The Gorizzume Weekly · 12 Aug 2026
Issue #1: Who actually sponsors, from 212 graduate schemes checked
The honest sponsorship picture across 212 UK schemes, where the sponsor register stands, and one ten-minute CV fix.
Welcome to the first issue of The Gorizzume Weekly. Each week we cover UK early-careers hiring for international students and fresh graduates: who sponsors, what is opening, and how to get through the filters. Every claim below comes from our own data and checks, with the source named.
Grad schemes
We read the sponsorship pages of 212 graduate schemes
Application season opens in September, so we verified what the major UK schemes actually say about visa sponsorship, on each employer's own pages, not forum hearsay. Across 212 schemes:
- 20 sponsor outright, 43 sponsor partially (specific offices or tracks only), 47 say no, and 102 publish nothing at all
- Deloitte sponsors its Graduate Programme UK-wide, but will not consider anyone who has already held a Skilled Worker or Graduate visa
- PwC sponsors five graduate tracks in London and Watford only; Consulting and Technology & AI are not on its sponsored list
- EY sponsors Assurance, Consulting and Tax roles everywhere except Belfast, and KPMG sponsors in London only
- Grant Thornton and BDO both cite the salary threshold as a blanket no
The pattern worth noticing: the salary threshold is the single biggest reason schemes cannot sponsor, which is why the same firm can sponsor in London and refuse everywhere else. Target accordingly.
Every verdict links to the employer's own page, checked on 11 August.
Visa sponsors
Where the sponsor register stands in August
Our live mirror of the Home Office register of licensed sponsors, synced today, currently lists:
- 126,263 organisations holding a sponsor licence
- 121,011 of them licensed on the Skilled Worker route, the one that matters for graduate hiring
Why this matters: a company can only sponsor you if it is on this register, and most job adverts do not say either way. Thirty seconds checking the licence before you apply beats finding out at offer stage.
From the next issue we will track week-on-week additions, so you can see which companies have just picked up a licence and are gearing up to hire internationally.
Recruitment advice
The one CV line recruiters check first
UK graduate recruiters spend under 30 seconds on a first pass, and almost all of them start in the same place: your most recent experience bullet.
- Lead it with a number: "supported 40+ customers per shift" beats "strong customer service skills"
- Mirror the job title language of the scheme you are applying to
- Cut anything from before sixth form unless it is genuinely exceptional
Ten minutes on that one bullet moves more applications forward than an hour spent anywhere else.