UK Update6 October 2026
The Home Office publishes the register of licensed sponsors every working day. Each new file replaces the old one, and the old one is gone. We download it every morning and keep every copy, so we can put two days side by side and count who arrived and who left.
September 2026 is the first full month we hold. In it, 877 companies joined the register and 808 left. That is a net change of 69 more companies, across the 32 register files we read that month.
So the list of employers allowed to sponsor a worker did not shrink last month. It grew.
The register lists a company once for every town it is registered in. A firm with offices in ten towns fills ten lines. We count each company once.
Counted by line instead, September looks like 1,154 arrivals and 1,093 departures. But 278 of those arrivals were a new town for a company already on the list, and 284 of the departures were a town a company stopped using while it stayed on the list. Nobody arrived and nobody left in those cases, so we leave them out.
When we built the September report on 6 October 2026, the register held 126,689 different companies. The edition published on 5 October 2026 has 127,351 lines, because of those companies with more than one town.
A company can leave the register for ordinary reasons. It may hand the licence back because it no longer hires from abroad. It may let the licence run out. It may merge with another firm, or change its registered name and appear again under the new one. The public list does not say which reason applies to which company, so we never guess.
What it does mean is simple. While a company is off the list, it cannot sponsor a new worker. So before you spend an evening on an application, check the employer name against today's register. Our licence check does that free, with no account.
The month is the long view. The short view changes faster. In the seven days covered by the editions from 29 September to 5 October 2026, 238 companies were added and 162 were removed.
That page is rebuilt every morning, and every company that left is named on it, so a name you care about can be checked rather than guessed.
The register tells you who may sponsor. Our job list tells you who is advertising. Tonight, Tuesday 6 October 2026, the list holds 615 live adverts, every one at an employer on the register. The Today button holds 41 of them and This week holds 211.
The towns with the most adverts tonight, counted on our own database:
136 adverts tonight print a yearly figure of £25,000 or more. 96 print £30,000 or more, and 64 print £40,000 or more.
Plenty of adverts print no figure at all. So ask in your first message. What is the annual salary for this role, and does the company sponsor a Skilled Worker visa for it.
One more thing about these counts. They are adverts, not separate vacancies. When an employer posts one job once for each town, it arrives as several adverts.
Looking is free. Searching the list, the town counts, the register changes pages and the licence check need no account and no password.
When you find a job you like, apply direct to the employer, on the employer's own website. We never see your application and we never stand between you and the company.
We are a job alert service, not immigration advisers, and this is not legal advice. For your own case speak to a regulated adviser or a support organisation.
Where this comes from: GOV.UK: register of licensed sponsors, workersSponsorJobUK: register changes, September 2026SponsorJobUK: register changes, the last seven daysGOV.UK: Skilled Worker visa
6 October 2026 