Proportion of Ukrainians in UK employment rises by 42%

The proportion of Ukrainians nationals employed in the UK has increased significantly since the government launched its resettlement scheme for refugees of the war against Russia, official figures show.

Some 42 per cent of Ukrainians living in Britain had secured work as of 4 August, up from 9 per cent in April, according to the Humanitarian Response Insight Survey (UKHRIS) conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The majority of those employed (63 per cent) said they had a permanent job, with one-quarter having a temporary job. The most common sectors of work were accommodation or food service (29 per cent), manufacturing (8 per cent), and wholesale and retail trade (8 per cent), with 28 per cent reporting “other”.

Some 37 per cent of respondents said they had enough money to support themselves for the next three months, up from 26 per cent in April.

Last month, the government announced that 100,000 people from Ukraine had arrived in the UK under the Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine Scheme — both of which were launched in March following Russia’s invasion.

These schemes allow Ukrainian nationals and their family members to apply to live and work in the UK for up to three years.

Since April, the ONS has been surveying Ukrainian refugees to understand and track their experiences in Britain.

The first UKHRIS in April sampled 3,412 individuals, with the majority entering the UK under the Ukraine Family Scheme. Most respondents had arrived between one and four weeks before completing the survey.

The latest UKHRIS follows up on 1,132 individuals who agreed to be contacted after the first survey. Data was collected from 20 July to 4 August 2022.

The survey shows that 93 per cent of Ukrainian nationals who had arrived in the UK and taken part in our April survey had remained in the UK, with 7 per cent having since left.

Almost half (47 per cent) of respondents had experienced some barriers to being able to take up work in the UK; the most common was English language skills not meeting the job requirements (58 per cent).

Of those with a qualification gained outside of the UK, 43 per cent indicated that UK employers had generally not recognised their qualifications when applying for jobs.