Fake jobs and the Skilled Worker Visa: The elephant in the room?
On 27 January 2026 the Times published the outcome of their wide-ranging, months-long undercover investigation into a ‘burgeoning industry’ of ‘middlemen charging illegal fees for visa sponsorship, and hundreds of fake jobs being offered by criminal networks.’
Over four months, their undercover reporters spoke to 26 agents engaged in selling certificates of sponsorship and found more than 250 examples of fake jobs being offered across various industries. The article describes prospective migrant workers being charged eye-watering amounts for sponsorship, including ‘payroll only’ sponsorship, where there is no real work available, but the worker is asked to make monthly payments to cover ‘employer taxes’.
The investigation suggests that employers, holding the sponsor licences, are also profiting from the sale of sponsorship certificates for employment that does not genuinely exist.
The details will be grimly familiar to those of us in the anti trafficking sector. We find that the workers who accept such ‘deals’ and the risks associated with them are usually in a position of vulnerability, especially severe financial stress or debt, and they are being recruited by people and organisations who clearly intend to exploit them.
Often, these workers, at least at the initial recruitment stages before arriving in the UK, sincerely believed that the jobs were real and the fees charged are legitimate, before realising that they had been deceived.
We’ve also found that persuading the Home Office, police and other authorities that the definition of trafficking should apply to these situations has had decidedly mixed results. Why?
Trafficking for financial exploitation
The UK Government uses the definition of trafficking outlined in Article 4(a) of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (ECAT). Broken down, this definition involves:
The movement, including the recruitment of persons
The means, including deception and the abuse of power or vulnerability
The purpose, exploitation of a person.
As the Times investigation showed, it is clear that the purpose of the agents and companies involved in these networks is to make money from the desperation of migrant workers seeking sponsorship.
This sounds like financial exploitation to us. However, we have found the Home Office to be reluctant to acknowledge this, even in cases where they accept that a prospective migrant worker is being recruited via the means of deception or abuse of power.
The Slavery and Human Trafficking (Definition of Victim) Regulations 2022 at section 3(6)(d) confirm that a person is being exploited if they are:
‘Subjected to force, threats or deception designed to induce that person
(i) to provide services of any kind;
(ii) to provide another person with benefits of any kind, or
(iii) to enable another person to acquire benefits of any kind.’
There is little case law concerning whether a financial transaction can constitute a ‘benefit’ within the meaning of the 2022 regulations. The High Court recently ruled that kidnapping for ransom could constitute trafficking, demonstrating circumstances can arise where the ‘benefit’ could be the money itself.
By ignoring this possibility in the context of defrauded skilled workers, is the Home Office adopting too narrow a definition of trafficking?*
ATLEU received a recent Home Office decision where our client, ‘MS’ a former care worker, was found to have been subjected to forced labour. This was because MS was:
‘instructed to find cash-in-hand work to make payments to [the sponsor] and threatened that if you did not make payment, your visa would be cancelled. Therefore, the work that you did was extracted from you under the menace of a penalty to induce you to provide a financial benefit for [the sponsor].’
The Times’ reporting demonstrates that the Skilled Worker Visa system is being leveraged by unscrupulous employers for the purpose of exploitation.
Any resulting Home Office investigation should consider how many migrant workers paying into these schemes should be identified and supported as potential victims of trafficking rather than condemned for their own exploitation.
ATLEU calls on the government to abolish employer-sponsored visas, to prevent abusive employers from threatening their migrant workforce and to enable workers to secure safe alternatives and access to justice.
*The case of R (AAM) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWHC 447 (Admin) established that a person kidnapped for ransom could be a victim of trafficking for the purpose of the 2022 regulations, although the Court was keen to stress that that whether someone was a victim of trafficking depended on the facts of each individual case.