Jadwiga Gałka

When Poland entered the European Union in 2004, the ethnic composition of Great Britain experienced a rather sudden change. The large number of immigrants from Poland made Polish immigrants a key ethnic group in Great Britain within a few years after enlargement Poland to the European Union.The purpose of the paper is to describe the principal areas of concentration of Polish immigrants in Great Britain as well as to describe the key factors determining the distribution of Polish immigrants. The paper is based on data obtained from British population registries and survey data collected in London in 2010. Research has shown that most Polish immigrants have settled in major cities, with London being the main concentration area. The main reason for this distribution is the presence of migration networks in major cities and more job opportunities as well.

The post-EU-entry emigration of Poles was one of the most important events in Polish history. In addition to traditional patterns of international mobility, a completely new direction for Polish emigrants became Ireland and the UK. Post-EU-entry emigration from Central and Eastern Europe (mainly from Poland) was one of the main factors shaping the image and ethnic structure of contemporary Great Britain. Not surprisingly, it has been recognized as one of the most important events in the migration history of Great Britain. The purpose of this paper is to examine the scale of Polish immigration to the UK in light of British statistical sources. The paper attempts to show not only a change in migrant flow, but also provides the demographic and social characteristics of this group of people and its spatial distribution. In addition, the paper describes the principal UK sources of information on the scale of post-EU-entry migration.