This blog highlights an urgent issue for a cohort of internationally recruited social care workers in Scotland who were employed on Health and Care Worker visas but, as a result of some licences being revoked by the Home Office, are now without the required employer sponsors to allow them to remain in the UK to work. Support is available to providers and workers in England through regional hubs, but despite ear-marked funding for support in Scotland, it is unclear how it will operate to allow these workers to find new sponsors and to continue to live and work in Scotland.
What’s the issue?
A crackdown by the UK Home Office on rogue employers sponsoring international recruits means that sponsorship licences for these employers have been revoked. This means that a number of international recruits on work visas need to leave their jobs and find new employers who are willing to sponsor them within a short time-frame, or they have to leave the UK.
Further to the crackdown on rogue employers, on 11 May 2025, the UK government announced that the overseas recruitment of care workers was to end. As part of the announcement the UK Government news release said:
“The crackdown on rogue care providers has seen around 40,000 workers displaced, many of whom are ready to rejoin the workforce. They will be given the opportunity to do the jobs they were promised, while long-term plans are drawn up to train homegrown talent into the care sector.
International workers who are already sponsored to work legally in the sector will be able to continue to extend their stay, change sponsors and apply to settle, including those who need to switch employers following a sponsor licence revocation.”
The reports of unethical employment practices continue, so sponsorship licences continue to be revoked, not only in the care sector but in other sectors too. Once a licence has been revoked, the employees, on worker visas, are able to continue working with the original sponsor until their visa expires. Normally, UKVI would issue a letter of curtailment to the worker within 60 days of revoking the licence, and give a revised date that their leave to remain expires – which is usually 60 days. They can apply to work for a different employer who has a sponsorship licence, or for an employer who is prepared to apply for sponsorship. They can only be legally employed once that application has been successful.
According to the Worker Support Centre, a charity supporting displaced workers:
“transitional rules allow existing care workers already sponsored before 22 July 2025, who have worked for their sponsor for at least three months, to extend or switch their visa until 22 July 2028.”
At this point, the UK government intends to remove care workers and senior care workers from the list of occupations that are eligible for skilled worker visas, meaning that overseas workers looking for care work in the UK will not be eligible to apply for a skilled worker visa.
According to the Centre for Workforce Supply, NHS National Education for Scotland, it is believed that around 650 of the displaced staff are based in Scotland, registered with employment agencies and urgently seeking new sponsorship. The rules state that they only have 60 days to find a new sponsor from when they ceased to work. That said, the up-to-date Home Office guidance on ‘cancellation and curtailment of permission’ suggests there is considerable room for discretion on the part of the Home Office, UK Visas and Immigration, and this discretion is being applied currently.
There is also a large pool of workers in England and Wales, some of whom could work in Scotland if they were able to get sponsorship. Equally, displaced workers in Scotland could take up jobs elsewhere in the UK. The difference is that, in England, there are regional support mechanisms to support both employers and employees in the social care sector in sponsorship and job matching. Limited support exists in Scotland: Scotland’s Migration Service, NHS NES and Scottish Care are actively working to address the gaps in support for employers and these workers, but as yet, there is no publicly visible overarching co-ordination. The risk is that this valuable staff resource is lost to Scotland’s care and support services.
The Scottish Government is unable to sponsor these staff directly, and responsibility for visa sponsorship remains with employers holding a valid sponsor licence from the Home Office.
The change in policy has caused some confusion: while the NHS, for example, could legally sponsor and employ these staff who are already in the country, some NHS recruitment pages state that they are now unable to sponsor health and care workers.
How has the UK government responded to the issue?
The UK government acknowledged that despite there being an urgent need for international recruits to social care vacancies, some of these workers might not be able to find sponsors quickly, within the 60-day window. In addition, the issue of sponsorship for employers, especially those who have not previously sponsored overseas workers, involves a fairly complex and costly process.
