Poles see UK as smart business move

Poles see UK as smart business move
By Ben Richardson
Business reporter, BBC News

Polish building supplies

As an Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) report into immigration shows that financial and job pressures are the main reasons for Poles moving to the UK, BBC News talks to businesses hoping to make it big in Britain.

In the midst of a west London industrial estate, surrounded by South Asian clothing makers, truck dealers and Lebanese cafes, a Polish builder is putting down the foundations for a business he hopes will spread across the UK.

Jacek Ambrozy runs IBB Polish Building Wholesale, and is a supplier of construction materials that he buys from Poland and sells to the many hundreds of his countrymen based in the UK.

A builder for more than two decades in Poland, Mr Ambrozy had no intention of setting up a business in the UK, but came to London to keep an eye on his daughters who are studying in the city.

Arriving in 2006, he found that Polish builders were longing for the materials they had used back home, and struggling to find something in the UK that they liked as much.

"People get used to one thing and they want that," he explains over a mug of black tea and a biscuit.

"It's like food - they understand how the materials work, how to mix them, how to use them."

While he may not have come expecting to work in London, Mr Ambrozy is clear about why Poles in particular move to the UK.

"Salaries are why they come here," he says.

"When I first came here the exchange rate was about six to one. So, in the simplest terms, I could earn £1,000 at home or I could make £6,000 in the UK for the same amount of work."

Everything changes

Mention that he was looking for an easier life, and Mr Ambrozy bristles beneath his moustache.

"Don't misunderstand me, it was not that I don't like working, or that I don't want to work," he explains. "It was that you could not work.

"It was getting harder and harder to do the job. In those days, people were hot for money, and if you did not have an honest and loyal developer, you would end up not getting paid.

"In the UK, you don't have this problem."

"I am 50 next year, and if I want to stop doing what I am doing, I need to be clever"
Jacek Ambrozy

Before leaving Poland, Mr Ambrozy had made a change that meant he was well prepared for setting up in the UK - he had put down his building tools and picked up a computer mouse instead.

"Everything was changing, so I decided to change my job," he says, explaining with evident pride how he started selling building materials online.

"It was something different, we were working with our brains and not just our elbows."

By the time Mr Ambrozy moved to the UK, he had 23,000 registered customers in Poland.

Take up has been slower in the UK, and his London-based online supplies business, started in 2006, has some 800 registered users today.

However, he is optimistic that this will pick up, and is already seeing orders from UK builders and customers who have been impressed with the products their Polish counterparts have been using.

Rather than rein in spending, Mr Ambrozy has started to publish a magazine that tells Polish builders what to expect when working in the UK, shedding light on confusing issues such as parking regulations and the intricacies of pay-and-display.

'Constantly growing'

Mr Ambrozy is not alone in seeing that there might be a money to be made helping fellow foreigners in London. Polish business magazine Metropolia is also looking to dispense advice and service an immigrant population that is branching out after settling in the UK.

Metropolia webpage

"We have noticed a growing interest amongst Poles in establishing a business, be it self-employment or as a limited company," says Agnes Gradzewicz from the magazine's Marble Arch offices.

"Establishing a company, as well as registration for self-employment, is much easier in the UK than in Poland.

"These days we have roughly three to four calls daily asking for advice on setting up new businesses. The number has grown dramatically compared to the three calls a week we got at the beginning of 2007."

Ms Gradzewicz says that the most common business ideas for Poles were building services, Polish goods shops, IT & design, hairdressing and beauty salons, and financial services providers.

She adds that 40,000 Polish companies were established in the UK during 2007, "and the number is constantly growing".

Clever thinking

But while many Poles find success in the UK, for others it is a harder slog than it was back home.

Wroclaw, Poland

And with the pound dropping in value against the Polish zloty, the attraction of our green but foreign land may be on the wane.

"You ask people of different generations which country they prefer and they will give you different answers," Mr Ambrozy says, adding that his wife and son are soon to join him in the UK after two years of living apart.

"If you ask my daughters then they will tell you that here is better. If you ask me, I will say Poland.

"But I am 50 next year, and if I want to stop doing what I am doing, I need to be clever."

For Mr Ambrozy and many other Poles, despite the hardship of leaving their loved ones behind, moving to the UK is still the smartest way to get ahead.