Right to work checks for contractors, students and more: Your questions answered

Volunteers, agency workers, consultants, students, contractors - are there different requirements to consider when conducting right to work checks for different worker types?

Here, Annabel Mace and May Cheung, from Squire Patton Boggs' business immigration team, answer your questions.

1. Can a student work in a permanent role full time (more than 20 hours per week) at the end of their course?

No, a Student visa holder cannot work in a role that fills a full-time permanent vacancy unless they have completed their studies and applied either for a Graduate or a role but the employer must ask for additional documents to confirm their course end date or holiday/term dates.

If the student is still studying, then proof of term times from the university is required for the period of employment to obtain a statutory excuse. If the university letter or screen shot from the university website only covers the last academic year, then further proof is needed for the new academic year. A university letter is better proof than generic information from a university website as it confirms the student's details and their enrolment with the institution.

2. Are we required to conduct right to work checks for consultants/contractors who engage with us as an individual or through a personal service company (PSC)? Does this extend to subcontractors who are employed by a third party?

At present, right to work checks are only required if the contractor is sponsored by the business on a Skilled worker visa. For other contractors (assuming they are genuinely not employed), the Home Office's employer's guide to right to work checks only strongly encourages employers to check that their contractors and labour providers carry out right to work checks on people they employ, engage or supply in accordance with the guidance, or to carry out the checks themselves, including for anyone subcontracted to perform the work on their behalf.

The Government has published draft legislation that will extend the scope of right to work checks to include anyone engaged by a business:

• under a worker's contract to do or perform work or services personally for the business or on behalf of the business for a third party (this excludes where the business is either a client or a customer of the worker's profession or business);
• as an individual subcontractor, eg to provide work or services to a third party under a contract with that third party where the individual subcontractor is not a party to that contract; or
• as an individual service provider whose details are provided by your business to your potential clients or customers as part of your online matching service.

The Government has said that it will consult on this before it is implemented. We do not therefore expect it to come into force before spring 2026 at the earliest.

3. If we hire agency workers through our managed service provider (MSP), will the proposal extending the scope of right to work checks (see question 2, above) require us to carry out a right to work check in addition to the one the agency has already done? Before the contract starts we get our agencies to complete and sign a pro forma that confirms they have carried out the right to work checks - is this sufficient?

Under the draft legislation for the proposal to expand the illegal working regime, it appears that an agency or MSP providing staff to an end user would continue to be responsible for carrying out right to work checks (rather than the end user). However, this is out of kilter with the Government's impact assessment issued prior to the draft legislation and the Home Office's current guidance, which implies that businesses should take greater responsibility for any staff working within their organisation (however they might be engaged). It's possible therefore that the current draft of the legislation could be expanded in scope prior to, or as a result of the consultation.

For now, requiring your agencies to complete and sign a pro forma confirming they have carried out the right to work checks is sufficient (on the basis that you as the end user would only be liable if the workers were considered to be your employees). However, you may be required to take further steps to ensure the agency has done adequate checks (or do those checks yourself) depending on the final legislation and relevant Home Office guidance once it is published.

4. How does the proposed legislation extending the scope of right to work checks (see question 2, above) affect volunteers? Do we also need to think about right to work checks for the likes of student placements, volunteers and people who do work experience?

The proposals have not suggested changes to checks for volunteers as this is already covered under the current guidance. Volunteers are defined as those who give their time for free to charitable or public sector organisations, willingly without compensation and any contractual obligation or entitlement, so are not regarded as working. Hence usually no right to work checks are required. An individual is generally understood to be a genuine volunteer (and not an employee or worker) if there is no intention of creating legal relations, ie there is no contractual relationship, and they are not obliged to work and are unpaid (except some limited expenses).

Voluntary workers have a contractual obligation to personally perform work or provide services and carry out specific tasks which could amount to employment, in which case checks are already required under the current legislation. As the new legislation will apply to workers, it is likely that those carrying out student placements or work experience could be captured. In any event, we already strongly recommend carrying out right to work checks on those undertaking work experience or student placements because, under the Immigration Rules, visitors to the UK are expressly prohibited from undertaking work experience without a work visa (even if they are unpaid).

5. Where we have an employee who has changed to a Skilled Worker visa during their employment with us and is now employed on the supplementary work basis, how quickly do we need to obtain evidence of their sponsor and continuous employment? Do we need consent to contact the employee's sponsor for the documents, considering this is needed for evidencing their eligibility to work for us as a supplementary employer?

As soon as the employer is aware that the employee's visa conditions have changed, it must comply with the restrictions, eg reduce the hours of work per week, and request additional documents from the employee to show details of their sponsorship and employment with their sponsor. Care should be taken to check when the individual was first granted a Skilled Worker visa and the rules that apply to them, because those who have switched to the Skilled Worker category since 22 July 2025, for example, can only carry out supplementary work for roles skilled at Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF) level 6.

Employers should seek consent from employees before contacting their sponsors, or request the documents through the employee. If the employee refuses to provide consent or the additional documents, they will be unable to prove their right to work in the UK and appropriate steps should be taken to terminate their employment.