Question for Polish people working in UK?

The following questions are to help a Polish friend of mine, who would like to come and work in the UK...hopefully someone who has come from Poland, and working here will answer. Will he need to get a work permit or visa?, and will he have to apply for a National Insurance number , before he can start working here?

Any help from your experiences would be much appreciated as I can't seem to find these answers anywhere online.

Im not polish .. but i know that he will need to register with the Home Office to get his WRS ... Workers Registeration Scheme papers

workpermit.com/uk/worker_registration_scheme

your best point of contact would be the polish embassy for your query have you tried contacting them they will advise?

britishcouncil.org/poland-sitemap.htm that might help

i will try and find some more info for you

nope, just flight/coach ticket. no work permit or visa required.


he can ring the national insurance office (or something like that, check in the yellow pages or google it) and arrange an interview, in the meantime he might request a temporary insurance number to provide for his employer untill he gets a proper one, he will need to tell them his year of birth. he will need his passport for the interview. how's his English? if its not good they will get him a translator present at the interview for the nat. ins. no. he will also need to inform them about his address in uk.

edit: under no circumstainces should he work for someone without a national insurance number. they will most probably tell him on his pay day that they cant pay him cos he hasnt got one and its 'illegal'. a lot of Poles and other immigrants get messed about like this. they are happy for you to work, but wont pay you.

many thanks telefonitika and Justysia for the info...this has helped alot.

Bloody shame if you ask me. It should be like Australia with a strict points system. With the opening up of Eastern Europe, its the worst thing ever to happen to this small island of ours.

Yeah, and not before cleaning it out of bloody whining Soviets.

Hi Michal

I am curious - what do you see as wrong with the EU expansion?

My view is that the Poles go where the work is, if loads of them have gone to the UK then obviously there is/was a demand there for workers and that helps the British economy at the end of the day. Also all these people living there are paying rent, consuming beer and spending money, again helping the economy.

I personally am glad the EU has expanded. This makes trade between EU countries easier - again this benefits Britain. As a Brit myself it has also made life a lot easier for me to 'go the other way' and emigrate to Poland.

I certainly would never 'go the other way' as you put it and emigrate to Poland. Also, I am totally against the E.U. let alone the whole concept of expansion. The only true beneficiaries of the E.U. are the middle class because the own the means of production. The Polish migrant workers help to keep labour rates down. They only want to work and earn money, which they can then send home to Poland to their families. Wages are therefore kept low, there is no national need to recognize a trade union nor to pay sick pay or holiday entitlements. It is the working class low paid service sector, which really has it tough always through the history of man's struggles of oppression. With the collapse of Communism and the Soviet Empire, there is no alternative to the World's strongest religion, Capitalism. The Poles are just being used at the British workers expense. Another thing. The Poles were happy under Soveit communism and complained about Britain and its role in World War Two. Why complicate the Poles simple understanding of World history?

What the f.ck are you babbling about ? Who was happy ? Why the hell Poland was the first country to overthrow communism then ?

He is babbling because

Poland was not the first country to 'overthrow' communism. If anything it was Hungry that first 'overthrew' Communism.

your theories are phatetic ...

In need of a serious lunch?


Peripatetic? Periscopic? Philatelic? Or just pa-flipping-thetic?

I second that. Discussion with you Misza is a waste of time.

It is a well known point that the Hungarian Authorities cut the border wires between them and Austria and East Germans crossed the border. This was the true beginning of the end for Eastern European Communism. Lech Wałęsa was just an historical characture, who in England would not even have qualified as a sweat counter assistant in Wolworths!