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SOC code 6111 covers nursery nurses and early education/childcare assistants who supervise, feed and support the development of children under five in nurseries, pre-schools and primary-school settings. You can only sponsor a migrant worker into this role if it currently appears on the Home Office's eligible occupations list at the right skill and salary level — eligibility for occupations like this one has shifted more than once as shortages in the early years workforce have been reassessed.
What actually falls under this code
SOC 6111 sits in the childcare and early years group, distinct from qualified teachers (who use separate education codes) and from adult social care roles. Typical duties are planning age-appropriate activities, feeding and changing infants, observing developmental milestones against the EYFS framework, and liaising with parents/keyworkers. It's also worth separating this code from a teaching assistant role that supports a qualified teacher in a school classroom with children of primary or secondary age — those roles sit under a different SOC code entirely, and mapping a school-based teaching assistant vacancy to 6111 because the duties sound similar is a mismatch a caseworker can catch quickly. Because the role can sit close to the Skilled Worker route's RQF3 skill floor, employers sometimes wrongly assume any nursery assistant post qualifies for sponsorship — always check the current eligible occupations and codes list before advertising, since a code being present doesn't automatically mean every job title mapped to it will pass a Home Office caseworker's genuine-vacancy test.
Salary is checked against the going rate, not a flat figure
Where 6111 is eligible, pay must clear both the general Skilled Worker salary floor and the specific going rate for this occupation code, whichever is higher — nurseries paying term-time-only or pro-rata salaries need to annualise correctly before comparing. A common mistake is comparing the pro-rata amount actually paid across roughly 38 to 40 working weeks a year against a going rate that's expressed as a full annual salary; the comparison needs to use the full-time-equivalent annual figure, not the smaller amount that actually lands in the worker's bank account over a shorter working year. Our guides on the salary floor and going rates by occupation code walk through how to run that comparison correctly.
Safeguarding checks go beyond the usual right-to-work check
Right to work verification via share code is only the starting point — anyone working unsupervised with children under five also needs an enhanced DBS check with a children's barred list check, and the setting itself normally needs Ofsted (or equivalent) registration before it can employ staff in this capacity at all. Staff:child ratios under the EYFS framework also depend partly on staff qualification levels, and at least one person holding a valid paediatric first aid certificate normally needs to be on site and available whenever children are present — a requirement that sits outside the sponsorship rules themselves, but that any genuine, ongoing vacancy will implicitly assume the setting already meets. Run the immigration check using the standard share code process, but keep the safeguarding clearance as a separate, dated record — a missing or expired DBS certificate is a compliance gap that sits alongside, not inside, your sponsor licence duties.
Apprentices and trainees don't fit this route
Early years apprenticeships — typically studying towards a Level 2 or Level 3 qualification while working — are a common route into this sector, but an apprentice is not the same thing as a sponsored Skilled Worker. Sponsorship requires the job itself to already meet the skill and salary tests at the point the certificate of sponsorship is assigned, not a role where the worker is training towards the qualification that would eventually justify it. If a nursery wants to bring in someone who still needs to complete a recognised early years qualification, that's a different training and immigration pathway from Skilled Worker sponsorship under SOC 6111, and the two shouldn't be conflated when planning a hire.
Record-keeping if you do sponsor the role
Once sponsored, this worker's file falls under the same record-keeping duties as any other Certificate of Sponsorship holder: contact details, right to work evidence, and any change in role or hours must be retained and reportable through the Sponsor Management System, per the Home Office's Appendix D record-keeping duties. Storing DBS certificates, qualifications and CoS evidence together in a secure document system makes it far easier to produce a complete file if a compliance officer visits.
Questions nursery employers ask
Can I sponsor a childcare assistant with no formal qualification? Only if the specific vacancy meets the skill and salary requirements tied to the code at the time you assign the Certificate of Sponsorship — a job title alone isn't enough evidence.
Does an unannounced Ofsted inspection affect my sponsor licence? Not directly, but poor safeguarding findings can prompt a Home Office compliance visit of their own, so it's worth treating inspection readiness for both regimes as one exercise rather than two.
If a sponsored assistant moves from a baby room to a pre-school room, does that need reporting? A change of room or age group alone usually doesn't need reporting if the job title, salary and overall level of responsibility described on the certificate of sponsorship stay the same, but a genuine change in hours, pay or duties does.
Is 6111 the right code for a seasonal holiday club assistant? Generally no — sponsorship needs a stable, ongoing vacancy with defined hours, and short-term or seasonal cover is difficult to evidence as a genuine long-term post.
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