20 January 2022

The number of sponsors registered on the Skilled Worker/ICT, Student and Temporary Work routes has hit a new record, according to the Home Office’s latest sponsorship transparency data. For Q3 2021, there were 41,348 sponsors registered for these three visa categories, a 19% increase on Q3 2020 and a 30% on Q3 2014 (the first year included in the Home Office data).

Record number of registered sponsors
The number of registered Skilled Worker/ICT and Temporary Work sponsors for Q3 2021 stood at 35,807 and 4,019 respectively, a record number for both visa categories. The number of Student sponsors was up on the previous quarter at 1,522 but failed to surpass the record high of 1,706, recorded in Q1 2014.

Skilled Worker/ICT sponsor applications booming
The number of Skilled Worker/ICT sponsor applications increased by 4,250 in Q3 2021, more than double that in Q3 2020. In addition, the number of new Skilled Worker/ICT sponsor applications in the first three quarters of 2021 was more than double that for the whole of 2019, the year before the onset of COVID-19. This growth is particularly impressive when compared to the more modest 8% increase of Skilled Worker/ICT applications between 2019 and 2020.

Sponsorship application processing times at all-time high
But not all the data is glowing. The latest statistics reveal that 81.5% of Skilled Worker/ICT sponsorship applications were processed in over four weeks, the largest percentage on record. In Q3 2014, 92% of Skilled Worker/ICT sponsorship applications were processed within four weeks.

Furthermore, the average length of time taken to process a sponsorship application in Q3 2021 was 52.88 days, with 2,984 applications taking longer than this. These are the highest figures on record and a sharp increase on pre-pandemic figures where the average day in Q3 2019, for example, was 23.45 days.

Get in touch
To learn more about forthcoming changes to UK immigration law, see our website, contact your assigned LDI lawyer or email enquiries@lauradevine.com.