'Four in five' seasonal UK fruit pickers now from Central Asia
The counties sending the most temporary workers are Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan
The counties sending the most temporary workers are Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan.
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The majority of fruit picking on Britain's farms is done by seasonal workers from Central Asia. Central Asians accounted for 78.5 per cent of all UK Seasonal Worker visas issued in 2025, compared to 7.6 percent in 2021.The counties sending the most temporary workers are Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan.The uptick in the Central Asian workforce has followed a collapse in the number of Ukrainian seasonal workers following the 2022 Russian invasion.The country sent 19,900 seasonal workers in 2021, but by 2025 this had fallen to 530.Read more: Asylum claims each cost the taxpayer £18.7k, according to latest Home Office figuresRead more: Asylum seekers to be moved onto more barracks as Labour ramps up attempts to close migrant hotels
Arable Land Rows In Herefordshire.
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Getty
It has also coincided with a pushback in Russia against Central Asian labour. Since last January, the country has only permitted migrants without a visa to stay in the country for 90 days each year. The British visa isn't significantly more generous; it offers no path to permanent settlement, no dependants, and only allows for six months of work within a 10-month period. And the number remains comparatively low overall: Britain still only issues less than 40,000 six-month visas a year, compared with the millions of Central Asians working in Russia.
In 2025, Kyrgyzstan, the country with the smallest population of the four source countries, was issued 12,650. More populous Uzbekistan received 6,307, followed by Kazakhstan (5,767) and Tajikistan (5,712).Almost all applications are granted, with an approval rate of around 99 per cent.Asylum applications from the four countries have climbed at the same time from a few dozen in 2020 to around two thousand in 2023.
