What counts as a job posted in a given period?
Every full-time role we found for that sponsor with a posting date inside the period, whether it's still open or has since closed. Part time, contract, temporary and internship postings don't count. We don't narrow it to jobs that are still live, and that's deliberate. Filtering would make older periods look quiet and push every trend upward.
Why is a sponsor I know is hiring missing?
A sponsor needs at least four full-time postings in this occupation during the period to make Biggest hirers or Fastest growing. That's lower than the eight the register-wide boards ask for, because here we count only the roles in this one occupation, not everything the sponsor advertised. A sponsor hiring plenty of people can still miss the board if most of those roles sit under a different occupation, or if they're part time or contract, which we don't count. Newly licensed & hiring works differently: a sponsor licensed for under three months needs only one posting, because what matters there is the new licence, not the volume. Recruitment agencies are left out everywhere, since their postings are rarely their own roles.
Why are the boards ranked differently?
Biggest hirers ranks on the increase in postings: how many more roles a sponsor advertised in this occupation in this period than in the one before. So a sponsor with more open roles overall can sit below one that added more of them. Both boards track movement, not size. Fastest growing ranks on percentage change instead, which is how a smaller sponsor going from 20 roles to 60 ends up next to the large employers. On an occupation page the two boards rank the same pool of sponsors in a different order, so a sponsor can appear on both. Newly licensed & hiring ranks on postings alone, and only appears when enough new sponsors are actually hiring; a sponsor can be on it and on Biggest hirers at the same time.
Why does a sponsor need a minimum number of postings to count as fast growing?
Growth is a ratio, and a ratio off a tiny base is noise. A sponsor going from one job to twenty scores 1,900% and would outrank a company that went from 120 to 500. So we only rank growth for sponsors with a real base to grow from: at least three postings in this occupation in the period before. That's lower than the register-wide boards ask for, because ten jobs inside a single occupation would mean a large employer hiring for almost nothing else.
How often does this update?
We rebuild the main pages every day, and they rank the last four weeks against the four before them. The dated archive pages work differently: one build a month, on the 1st, covering the month that just ended, and frozen from then on. An archived month you read today will say the same thing next year.
Does a sponsor hiring a lot mean it will sponsor my visa?
It means the company holds a licence and was hiring across the period we ranked. That's about as strong a signal as you'll get before applying, but it isn't a promise, and a posting from that period may have closed since. Plenty of licensed sponsors advertise roles they won't sponsor, so check the job itself and the company profile.
Why does an occupation I care about have no page?
We only rank an occupation when at least eight companies each posted four or more full-time jobs in it over the period, and posted more than they did in the period before. Four rather than eight, because here we're counting one occupation's slice of a company's hiring, not everything it advertised. Once an occupation has a page it keeps it while at least six companies clear that bar, so a quiet week doesn't take the page away and give it back. Quiet occupations come back when hiring picks up.
