Recruitment

The genuine vacancy test: what sponsors have to be able to show

A genuine vacancy is a real role that requires the skills and duties described on the Certificate of Sponsorship, is not created mainly to enable a visa, and does not include duties beyond the stated occupation code.

The genuine vacancy test is the quietest risk in sponsorship. There is no deadline attached to it, no field on the Sponsorship Management System that tracks it, and no alert when you fail it. It surfaces when a Certificate of Sponsorship is refused, or when a compliance officer asks a sponsored worker what they do all day and the answer does not match the job description.

What is a genuine vacancy?

A genuine vacancy is a real role that requires the skills, qualifications and duties described on the Certificate of Sponsorship, exists independently of any individual's immigration needs, and sits correctly within the occupation code used.

Three separate conditions are packed into that, and a role can fail any one of them:

1. The job is real. There is actual work of that nature, at that volume, that the business needs done.
2. The description is accurate. The duties and skill level on the CoS reflect the job as it will actually be performed.
3. The occupation code fits. The role belongs in the code chosen, rather than being described in a way that reaches a more convenient code.

Why would UKVI question a job description?

The usual trigger is a mismatch between the described role and something else that is observable — the salary, the occupation code, the size of the business, or what the worker says they do.

Patterns that attract scrutiny:

• Duties inflated to reach a higher occupation code. A role described with managerial or specialist responsibilities that the business has no obvious need for, in an organisation too small to support them.
• A job description that reads like a person. Requirements assembled around a specific individual's qualifications rather than around the work.
• Skill level that does not match the salary. A senior technical role paid close to the minimum for that code invites the question of whether it is really that role.
• Duties beyond the occupation code. A job description that spans two or three different codes suggests the chosen one was selected for eligibility rather than accuracy.
• Roles that appear after an individual applies. A vacancy created shortly after someone needed sponsorship, with no prior recruitment activity.

None of these are automatically fatal. Each is a question you need to be able to answer with evidence.

What evidence shows a vacancy is genuine?

You need a dated record of the role as it existed, how it was advertised and assessed, and why you appointed the person you appointed.

In practice that means holding:

• The job description as advertised, dated, with the duties and requirements you actually published.
• Evidence of advertising — where the role was placed, when, and for how long.
• Records of the recruitment process — applications received, shortlisting, and how candidates were assessed.
• Interview records for the appointed candidate and, ideally, the others considered.
• A documented reason for appointment, connecting the person's skills to the role's requirements.
• The business case for the role — why the organisation needed this work done.

The last item is the one most often missing, and the one that answers the underlying question most directly. A dated business case explaining why a role was created is considerably more persuasive than a job advert on its own.

Do you need to advertise the role?

There is no general resident labour market test for the Skilled Worker route, but the absence of a mandatory advertising requirement is not the same as advertising being irrelevant.

This is a distinction sponsors get wrong in both directions. Some assume they must run a formal recruitment exercise to a prescribed standard; they do not. Others conclude that because no test applies, recruitment evidence does not matter; that is worse.

Recruitment evidence remains the most natural way to demonstrate that a vacancy was genuine. A role that was advertised, attracted applicants, and was filled through an assessed process is self-evidently a real job. A role filled with no recruitment activity at all can still be genuine — an internal promotion, a specialist hire through a network — but you will be relying on other evidence to show it, so that evidence needs to exist.

How does the test apply after the CoS is assigned?

In practice it continues to apply, because a worker's actual duties can drift away from the sponsored role even where the vacancy was genuine when the CoS was assigned.

This is the scenario that catches otherwise careful sponsors. The vacancy was real, the recruitment was sound, the CoS was accurate. Then the business changed. The worker absorbed different responsibilities, moved team, or gradually stopped doing the specialist part of the role that justified the occupation code.

Nothing about that is dishonest. But at a compliance visit, an officer asking a worker to describe their job will hear the current role, not the sponsored one — and the gap between the two is a finding. Where duties change materially, the change is reportable, and a significant enough change may need a change-of-employment process rather than a report.

What happens if a vacancy is found not to be genuine?

The immediate consequence is usually refusal of the application or the Certificate of Sponsorship; the wider risk is to the licence itself.

A finding that a role was not a genuine vacancy goes to the heart of whether you can be trusted to use sponsorship properly, which is why it is treated more seriously than a procedural slip like a late report. Depending on what it suggests about your practice, it can lead to a downgrade and action plan, suspension, or revocation.

If the finding suggests a pattern across several roles rather than a single misjudged description, the risk is materially higher.

A practical test before assigning a CoS

Before you assign, work through these:

1. Could you explain to someone outside the business why this role needs to exist?
2. Does the job description describe the job, or the candidate?
3. Would the worker, asked independently, describe the duties you have written down?
4. Does every listed duty belong to the occupation code you have chosen?
5. Is the salary consistent with the seniority described? Check the applicable rate with the going rate checker.
6. Do you hold dated evidence of the role as advertised, the process followed, and the reason for appointment?
7. If this role is reviewed in three years, will that evidence still exist and still match what the worker does?

Question three is the most revealing, and the cheapest to test. Ask the hiring manager to describe the role without reading the job description.

How Sponsoro handles it

Sponsoro keeps recruitment and genuine vacancy evidence connected to the worker and to the Certificate of Sponsorship, rather than as documents filed at hire and forgotten. The role as sponsored stays visible alongside the worker's current position, so drift becomes something you can see rather than something discovered when someone asks.

See how recruitment evidence and CoS management work, score your position with the free sponsor licence health check, or read how Sponsoro covers every sponsor licence duty.