In short: UK employers can hire overseas workers on the Skilled Worker visa. You'll need a Home Office sponsor licence, and the role must meet the salary rules (the general threshold or the occupation's going rate, whichever is higher; lower for eligible health and care roles). CA Recruitment sources candidates and guides you through sponsorship end to end.
Correct as of 25 August 2026. The Home Office changes the eligible occupation codes, the salary thresholds and the sponsor licence fees during the year, and the care-worker codes moved without much warning. Get in touch and we will verify the current position for your specific role and occupation code before you spend anything on the process.
What the UK Skilled Worker visa is
The Skilled Worker visa is the main UK route for hiring an overseas worker. To use it, the UK employer must hold a Home Office sponsor licence and issue the worker a Certificate of Sponsorship. The role must be an eligible occupation at the required skill level, and it must meet the salary rules below.
Salary thresholds
A Skilled Worker role must normally pay at least the general salary threshold or the published going rate for that specific occupation — whichever is higher. Lower thresholds apply to some workers (for example new entrants) and to eligible Health and Care Worker roles. Health and Care Worker roles usually need to pay at least £25,000, or the going rate for the occupation code if that is higher. GOV.UK also names a short list of codes — 1232, residential, day and domiciliary care managers, among them — for which different salary requirements apply. Because the Home Office updates these figures, always confirm the current thresholds on GOV.UK before you plan a hire — we do this for you at the eligibility check.
The Health and Care Worker visa
Eligible health and care roles use the Health and Care Worker visa, part of the Skilled Worker route with a lower salary threshold and reduced fees for qualifying occupations. It is not a general route into UK social care, and that distinction is where most care employers are caught out.
You cannot use it to bring a care assistant in from overseas. GOV.UK publishes two separate occupation-code lists for this visa. Codes 6135 (care workers and home carers) and 6136 (senior care workers) appear only on the second one — the codes eligible to extend, update or switch to the visa. They are not on the list of codes you can use for an initial application, so a worker who is still overseas cannot be sponsored into either. Switching in under those two codes requires the worker to have already been working legally in the job for you for at least three months, so it is a route for people who are already in the UK, not a way of recruiting from abroad — and their partner and children cannot switch as dependants alongside them.
What is still open from overseas. Several health and care occupations remain on the initial-application list, including:
- 6131 — nursing auxiliaries and assistants
- 2231 to 2237 — the registered nursing codes (midwifery, community, specialist, nurse practitioner, mental health, children's and other registered nursing professionals)
- 2461 — social workers
- 1232 — residential, day and domiciliary care managers and proprietors
So if you run a UK care home or healthcare service, the question that decides your hire is which occupation code the vacancy actually sits under — not whether the route is open in general. A nursing auxiliary post and a care assistant post can look almost identical on a rota and fall on opposite sides of this line. We check the code before you commit to anything.
Two conditions sit alongside it. The job offer must come from the NHS, an organisation providing medical services to the NHS, or an organisation providing adult social care. And where codes 6135 or 6136 are used in England, the employer must be registered with the Care Quality Commission.
If the role you need really is a care assistant, Ireland is the route that is still open. Health care assistants and home support workers (SOC 6145) are eligible for an Irish General Employment Permit at a minimum of €32,691 a year, or €16.12 an hour; the same code covers care workers and home carers under a DETE quota, which can fill. There is no sponsor licence to obtain first. One honest caveat — senior care worker sits on Ireland's ineligible occupations list, so the exact role matters there too. See care and social services hiring in Ireland and our guide to hiring overseas care assistants. For a group operating on both sides of the Irish Sea, that is often the difference between filling the post and carrying the vacancy.
Sponsor duties and settlement
As a sponsor you take on record-keeping and reporting duties, and the Immigration Skills Charge applies to most sponsored roles. For the worker, the Skilled Worker route can lead to settlement (Indefinite Leave to Remain) after five years. If you do not hold a licence yet, our guide to how a UK employer actually gets a sponsor licence sets out the current fees, the eight-week decision timeline, the three people you have to name on the application, and why the licence is the cheaper half of the hire.
What CA Recruitment does for UK employers
We source and vet candidates — primarily from the Philippines — and guide you through the sponsorship process: confirming the role and salary qualify, the Certificate of Sponsorship, and the worker's visa application, through to arrival. We work both the Irish (DETE) and UK Skilled Worker routes, so if you're hiring across both, you have one partner.
Ready to talk?
WhatsApp Monette for a free eligibility check — we'll confirm what qualifies and a realistic timeline.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. The UK employer needs a Home Office sponsor licence and issues the worker a Certificate of Sponsorship. The role must be an eligible occupation at the required skill level and meet the salary rules. CA Recruitment sources candidates and guides you through the sponsorship process.
No. Occupation codes 6135 (care workers and home carers) and 6136 (senior care workers) are eligible only to extend, update or switch to the Health and Care Worker visa — they are not on the list of codes you can use for an initial application, so a worker who is still overseas cannot be sponsored into either. Switching in under those codes also requires the worker to have been working legally in the job for you for at least three months. Codes that remain open for an initial application include 6131 nursing auxiliaries and assistants, the registered nursing codes 2231 to 2237, 2461 social workers and 1232 residential, day and domiciliary care managers. In England, an employer using codes 6135 or 6136 must also be registered with the Care Quality Commission. In Ireland the equivalent role is still open: health care assistants and home support workers (SOC 6145) are eligible for a General Employment Permit at a minimum of €32,691 a year, or €16.12 an hour.
A Skilled Worker role must normally pay at least the general salary threshold or the going rate for the occupation, whichever is higher, with lower thresholds for some workers and for eligible Health and Care Worker roles, which usually need to pay at least £25,000 or the going rate for the occupation code if that is higher. The Home Office updates these figures, so always confirm the current thresholds on GOV.UK — we check them for you at the eligibility stage.
Yes. To sponsor a Skilled Worker you must hold a valid Home Office sponsor licence before you can issue a Certificate of Sponsorship. CA Recruitment guides you through what's required.
Yes. We manage the Irish DETE employment permit routes and the UK Skilled Worker visa route. If you hire across both Ireland and the UK, you have a single recruitment partner for sourcing and the immigration process.