Visa holders entering the UK under the Ukraine Humanitarian Schemes: 20 to 27 April 2022

Download this statistical bulletin in Ukrainian (PDF, 688KB).
Завантажити цей статистичний бюлетень українською мовою (PDF, 688KB).

• Data collected from 20 to 27 April 2022 show that 40% of respondents aged 18 years and over arrived in the UK from Ukraine three to four weeks before completing the survey; the majority were female (82%), and 4 in 10 (44%) were aged 30 to 49 years.

• Of respondents arriving from Ukraine, the majority (93%) live in England and 31% currently live in London.

• For 64% of respondents, the preferred language when accessing information in the UK was Ukrainian; around a third of respondents (34%) said they could speak a fair amount or are fluent in English.

• Almost half of respondents (48%) reported living with at least one dependent child; of those, the most commonly required education service was primary education (48%).

• When responding to the survey, nearly half (43%) said they have a bank or post office account in the UK; while 26% reported they have enough money to support themselves and their dependents for the next three months.

• A full Ukrainian translation of the results presented in this bulletin will be published in an accessible PDF shortly; early access to these full findings in Ukrainian is available by emailing Humanitarian.Response.Survey@ons.gov.uk.

Support for Ukrainians

The British Red Cross supports people from Ukraine who are in the UK. The Help for Ukrainian nationals page provides more information about services and support available.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has produced a guide for Ukrainians arriving in the UK.

In March 2022, the UK government launched two visa schemes to support those displaced by the conflict in Ukraine. These new schemes allow Ukrainian nationals and their family members to apply to stay in the UK for up to three years. The Ukraine Family Scheme allows Ukrainian nationals and their family members to join family members already residing in the UK. The Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme (Homes for Ukraine) allows Ukrainian nationals and their family members to come to the UK if they have a named sponsor who can provide accommodation.

The UK Humanitarian Response Insight Survey aims to understand the experiences and intentions of those arriving in the UK on both of these schemes. The data presented in this bulletin were collected from respondents (aged 18 years and over) who had been issued with a visa for one of the schemes, and who Home Office data indicated had arrived in the UK as of 19 April 2022. These data were collected from 20 to 27 April 2022. More information on the types of visa schemes and collecting the data can be found in the Glossary and Measuring the data sections.

The survey was compiled rapidly to inform the UK's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent evacuation of individuals fleeing Ukraine, and to aid local and national emergency response planning. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) conducted this survey in collaboration with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) and the Home Office.

The data collected from 20 to 27 April 2022 show that two in five respondents aged 18 years and over (40%) arrived in the UK three to four weeks before completing the survey, while 8% arrived less than a week before completing the survey. The majority of those arriving (82%) were female, while 44% were aged 30 to 49 years; the largest age group of those aged 18 years or above that have come to the UK, followed by those aged 50 to 69 years (25%).

Respondents were also asked about their preferred language for accessing information in the UK, and their English language proficiency. Ukrainian was the preferred language for about two-thirds of respondents (64%), while 28% reported English as their preferred language. Of respondents to the survey:

• just over a third said they are fluent in English or can speak a fair amount (34%)
• around two in five said they can read or understand a fair amount or most English (39%)
• around 3 in 10 said they can write a fair amount or most things in English (28%)

Current living arrangements and future intentions to stay in the UK

The majority of respondents (93%) who have arrived from Ukraine live in England, while 5% live in Scotland and 2% in Wales. Almost a third (31%) live in London, and outside of London most respondents (18%) live in the South East of England. Over two-thirds (69%) would prefer to live in urban areas, with 36% reporting London as the place they would most like to live. However, approximately a quarter of respondents (26%) did not know what area of the UK they would most like to live.

Overall, a third (33%) of respondents said they intend to stay in the UK for three years or more, while 30% said they intend to stay for up to three years and 31% did not know.

Respondents were asked about their current living arrangements. A third of respondents (33%) reported being the only person in their household who has arrived from Ukraine since 1 March 2022. Over a third (35%) live with one other person who also arrived from Ukraine, while around 3 in 10 respondents (31%) live with two or more other arrivals. Other than the people they live with, half of respondents (50%) said they have family, friends, or contacts in the UK.

Nearly half of respondents (48%) reported living with at least one dependent child, with 17% living with one or more dependent adults. Of those with at least one dependent child, 48% have at least one child requiring a primary school education service, while 38% have at least one child requiring a secondary school education.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents (63%) who arrived with others reported living with at least one son or daughter, while 34% reported living with a spouse or partner who has also arrived from Ukraine. Around 3 in 10 respondents (30%) expect other family members or friends to come to the UK in the future, while 37% said they did not expect any others to join them in the UK.

Around half of respondents (51%) reported having their current living arrangements paid for by a sponsor or charity, while 9% of respondents reported paying for their current living arrangements themselves.