In 2023, the UK government issued a grant of £16 million to be available to 15 regions in England (only). The funds were granted to lead local authorities, representing a broader region to address the emerging issues for these workers and employers, as well as ensuring fair work practices are followed. There appears to be quite a degree of latitude in how the funding can be used, and the response by the hubs has evolved over the two or so years of funding
The funding for the ‘pilot’ was continued for a further 12 months, in 2024-25 and in the current financial year 2025-26 a fund of £12.5 million was allocated to continue the work. While the broad aims of the scheme remain the same, guidance to the regional partnerships has been updated.
In the latest guidance, the UK government states:
“We want investment in the regional fund to:
- significantly increase the number of migrant care workers impacted by non-compliant sponsors or unethical practice accessing support and finding new, ethical, sponsored employment
- substantially increase the number of providers engaging with regional partnerships and raise awareness of the pool of migrant care workers available to support the adult social care workforce
- improve intelligence-sharing regarding international recruitment activity across the regional partnerships to inform and support UKVI and other relevant enforcement bodies to clamp down on unscrupulous providers
- strengthen evidence of what works for ensuring ethical recruitment and retention of international workers to inform ongoing and future practice and policy
- support our wider objective to ensure sufficient workforce capacity in the adult social care sector”
The guidance also states that the partnerships should ‘make sure that services offered through the partnership are available to adult social care providers and migrant care workers within that area’ (emphasis added). This means that the services do not necessarily extend to the displaced workers in Scotland, and they would not be eligible to receive support from the English partnerships should they decide to move to England. Residency requirements are that they are resident in the region when they become displaced from employment.
Sponsorship for employers
UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) is the part of the UK government that processes the sponsorship applications. There are a number of requirements and criteria that an employer needs to fulfil. UKVI provides guidance to prospective employer sponsors about their own eligibility, job suitability and types of licence.
There are also fees to pay which depend on the type and size of the employer – for example, fees are lower for small and charitable sponsors.
The fees vary depending on the size and type of employer. These are separate from the fees an employee has to pay, and must be paid by the employer and not passed on to the employee:
Type of licence | Fee for small or charitable sponsors | Fee for medium or large sponsors |
Worker | £574 | £1,579 |
How has the Scottish Government responded?
On 13 October 2025, the Scottish Government announced that it will work to remove barriers for migrant workers in Scotland’s care sector. This was in response to changes made by the UK government to visa routes for certain occupations, and action taken by them to revoke licences of employers across a range of sectors who have been exploiting the overseas worker sponsorship scheme in some way, or not treating overseas workers according to fair work standards.
In its announcement on 13 October, the Scottish Government said that it was investing £500,000 to fund tailored support to international social care workers who have found themselves without sponsored employment elsewhere in the UK. The funding is intended to help meet the costs associated with moving to and working in the care sector in Scotland. However, as yet, no scheme to do this work has been established, and so there is nothing in place to keep these workers in Scotland, nor to assist displaced workers in England in finding employment in Scotland. Within NHS National Education for Scotland, there is a unit called ‘Centre for Workforce Supply’. They cover two strands of work: one for healthcare staff and one for social care staff. It is working with Scottish Government officials, Scottish Care and others to help address the problem of enabling displaced workers in Scotland, and those thousands more in England, to find sponsors in care and support roles in Scotland. The Centre has been working with the North EastRegional Hub, covering north east England, in vetting and matching available staff as well as supporting Scottish employers through an event held in Newcastle. This has been funded by the Regional Hub, not the Scottish Government. This initiative is about placing workers from England with Scottish employers. At the time of writing, it has resulted in job offers being made to 33 displaced workers from England. However, it does not help the ~650 workers already based in Scotland. These workers could move to England, but they will then be lost to the Scottish care workforce. It is not yet clear how the £500,000 of funding will be used to support employees and employers in Scotland, and whether a scheme similar to that in place in England will be considered but, according to information provided to SPICe, the funding has to be spent before 31 March 2026. In the press release, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Neil Gray MSP said:
“It is our intention for this work to begin immediately so that social care workers can settle into new jobs before Christmas.”
The press release went on:
“This work will start immediately, with workers expected to arrive in Scotland before the end of 2025.”
Anne Jepson
SPICe
24 November 2025