What is supplementary employment?
Supplementary employment allows a sponsored worker to take on a second job, up to 20 hours per week, in addition to their sponsored role - without requiring a new Certificate of Sponsorship.
Conditions that must all be met
For supplementary employment to be permitted:
The worker must still be actively employed and sponsored by their primary sponsor
The secondary role must be either in the same SOC code as the sponsored role, or in a role listed on the Immigration Salary List
The supplementary work must not exceed 20 hours per week
The supplementary work must be outside the hours of the sponsored role
What is not permitted
Supplementary employment is not permitted where:
The worker's primary sponsor has had their licence revoked. Once revocation occurs, the worker is no longer permitted to undertake supplementary employment, even if their visa expiry date has not yet passed. The right to work system may still show a valid status during a transitional period, but this does not change the position under sponsor guidance.
The worker is not actively working in their sponsored role
Holiday pay and the 20-hour limit
Paying accrued holiday entitlement in addition to the worker's contracted 20 hours does not count towards the supplementary work limit, provided the worker is not actually working during that time. The 20-hour limit is based on hours worked, not on pay.
How the 20-hour weekly limit applies
The 20-hour cap is a hard weekly limit. It cannot be averaged across weeks or balanced out by working fewer hours in another week. A worker who does 25 hours of supplementary work one week and 15 the following week has still breached the rule in week one, regardless of the fortnightly average.
If a worker holds more than one supplementary role, the 20-hour limit is the total across all secondary roles combined, not per secondary employer.
Additional hours with the sponsoring employer
The 20-hour supplementary cap applies only to work for a different employer. Additional hours worked for the sponsoring employer itself are not limited by the supplementary employment rules. However, if those additional hours become permanent or persistent, they may constitute a material change to the worker's contracted hours, which is a reportable change to the Home Office via the Sponsor Management System. Occasional extra hours covering absences or seasonal peaks do not normally need to be reported.
The Working Time Regulations 48-hour ceiling
Separate from immigration rules, the Working Time Regulations place a 48-hour average weekly working limit on most workers, calculated over a 17-week reference period. This applies to total hours across all jobs combined. A worker can sign an individual opt-out to lift this ceiling, but the opt-out is personal to the worker and must be in writing. The 48-hour rule does not override the supplementary employment 20-hour cap but may restrict a worker's ability to take on the full 20 hours in practice.
Employer obligations
Secondary employers are not required to hold a sponsor licence for supplementary employment, but they must conduct a right to work check before employment commences and should retain records of the arrangement.
Can a sponsored worker run their own business?
A sponsored worker may technically hold a directorship or have an ownership stake in another business, but this does not automatically make it permitted supplementary employment. For it to be lawful, the activity must still meet the supplementary employment conditions: it must be in an eligible occupation on the Immigration Salary List, the worker must not exceed 20 hours of additional work per week in total, and their sponsored role must remain their primary role in both time and priority.
In practice, running a business as a director is unlikely to satisfy these conditions. If the worker is organising their availability around the business rather than the sponsored role, that is itself a compliance concern. If the worker is one of only two or three people in the business, the Home Office is likely to treat them as a key operator rather than a secondary participant, which would not be consistent with the supplementary employment rules.
Sponsors who discover a worker is operating a business should assess whether the sponsored role is genuinely the primary employment. If there is doubt, the matter should be escalated rather than treated as a straightforward supplementary employment case.
Government guidance: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/workers-and-temporary-workers-guidance-for-sponsors-part-2-sponsor-a-worker-general-information#S8
Government guidance: https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa/second-job