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SOC 6116 covers nannies and au pairs who provide childcare and related domestic support directly to a family, and in practice most of these roles cannot be sponsored through the standard Skilled Worker route because the employer is a private household rather than a licensed business.
Why most nanny and au pair roles do not fit the Skilled Worker route
Sponsor licences are issued to organisations — companies, charities, care providers and similar bodies — with the systems in place to meet ongoing sponsor duties such as reporting changes and keeping compliance records. A private family employing a nanny directly is not set up as, and generally cannot become, a licensed sponsor for this purpose, and childcare provided inside someone's own home does not meet the genuine-vacancy and monitoring expectations built into the route regardless of salary offered.
The Overseas Domestic Worker visa is the usual alternative
Where a family genuinely needs to bring an existing nanny or domestic worker into the UK, the relevant route is the Overseas Domestic Worker visa rather than sponsor licensing, and it carries its own separate eligibility rules, time limits and conditions that a household should check directly on GOV.UK before assuming a sponsorship route is available. Confusing the two routes is one of the more common and costly mistakes families and small agencies make.
The Youth Mobility Scheme: how many au pairs actually come to the UK
In practice, a large share of au pair placements are filled not through any employer-led immigration route at all, but through young people from eligible countries and territories entering under the Youth Mobility Scheme, which lets them live and work in the UK for a limited period without needing a sponsor. Because the worker holds their own permission to work rather than permission tied to a specific employer, a family or agency arranging an au pair placement on this basis has no sponsor duties and no CoS to manage — but it also means the arrangement ends when the individual's own visa expires, regardless of how the placement is going, and neither party can extend it through sponsorship. Households sometimes assume that because the arrangement has worked smoothly for a year or two, a switch into longer-term sponsorship should be straightforward; it is not, because the underlying problem — a private household is not a sponsor — has not changed.
When a household or agency might still need a licence
The picture changes where a nanny agency, childcare company or au pair placement organisation is itself the legal employer — for example, a nanny-share arrangement run through a registered childcare provider, or an agency directly employing and placing staff. In that structure, the organisation (not the individual family) would need to hold the licence, and the same right-to-work and record-keeping obligations apply as for any other sponsor, including share-code right-to-work checks and ongoing status verification. Getting the employing entity wrong at the outset is difficult to unpick later and is exactly the kind of structural error that surfaces during a compliance visit.
The workaround the Home Office actually looks for
A recurring pattern caseworkers are alert to is a family setting up a personal service company, or using an existing small business they own, purely as a vehicle to sponsor a nanny who in reality still works exclusively in the family home under the family's day-to-day direction. Creating a company on paper does not change the substance of the arrangement, and a genuine-vacancy assessment looks at who actually directs the work, where it is performed, and whether the company has any real trading activity beyond employing the household's domestic staff. An agency that places nannies with multiple client families faces a related but distinct question: it needs to show it retains genuine employer control — setting rotas, handling grievances, providing the equipment or standards the nanny works to — rather than simply invoicing the family for payroll while the family runs the placement day to day. Sponsors operating this kind of placement model should expect closer scrutiny at both the licence application stage and at any later compliance visit, and should keep placement agreements, supervision records and client contracts organised through secure document management so genuine employer control can be evidenced quickly if asked.
Domestic staff beyond childcare
The same private-household barrier applies to housekeepers, chauffeurs, cooks and other live-in staff employed directly by a family, even where the role is demanding and well paid — the issue is who the employer is, not the skill level or salary of the job. Families exploring long-term help with childcare or household management more broadly are usually better served by looking at registered nurseries, childminders, or domestic staffing agencies that already hold — or are structured to obtain — their own sponsor licence, rather than attempting to sponsor an individual directly.
FAQs
Can a family sponsor a nanny under the Skilled Worker route if they pay above the salary threshold?
No — meeting the salary threshold does not resolve the underlying problem that a private household is not the kind of entity the Skilled Worker route licenses as a sponsor.
Is an au pair placement the same immigration category as a nanny job?
No — most au pair placements are arranged through routes such as the Youth Mobility Scheme, where the individual holds their own independent permission to work, rather than through an employer-sponsored occupation code such as SOC 6116.
Can an agency sponsor a nanny and simply place them with a family?
Only if the agency genuinely retains employer control over the placement — setting standards, handling employment issues and directing the work — rather than acting as a payroll pass-through for an arrangement the family actually runs.
What are the realistic options for a family that needs full-time live-in childcare long-term?
Options typically include the Overseas Domestic Worker visa for a limited period, an au pair arranged under the Youth Mobility Scheme, hiring a nanny who already has settled or independent status to work in the UK, or using a registered nursery or childminding service — sponsorship of an individual nanny by the family itself is very rarely a workable route.
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