Health and well-being

When asked about their health, the majority of respondents said their overall physical health and overall mental health was good or very good (77% and 76%, respectively). This is comparable with the UK average overall health status. In 2019 to 2020, the majority of the UK population (75.3% of men and 75.7% of women) reported their health was generally good or very good, as shown in our UK health indicators bulletin.

Nearly one in five respondents (17%) reported having a long lasting physical or mental health condition or illness lasting or expected to last 12 months or more. This was most common for respondents aged 70 years and over (44%). Nearly four in five respondents (79%) said they had received at least one dose of the coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine.

It is important to note that the majority of respondents (77%) had been in the UK for one to four weeks (Figure 1) before completing the survey; this should be considered when interpreting the following statistics.

Before leaving Ukraine, around a third of respondents (34%) were receiving regular healthcare treatment (for example, hospital visits or physiotherapy). Of those, 24% said this treatment had continued since arriving in the UK. Similarly, nearly 3 in 10 respondents (28%) reported receiving regular prescriptions for medication or drugs while in Ukraine. Of those, 32% said they have been able to access regular prescriptions and drugs since arriving in the UK.

Employment and labour market

Respondents were asked about their employment status when they lived in Ukraine and two thirds (67%) reported they were either employed or self-employed. Around two in five respondents (43%) have a bank or post office account in the UK. Around a quarter (26%) of respondents said they have enough money to support themselves and their dependants for the next three months.

Respondents were also asked how likely they were to look for work in the UK in the next month (Figure 6).

Respondents were asked what kind of work they would look for; they could select multiple options. While 11% are already working in the UK (Figure 6), of those under UK State Pension age expecting to look for work in the next month, 62% reported they would look for full-time work and 52% said they would look for part-time work.

Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme

The Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme (Homes for Ukraine) allows Ukrainian nationals and their family members to come to the UK if they have a named sponsor (in Wales and Scotland this includes those sponsored directly by the Welsh Government or Scottish Government). 

Ukraine Family Scheme

The Ukraine Family Scheme allows applicants to join family members or extend their stay in the UK.

Survey estimates

The data were collected between 20 and 27 April 2022. All adults (aged 18 years and over) who had been granted a visa under the Ukraine Family Scheme or Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme (Homes for Ukraine) and had arrived in the UK by 19 April 2022 were invited to take part in the survey via email.

In many cases, groups of applicants (for example, families) had used a single email address on multiple visa applications. Only one invitation was sent to each email address. This means that, where applications shared an email address, only one individual would be able to respond to the survey. This introduces bias in the results. The achieved sample consisted of 3,412 respondents. The response rate for this survey was 28%.

Percentages in this bulletin are based on weighted counts that are representative of the population of Ukraine Humanitarian Scheme visa holders who arrived in the UK prior to 19 April 2022. They are adjusted to address age, sex, and scheme bias in response. As with all surveys, these estimates have an associated margin of error.

The survey was conducted online via Smart Survey. Individuals were sent an email with a unique access code (UAC) inviting them to complete the survey, and all answers were self-reported. The survey was available in English and Ukrainian. Approximately 15% of respondents reported having had help completing the survey. For those that required support to complete the survey online or needed translation, telephone interviewers were available.

The statistics presented in this bulletin are Experimental Statistics and contain uncertainty; therefore, care needs to be taken when interpreting them.

The main strengths of the Humanitarian Response Insight Survey include:

• timely production of data and statistics that can respond quickly to changing circumstances, aiding local and national emergency response planning

• quality assurance procedures are undertaken throughout the analysis stages to minimise the risk of error

• confidence intervals are available in the associated datasets as an assessment of quality

The main limitations of the Humanitarian Response Insight Survey include:

• the time for data collection was limited to ensure timely production of estimates limiting the period respondents could take part, potentially causing bias

• the survey and supporting material were available in English and Ukrainian, but not translated to Russian; it was completed online and while telephone interviews could be conducted in another language upon request, lack of translation or internet accessibility may have been a barrier for people who did not respond

• the survey was designed in a relatively simple way to encourage response, meaning that not all areas of interest could be covered in depth

• response was dependent on the visa holder being contacted via email and in some cases email addresses were not supplied for each individual

The UK Humanitarian Response Insight Survey was the first time the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has collected data of arrivals in the UK under humanitarian schemes. We are currently scoping out future waves of this survey. We are exploring ways of improving our collection mechanisms and approach to ensure valuable data on arrivals via Ukraine humanitarian schemes are available to support the local and national response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

As part of ONS’ commitments to inclusive data, we are also exploring new studies linking Home Office data with other administrative data sources to help better understand the socio-economic outcomes of refugees from any background or nationality.

Having these data will ultimately help inform local authority, government, charities and other organisations with resource allocation for these vulnerable populations as well as the potential to increase public awareness of societal issues.