matter.
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