NHS visa sponsorship: Health and Care Worker visa jobs explained

What the Health and Care Worker visa actually is

It sits inside the Skilled Worker route rather than alongside it. You still need a licensed sponsor, a Certificate of Sponsorship and an eligible occupation — but if your role is on the health and care occupation list and your employer is the right kind of organisation, the terms are considerably better than a standard Skilled Worker application.

• No Immigration Health Surcharge for you or your dependants — which over a five-year visa is a very large saving.
• Reduced visa application fees compared with the standard Skilled Worker route.
• A much lower salary floor: usually at least £25,000 a year, or the going rate for the occupation if that's higher.
• Up to five years' permission at a time, extendable, and counting towards settlement.
• Dependants can apply, subject to the usual requirements.

Who qualifies

Three conditions have to line up: an eligible occupation, an eligible employer, and the relevant professional registration.

• Eligible occupation. The route covers a defined list of health and care occupation codes — doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, pharmacists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, radiographers, biomedical and laboratory staff, mental health professionals, social workers, nursing auxiliaries and others. If your occupation code isn't on that list, you may still be sponsorable as a standard Skilled Worker, but without the fee and surcharge benefits.
• Eligible employer. You must be working for the NHS, an organisation providing medical services to the NHS, or an adult social care provider registered with the relevant care regulator (the Care Quality Commission in England, with equivalents elsewhere in the UK).
• Professional registration. Clinical roles require registration with the appropriate UK regulator — the NMC for nurses and midwives, the GMC for doctors, the HCPC for many allied health professions — plus the English language evidence those regulators require, typically IELTS or OET.

The care worker change you need to know about

Occupation codes 6135 (care workers and home carers) and 6136 (senior care workers) were closed to new applicants from outside the UK for certificates of sponsorship assigned on or after 22 July 2025. People already in the UK may still be able to use those codes to extend or switch — broadly, where the certificate was assigned before that date, or where they are switching from another visa having been legally employed in the UK for a qualifying period.

The practical consequence is blunt: if you are overseas and see an advert offering Health and Care Worker sponsorship as a care assistant in 2026, it is very unlikely to be a valid offer. This is one of the most heavily targeted areas for recruitment scams, and the advice in our guide to spotting a genuine sponsor licence applies with particular force.

How NHS salaries are assessed

Most NHS roles are paid on the Agenda for Change national pay scales, and roles paid on national pay scales are assessed against those scales rather than against the standard going rate table. That's why a Band 5 nursing post — well below the £41,700 general Skilled Worker floor — is nonetheless perfectly sponsorable on this route.

Finding real NHS sponsorship

1. 1Search NHS trusts directly as well as through job boards — we import listings from the official NHS Jobs feed, so healthcare roles on this site come from the source rather than an aggregator's copy.
2. 2Check the trust or provider against the sponsor register. Most NHS trusts hold licences, but individual private providers and agencies vary enormously.
3. 3Confirm the occupation code and whether the role is being sponsored on the Health and Care Worker route or as a standard Skilled Worker — the fee and surcharge difference is worth thousands.
4. 4Start professional registration in parallel with applications, not after an offer.
5. 5Ask what relocation and registration support the employer provides. Large trusts running international recruitment programmes often cover exam fees, flights and initial accommodation; smaller providers usually don't.
6. 6Read any repayment clause carefully. Support packages frequently come with clawback terms if you leave within a defined period.

Use the healthcare and nursing category filter on our job search to narrow to these roles, and remember that changing NHS employer later is still a formal process — see what happens to your visa if you change employer.