Companies in Manchester That Sponsor Visas: How to Find Them

Fayez Bin Khalid

— 3 min read
Share

I moved to Manchester for my Masters, and like most international students here, I assumed finding a sponsored job would mean moving to London. It doesn't.

Manchester has 2,865 organisations licensed to sponsor UK work visas, including 2,747 licensed on the Skilled Worker route. And 2,863 of them hold an A-rating.

That's a lot of options. The problem is that a list of nearly 3,000 company names doesn't actually help you. Most of them are small businesses that sponsor one or two people in roles that won't fit you. What you need is to know where the sponsored jobs are, and how to find the employers worth your time.

Where the sponsored jobs are in Manchester

The dominant sectors are finance and professional services, healthcare and life sciences, and technology. Here's what that looks like on the ground:

Healthcare. The NHS is one of the biggest sponsors in the country, and Greater Manchester has some of the largest hospital trusts in the UK. Nursing, allied health, pharmacy and clinical roles are the obvious ones, but trusts also sponsor data analysts, finance staff and IT roles.

Finance and professional services. Spinningfields is packed with banks, insurers, law firms and consultancies. The Big Four accounting firms all have large Manchester offices and sponsor graduates, especially in audit, tax, technology and consulting.

Tech and digital. Manchester has one of the biggest tech scenes outside London, from scale-ups in the city centre to the media and digital cluster at MediaCityUK. Software engineering, data and cyber security roles are where sponsorship is most common.

Universities. The city's universities sponsor researchers, lecturers and some professional staff.

The register mistake that hides big employers

This is the part most people miss.

The sponsor register lists each company under the town where its licence is registered, which is usually its head office. So a national firm with 2,000 staff in Manchester might be listed under London, because that's where its HQ is.

If you only filter the register by "Manchester", you'll miss many of the biggest employers in the city.

The fix: search the register by company name, not just by town. If a company has a big Manchester office, check whether it's on the register at all, wherever it's registered.

Don't forget Greater Manchester

The same goes for the towns around the city. Salford, Trafford, Stockport, Bolton and Oldham are all listed separately on the register. MediaCityUK is in Salford, and Trafford Park is one of the biggest industrial estates in Europe.

If you're open to commuting, filter for those towns too. You'll find hundreds more sponsors within half an hour of the city centre.

How to build your target list

1. Download the register. Search "Register of licensed sponsors: workers" on gov.uk and download the spreadsheet.

2. Filter by town. Start with Manchester, then add Salford, Trafford, Stockport and the other Greater Manchester towns.

3. Filter by route. Keep only rows that say Skilled Worker.

4. Add the big names. Make a list of large employers you know have Manchester offices, and search for them by name, since many will be registered elsewhere.

5. Cross-check with live jobs. Search each company on LinkedIn or their careers page. A licence with no open roles in your field isn't worth chasing right now.

6. Check the role qualifies. Even at a licensed sponsor, the role has to meet the skill level and salary rules. If you're on a Graduate visa, here's how the switch to Skilled Worker works, including the lower new entrant salary rate.

And remember, a licence means the organisation is approved to sponsor eligible roles. It does not mean it currently has vacancies or will sponsor any particular role. (Here's how to check a sponsor properly.)

Building this list by hand works, but it takes hours and goes out of date fast.

Visa Jobs Hub does the heavy lifting for you. It scores UK job listings, including thousands in Manchester, by how likely they are to offer sponsorship, so you can go straight to the roles that can actually lead to a visa.

Sponsor figures from the Home Office register as of mid-2026. The register changes daily, so always check the latest version on gov.uk.

Read more