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Professional or chartered company secretaries (SOC 2435) manage a company's statutory and governance obligations - board administration, filings with Companies House, corporate governance advice and compliance with the Companies Act. It is a distinct governance function, not a general administrative or PA role, and that distinction matters for sponsorship.
Why this code gets more scrutiny than it looks
Because 'company secretary' can be used loosely as a job title for administrative support, sponsors need the job description to show genuine governance and compliance content - advising the board, maintaining statutory registers, coordinating annual returns - rather than diary management or minute-taking alone. Membership of, or progress toward, a chartered governance body (such as CGI, formerly ICSA) is strong supporting evidence of genuineness, though it is not itself a legal requirement for the visa.
Distinguishing the role from adjacent job titles
SOC 2435 sits next to several roles that can look similar on paper but sit under different codes - executive assistants and PAs, legal professionals drafting the same governance documents, and finance managers who also handle statutory filings as part of a broader remit. Where one person's role spans several of these, the sponsor should identify which set of duties genuinely dominates the job, and code, pay and evidence the role accordingly, rather than picking whichever SOC code carries the most convenient going rate.
Salary and going rate
As with any Skilled Worker sponsorship, the salary offered must meet both the general floor and the SOC 2435 going rate - see Annaizu's guides to the salary floor and going rates by occupation for how the comparison is made, since going rates vary considerably between broad occupation groups.
Small numbers, high individual scrutiny
Sponsors typically hire only one or two company secretaries at a time, often into a senior or sole governance position. That low volume means each certificate of sponsorship gets proportionately more attention if the sponsor is later reviewed - the sponsor duties covering job suitability and record-keeping in the Home Office's Part 3 guidance apply just as fully to a single sponsored hire as to a large cohort.
Group structures and who actually employs the secretary
It's common for one company secretary to hold the position across several entities in a corporate group - a parent company and several subsidiaries, for example. For sponsorship purposes, only one organisation can be the actual employer paying the salary and holding the sponsor licence; if the person's governance duties genuinely span multiple group entities, the employment contract, job description and salary should still sit clearly with the sponsoring entity, with any cross-group duties described as part of that one role rather than implying multiple employers. Skilled Worker visa holders can normally take on limited supplementary work in the same or a similar profession alongside their sponsored job, but that doesn't extend to a second substantive employment relationship with a different group company.
A role the law doesn't strictly require - which cuts both ways
Private limited companies in the UK haven't been legally required to appoint a company secretary since the Companies Act 2006, though public companies still must. That matters for sponsorship because it means the existence of the role isn't automatic evidence of genuineness - a small private company appointing an overseas company secretary should be able to explain the actual governance complexity that justifies a dedicated, senior post (multiple subsidiaries, regulatory reporting, a board that needs formal administration) rather than pointing to a legal requirement that, for a private company, doesn't exist. Some sponsors also use the company secretary as their Level 1 user for the sponsor licence itself, given the overlap between statutory governance and compliance administration - a sensible pairing operationally, but one that concentrates a lot of licence responsibility in a single role, worth factoring into succession planning if that person leaves.
Evidencing governance duties in practice
Board minutes, filing confirmations and correspondence with Companies House are useful evidence that the role is functioning as declared. Keeping these organised and retrievable - many sponsors use secure document management for this rather than a personal inbox - makes it far easier to respond quickly if a compliance check asks for it.
The statutory deadlines the role exists to manage - confirmation statement filings, annual accounts, board meeting notices within required timeframes - carry real consequences for the company if missed, and a documented history of meeting them is some of the clearest evidence available that the role is functioning as declared, not decorative.
FAQs
Does a company secretary need a formal qualification to be sponsored? No formal qualification is legally required for the visa itself, but chartered governance credentials strengthen the case that the role is genuinely at professional level rather than administrative.
Can a part-time company secretary be sponsored? Yes in principle, but the salary must still meet the going rate on a pro-rated, hourly-equivalent basis, and the reduced hours should be clearly reflected in the job description and contract.
Can one company secretary be sponsored to serve multiple companies in the same group? The sponsoring employer must be the entity that genuinely employs and pays the person; cross-group governance duties can be described within that one role, but a second employer cannot also sponsor the same work as separate employment.
Since private companies aren't legally required to have a company secretary, does that affect a sponsorship application? It doesn't disqualify the role, but it does mean the employer should be ready to explain the specific governance need the post serves, since the requirement can't simply be pointed to as a matter of law for a private company.
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