Updated guidance on reporting hybrid working for sponsored workers

In spring 2023, the government updated part 3 of its sponsor guidance for workers and temporary workers to provide that employers must notify UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) if a sponsored worker’s normal work location, as recorded on their certificate of sponsorship, changes, including where the worker is to work remotely from home or is to move to a hybrid working pattern. 

That sponsor guidance has now been updated to confirm that sponsors no longer need to notify UKVI if the sponsored worker is moving to a hybrid working pattern, i.e. where they work remotely (from either their home or another remote site, such as a work hub space) on a regular basis, as well as regularly attending a “traditional” work location (such as one or more of the sponsor’s offices or branches, or a client site). However, sponsors must continue to notify any changes to their main office work location, or of any new client sites, and maintain suitable records of the sponsored worker’s working patterns.

As for remote working, sponsors must continue to notify UKVI where the sponsored worker is, or will be, working remotely from home on a permanent or full-time basis (with little or no requirement to physically attend a workplace). Reports of changes to a sponsored worker’s work location must be made using the Sponsor Management System (SMS) within 10 working days of the change occurring.

The updated guidance also confirms that if the sponsor’s sponsor licence is due to expire on or after 6 April 2024, they no longer need to renew it. The government has automatically extended the expiry date on such sponsor licences by ten years and this should be visible on the licence summary page of the SMS.