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SOC 7115 covers people who sell vehicles and vehicle parts, and advise customers on specification, finance and after-sales — and sponsoring this role hinges on whether the actual pay and duties clear the Skilled Worker bar, which many showroom sales positions do not.
Why sales roles are a higher-risk sponsorship category
Vehicle sales work often sits close to the skill-level line the route requires, and commission-heavy pay structures make salary assessment tricky. Only guaranteed basic salary counts towards the going rate comparison — bonuses, commission, and any discretionary payments must be stripped out before you compare the offer against the threshold, even if total on-target earnings look comfortably above it. Run the guaranteed-pay figure through the current going rate checks for 2026 before you commit to a Certificate of Sponsorship.
Many dealerships deliberately keep the contractual basic low because commission is expected to carry most of an experienced salesperson's earnings — that is a normal retail-motor pay model, but it is exactly why this occupation code sits higher on caseworker risk lists than most. If the guaranteed basic falls short of both the going rate for the occupation and the general salary floor, restructuring the payslip after the Certificate of Sponsorship has already been assigned does not fix it retrospectively; the assessment is made on what was offered and recorded at the point of assignment. Check the current baseline in our skilled worker salary floor guide alongside the occupation-specific going rate, since a role can clear one threshold and still fail the other.
Matching the job to the code
The Certificate of Sponsorship duties need to reflect genuine sales-and-advisory work — negotiating deals, advising on finance and part-exchange, specifying parts — rather than a general dealership floor or admin role relabelled to fit the code. Confirm the occupation is currently listed, and at what skill level, on the GOV.UK eligible occupations and codes list, since sales occupations move on and off the list more often than professional or managerial ones.
Distinguishing genuine advisory work from general retail duties
Not every job with 'sales' in the title fits comfortably under this code. A parts adviser who diagnoses compatibility issues, sources the correct part against a vehicle's specification and advises on fitting is doing recognisably skilled, technical work. A showroom assistant whose day is mostly greeting walk-ins, handling paperwork or restocking a parts counter is doing something closer to general retail, which is a different skill level entirely and a much weaker fit for this route. Finance and insurance (F&I) specialists sit in a similar grey area — some dealerships classify F&I managers under this code by default because they sit within the sales team, when the actual duties (structuring finance products, underwriting checks, compliance sign-off) may sit more naturally at a different, higher skill level. Get the job description checked against the real day-to-day duties before you assign a Certificate of Sponsorship, not after — a mismatch between what's on the CoS and what the worker actually does is one of the first things a compliance or enforcement visit will test.
The genuine vacancy test for showroom sales roles
Caseworkers assessing a sponsored vacancy in vehicle sales are looking for evidence that the role is a genuine, sustainable business need rather than a position shaped around bringing in a particular worker. That evidence trail includes the job advert as it was actually published, the job description used at interview, notes from the recruitment process, and how the offered pay compares with what existing staff doing the same job at the same site are paid. A newly created sales role with a job title and pay package that don't match anything else in the dealership's structure invites closer questioning. Keep the full recruitment paper trail somewhere retrievable rather than scattered across email threads — secure document management built for sponsor compliance makes this far easier to produce on request, and running a mock audit beforehand will surface any gaps in that trail while there's still time to fix them.
Ongoing duties once the worker is in post
Beyond the initial salary check, the standard sponsor compliance duties apply in full — reporting if the worker's pay drops, if duties change materially, or if they stop attending — and a franchise dealership adding or moving showroom locations should treat that as a reportable change of work address, not an internal HR footnote. If a sponsored sales adviser is later moved onto a warranty team, fleet sales, or a purely administrative desk, check whether the core nature of the job still matches what's on the Certificate of Sponsorship — if it doesn't, that's a reportable change and potentially grounds for a fresh CoS rather than a quiet internal transfer. These reports go through your Level 1 user via the Sponsor Management System, so it's worth confirming who holds that access and understands the reporting deadlines — see our guide to Level 1 users and key personnel. Set up automated reminders for these reporting deadlines, and keep right to work evidence current using the process in our 2026 share code guide.
FAQs
Does a car dealership need to raise basic pay if commission usually pushes earnings well above the threshold?
Yes, in most cases — the salary assessment for Skilled Worker sponsorship is built around guaranteed basic pay, so a low basic topped up by uncertain commission generally won't satisfy the going rate requirement on its own.
Can a part-time vehicle sales advisor be sponsored?
Only if the pro-rated guaranteed salary still meets both the going rate for the occupation and the general salary floor after adjusting for hours — check both thresholds, not just one.
Does a dealership group need a separate sponsor licence for each branch?
Usually no — one sponsor licence typically covers the whole organisation, but every site where sponsored workers are based has to be declared on the licence as a place of employment. Opening a new branch or moving a sponsored sales adviser to a site that isn't already on record is a reportable change, not something that can wait for the next renewal cycle.
What if a used-car and new-car sales team are paid on different structures?
Assess each sponsored role on its own guaranteed pay, not on a team-wide average. It's common for new-car and used-car sales to run on different basic-to-commission splits, so the same going-rate and salary-floor check needs to be run separately for each individual you intend to sponsor rather than applied uniformly across the sales floor.
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