Why are changes being made?
Care providers recruiting overseas workers need to have a sponsor licence. Various care roles are eligible for sponsorship including care workers, senior care workers and nurses. Once a care provider has a sponsor licence, it must comply with various duties, including record keeping and reporting.
There has been a rising number of care providers losing sponsor licences, due to a failure to follow compliance duties as a sponsor. The Home Office revoked more than 470 sponsor licences in the care sector between July 2022 and December 2024. This has led to a large pool of displaced care workers in the UK needing sponsorship. The Home Office has stated that these latest changes will help support this pool of displaced workers, as well as continue to help prevent the exploitation of international care workers.
Prioritising recruitment within the UK
Care providers recruiting from overseas will have to show they have attempted to recruit from this displaced pool first. The changes apply to sponsors recruiting into care worker and senior care worker roles working in locations entirely in England, where the Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) is assigned on or after 9th April 2025.
The new requirement applies to care workers applying from overseas (known as entry clearance) and to individuals currently in the UK under a different immigration route but wanting to switch to be sponsored as a care worker. This would include individuals currently in the UK under a student or graduate visa or as the partner of a skilled worker, who are looking for sponsorship as a care worker. However, the new requirement will not apply to anyone who is already working in a care worker role for the sponsor and has been doing so for at least three months. For example, a care provider currently employing someone as a care worker who has a student visa and is looking to apply for sponsorship as a care worker would not be covered by this new requirement.
When the new requirement does apply, the care provider will need to confirm that it has tried, unsuccessfully, to recruit from the pool of displaced workers who need sponsorship. The worker could need sponsorship because their sponsor lost its sponsor licence, because their sponsor has not provided them with sufficient work or because they have been identified by the relevant regional or sub-regional partnership as a worker requiring assistance in obtaining new sponsorship.
The Home Office has confirmed that the care provider will need confirmation from the regional or sub-regional partnership that it has attempted to recruit from the pool of workers first. The care provider will also make a declaration confirming this before it can apply for a CoS for someone overseas or switching from another visa. However, the Home Office has not outlined exactly what steps the care provider will need to take. Presumably it will need to send details of the vacancy to the regional hub for the hub to try and identify any suitable workers in the pool in need of sponsorship. It will then need to wait for the potential applicants to apply for the role and then go through a recruitment process to determine if those candidates are suitable.
However, no guidelines have been provided as to how long the care provider will need to wait for applicants, what the recruitment process will need to look like to be sufficient or what evidence will need to be kept showing that it has complied with the requirements. Home Office sponsor guidance was published on 9th April to include further information. Following the introduction of this requirement, we are likely to see a significant reduction in recruitment of new care workers from outside the UK. We also expect to see a reduction in the number of individuals in the UK under other visas, such as students, switching to become sponsored care workers.
Increase in minimum salary requirements
The minimum salary for care workers and senior care workers is increasing to £25,000, which equates to an hourly rate of £12.82. This is an increase from the current minimum salary of £23,200 or £11.90 an hour. National Minimum Wage (NMW) rates increased on 1st April 2025 and those over 21 are now entitled to £12.21 per hour. Minimum salary requirements for sponsored workers usually sit above NMW rates. These new increases ensure that this remains the case.
The minimum annual salary is based on a 37.5-hour week and needs to be increased if more hours are worked. For example, a worker who works 40 hours a week will need to be paid at least £26,667 and an hourly rate of £12.82. If fewer than 37.5 hours are worked, the minimum will still be £25,000. The new minimum salary requirements only apply where a CoS is assigned to a worker on or after 9th April 2025. So, the new requirements will affect all new recruits after this date, as well as any existing workers whose visas are due for renewal. All other sponsored care workers will still fall under the old minimum salary requirements. Their rates will just need to be increased in line with the NMW.
Deduction of certain payments from wages
From 9th April 2025, the Home Office will take into account certain payments from a care worker to their employer when calculating whether a sponsored worker is paid at least the minimum salary requirements. These include deductions from salary and repayments of loans. There will be an exception to this for payments or deductions that are not related to business costs or immigration costs and are an additional benefit which the care worker had a genuine choice whether to take up (e.g. a salary sacrifice arrangement). Payments that are caught will be averaged over the length of the sponsorship arrangement.
It is not clear exactly what the term ‘immigration costs’ is supposed to mean, as employers are already prevented from passing on many of these. It has always been prohibited to pass on the immigration skills charge to sponsored workers and for a CoS issued on or after 31st December 2024, it is also prohibited to pass on the costs of the CoS application fee, the licence application fee and any associated administrative and legal costs.
Some care providers choose to cover the visa application fees for a new care worker and may then recover these costs from wages over a number of months once the employment starts. It is also not uncommon for employers who have covered application fees to have ‘claw back’ agreements in place so that the costs must be repaid if the worker chooses to leave their employment within a set timeframe. The Home Office is concerned that these sorts of arrangements may act as a form of ‘debt bondage’.
It is possible that these arrangements could fall under ‘immigration costs’. If so, care providers would need to ensure that any repayment of visa application costs does not bring the care worker’s wages below the minimum salary required for sponsorship. We will hopefully get some clarity now the new Home Office guidance has been issued. It would seem a shame if repayment of visa costs is caught by this change, as this may lead to care providers not being able to continue to offer this benefit to new recruits if they cannot guarantee that pay will remain above minimum salary requirements after the deduction has been made.
What happens if care providers do not comply?
These changes are the latest in a series of steps to reduce exploitative practices in the care sector. The Home Office has ramped up its enforcement activity, as seen in the number of licences that have been revoked. The Home Office is regularly making compliance visits in the care sector. During a visit, the Home Office will investigate whether a care provider is complying with its duties which will include these new requirements. Providers must ensure they follow the new recruitment process requirements, their records clearly show that minimum salary requirements are being met and they carefully calculate any deductions that will reduce pay to ensure that minimum salary requirements are always met.
If the Home Office finds a care provider is non-compliant, its sponsor licence could be downgraded and an action plan to address the compliance failures may be imposed, or the sponsor licence could be revoked entirely. Without a sponsor licence, care providers can no longer sponsor overseas care workers, and all its sponsored workers will need to obtain new sponsorship elsewhere. Employers are prevented from applying for a new licence for at least 12 months, where they have had their licence revoked. Care providers must ensure compliance with the new requirements and familiarity with the rest of their existing duties, to avoid Home Office repercussions.
What is your experience of recruiting displaced care workers within the UK? Leave a comment on this feature or join the conversation to share your thoughts.
Olivia Coles is an Employment and Immigration Specialist in the health and social care team at RWK Goodman.
Email: [email protected] X: @Olivia-Coles-RWK-Goodman