For UK-based businesses looking to recruit foreign nationals under any one of the Temporary Worker routes, they must first be licensed by the Home Office to sponsor any individual who is not a settled worker or does not otherwise have permission to work in the UK. This means that the employer must have in place a Temporary Worker licence and have been approved to sponsor the specific category of workers in question.
A Temporary Worker licence is the permission needed from UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) to assign Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) to migrant workers, where UKVI is the division of the Home Office responsible for both licensing and issuing visas. The CoS is an electronic record containing a unique reference number that each new recruit will need to apply for a Temporary Worker visa, where the information contained on each CoS will confirm the details of the job for which the migrant worker will be sponsored.
