A sprawling black market for UK work visas is flourishing, with unregulated agents and licensed companies selling fraudulent “payroll-only” jobs that allow migrants to remain in Britain without doing any real work, according to a major undercover investigation by The Times UK.
The investigation, which involved months of secret filming and interviews with dozens of visa agents, reveals how criminal networks are exploiting the skilled worker visa system by offering fake roles backed by genuine Home Office-issued certificates of sponsorship (CoS). These documents enable migrants at risk of deportation, or those desperate to stay in the UK, to apply for visas using fabricated employment records, salaries and tax documents.
In one secretly filmed meeting in an east London restaurant, a visa agent openly described how he would help secure a work visa for a migrant whose job would not exist. The paperwork, he said, would show employment at a small event-management company, complete with a fake CV, bank records and payroll slips indicating a salary of £55,000 a year. The migrant would be coached on supposed job duties to withstand questioning.
“There is no job,” the agent said bluntly, according to footage obtained by The Times UK. “We do not have any jobs. We only sell you the CoS.”
The cost of such a deal was put at £13,000 upfront, with ongoing monthly payments. The migrant would be registered on payroll, but any salary paid on paper would have to be transferred back to the company, along with extra fees to cover employer taxes. Failure to pay could result in the sponsorship being cancelled at any time.
Fake jobs, real visas
The investigation found this was not an isolated case but part of what The Times UK described as a “mushrooming economy” of middlemen selling illegal visa sponsorships across Britain. Over four months, reporters spoke to 26 agents and company representatives and documented more than 250 examples of fake jobs being offered.
The fraudulent sponsorships span sectors including hospitality, logistics, social care, IT, finance, marketing and graphic design. On paper, migrants appear to hold skilled or well-paid roles that meet visa salary thresholds. In reality, many do not work for their sponsor at all and instead survive through cash-in-hand jobs in the black economy.
Eligible roles under the skilled worker route range from management, IT and finance positions paying over £41,700 a year to shortage occupations such as nursing assistants, bricklayers and graphic designers, which can pay as little as £25,000. Agents exploit this flexibility by mislabelling jobs or inflating salaries to meet visa requirements.
Sponsorships can cost up to £20,000, with migrants gambling on the chance to stay in the UK long enough to qualify for permanent residency after five years. Experts warned that the fake paper trail of continuous employment and tax payments can later be used to support applications for indefinite leave to remain.
‘Genuine company, no work’
One agent identified by The Times UK was Nirav Madhvani, who advertised dozens of sponsorship offers online with phrases such as “Genuine Company. Dependent Allowed. 100% payroll. No work.” In undercover meetings, Madhvani told reporters he could arrange a three-year sponsorship for £13,000 through a Leicester-based wholesale firm that held a Home Office licence but reported minimal assets and no employees.
Under the arrangement, the migrant would be registered with HM Revenue & Customs and placed on fabricated payroll records. Any wages received would be paid back to the company, plus hundreds of pounds a month to cover employer taxes. “On paper everything is proper,” Madhvani said. “Whatever you get paid, you have to pay back the company.”
Madhvani later denied offering fraudulent sponsorships and locked his social media accounts after being contacted for comment. The company he named did not respond.
Illegal work and cash-in-hand jobs
Migrants on “payroll-only” visas are typically given no official work. Agents often promote loopholes allowing skilled workers to take up to 20 hours of secondary employment or rely on dependents’ right to work. Others simply work illegally for cash.
“You can get visa but you still have to work somewhere in cash,” one agent told an undercover reporter. Another described the trade as a “money game”, warning that only those who paid quickly would secure a slot.
The investigation uncovered thousands of sponsorship offers advertised across Facebook groups with nearly a million members combined. Some posts explicitly promised “no job duties required” or “local CoS available without work”. One agency claimed to have promoted 160 sponsored roles in six months, some of which were allegedly payroll-only.
Weak enforcement, light penalties
The skilled worker visa scheme was introduced in 2020 and expanded under former prime minister Boris Johnson to address labour shortages, particularly in social care. In its first three years, about 931,000 skilled workers and dependents arrived in the UK—triple the number forecast by the Home Office.
Although the government has since tightened salary thresholds and restricted some roles, The Times UK found that reduced availability of legitimate sponsorships has driven demand for fraudulent alternatives. The National Crime Agency has warned of increasing abuse of sponsorship licences, yet prosecutions remain rare.
It is illegal for employers to charge for sponsorship, whether or not the job is real. However, enforcement often stops at licence suspension. The Home Office stripped nearly 1,948 employers of their sponsor licences in the year to June 2025, up from 937 the previous year, but many companies later had licences reinstated.
The Home Office said it was investigating illegal activity and would not tolerate abuse of the system. It said visa refusals and sponsor licence revocations were at record levels and that repeat offenders now face longer bans before reapplying.
Human cost and political fallout
For migrants, the risks are severe. Obtaining a visa by deception is a criminal offence that can result in deportation, entry bans, fines or prison. Data from Action Fraud shows reports of sponsorship-related scams surged from just three in 2021 to more than 500 in 2024.
Some victims told The Times UK they lost life savings to agents promising real jobs that never materialised. One woman said she lost £20,000 and felt overwhelmed by debt, writing that her “only option” was “to die”.
Politicians across parties condemned the findings. Immigration advisers and campaigners called for prosecutions rather than administrative penalties, warning that weak punishment was enabling exploitation. Professor Brian Bell, the government’s top immigration adviser, likened the schemes to organised criminal activity and said facilitating unlawful stays should be treated as seriously as people smuggling.
As net migration remains a politically sensitive issue ahead of the next general election, the investigation has intensified pressure on the government to overhaul the sponsorship system. For now, The Times UK concludes, demand for visas and limited legitimate routes continue to fuel a thriving underground market where fake jobs buy real visas—and the consequences fall hardest on those with the fewest options.
