Interactive Monitor

Seasonal workers make up  36.4% of the salaried workforce and 13.9% of the total workers in the UK farming. Estimates from the British Growers Association from their own survey Annual Labour Force Survey suggests a slightly higher demand for seasonal workers of 75,000 in horticulture was hired in 2016. Historically DEFRA June survey and similar surveys in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland did not collect data on nationality of residence of the workforce. However, the National Farmers Union survey administered monthly shows that 1 % of the workforce is UK citizens with 99% of those recruited through labour providers or an agency are migrants and in particular EU migrants. Two thirds of these are A2 nationals, Romanian and Bulgarians, and one third are A8 nationals (Polish, Slovak, Czech, Lithuanian Latvian, Slovenian, Estonian and Hungarian citizens). The different estimates of 64,200 (DEFRA) and 75000 (BGA) are not necessarily incompatible as DEFRA survey collects data at a set point in time (JUNE) whereas GBA reference the 12 month period.

UK public seems less opposed to seasonal migrant workers (22% want a decrease), compared to the general category of low-skilled workers, either from the EU (49% want a decrease) or non-EU overseas workers (51% want a decrease). Data from two points in time before (January 2020) and after (May 2020) the onset of the pandemic suggest that the support for seasonal workers seem to have increased slightly.

Source: Pollster ICM Unlimited. Funder: British Future. N=2305 for January, n=2043 for May. See details here. Questions asked: ‘Policies on immigration often affect specific groups of people coming to live in the UK. For each of the following groups, please tell us whether you would prefer the number of people coming to live in the UK to increase, decrease, or remain about the same?’

The seasonal worker visa is the UK’s only sector-based visa scheme. It was reintroduced in 2019 as a Pilot when it made available 2,500 visas, expanded in 2020 to 10,000 and further expanded in 2021 to 30,000 visas. In 2019, the top nationalities under Tier 5 seasonal workers are from Ukraine. In 2020, the trend from the previous year in confirmed with 87% of the visas going to Ukrainian nationals followed by Moldavians (3.9%) Belarussians (2,8%) Russians (2,6%) and Georgians (2,4%). Other nationalities are also represented but they have only less than 20 workers. 

It is important to mention that pandemic had a significant impact  in 2020, when not all visas were used. Home Office data shows that out of the 10,000 visas made available, 72% of the them were used and 7,278 migrants arrived in the UK for seasonal work. 18% of the visas were left unused due to the closure of consular activity in UK and internationally in the spring 2020, a lockdown which restricted the ability to apply and process visas. 

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/managed-migration-datasets