Following Brexit and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Central Asian labour migrants have played a key role in addressing UK agricultural labour shortages. In 2024, workers from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan accounted for nearly 80% of seasonal worker visas issued (27,759 out of 35,561), yet job scams are proliferating despite official oversight. This blog investigates the rise of these fraudulent schemes, drawing on survey data and qualitative interviews collected by the UK team for the PRIME Project. We conducted 55 interviews with migrant workers, 32 with employers, and 22 with policymakers across four sectors of the economy: restaurants, agriculture and food processing, older adult care, and waste management and recycling. The analysis will focus on the broader Central Asian context but will draw primarily on interview data from Kyrgyz migrant agricultural workers and those involved in their recruitment.

The post-Brexit Seasonal Worker visa in the UK

To address post-Brexit labour shortages, the UK introduced the current Seasonal Agricultural Worker Visa Scheme in 2019. The Visa holders on this route can spend up to six months in the UK working for a named employer in the horticulture or poultry sectors with no right to be joined by dependents and no route to settlement.  The scheme is restricted to a quota of 45,000 places in horticulture and 2,500 in poultry. Six scheme operators were licensed to recruit seasonal workers for horticulture in 2024: Pro-Force, Concordia, Fruitful Jobs, HOPS, Agri-HR, and Ethero, with two for poultry: Pro-Force and RE Recruitment. Central Asian applicants are required to complete online registration, a Russian language test (which is necessary to communicate with the site manager, who is usually a Russian speaker and plays an intermediary role between the workforce and the UK farm management) and an interview. This scheme is also regulated by the sending countries, and ministries in Central Asia reassure applicants that they cooperate exclusively with government-authorised partners.

One of the interviewees from Kyrgyzstan, a former English teacher, arrived in the country as a farm worker through Pro-Force, one of the official operators, and says: ‘”This organisation recruits people for seasonal work in the UK, in cooperation with the Ministry of Labour. All the information is posted on government websites, so we trusted them, and we had no worries about the work…The agency told us not to pay attention to the adverts about applying for a visa because many thieves can pretend to be legitimate agencies. They can take money and not help with the visa”, (Zhenya, female interviewee in her early 30s).

However, the logistics are challenged by the scheme’s popularity. As quoted in the news outlet Vzglyad, Uz Azizjon Khusanbov, a civil servant in the Uzbek Migration Agency, explains that it requires no English skills or professional qualifications but offers salaries several times higher than those available locally. One of the interviewees from Kyrgyzstan, a mother of two with a degree in accounting and economics, decided to apply for seasonal work to support her family. She confirmed this, stating, ‘(…) In Kyrgyzstan, in a month you can earn a maximum of 30,000 Kyrgyz Som (approx. £265 GBP).’

Applications overload and the rise of job scams

When the Migration Agency, the government body responsible for managing migration and work permits in Uzbekistan, and the British Recruitment Company HOPS opened registration for Uzbek citizens on January 10th, 2025, over 3 million people applied, causing the website to crash. In response, HOPS cancelled all applications, citing interference by third parties in the registration process, and pledged to relaunch the project to ensure equity and transparency.

Similar challenges were reported in 2024. As another respondent from PRIME Project interviews, Bermet, a Kyrgz farm worker in her late 20s, noted: “After all, the questionnaire at the first stage had to be completed in one minute, and during this time, more than 100,000 people tried to fill out the questionnaire. Only 26,000 registered for the next stage. That is, it was like a lottery for those who managed to apply in time and get to the second stage’. This observation was further confirmed by another respondent, Zhenya: “It’s not easy, as the registration link opens for one hour, and you have to make it on time, with thousands and even millions of people unable to secure a job”.

PRIME interviewees were fortunate enough to secure a spot, but competition and scarcity drive individuals to ignore cautionary advice from officials and seek alternative options online. With digitalisation transforming the job-seeking process, web-based tools for advertising vacancies and social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and X (former Twitter) are gaining popularity. The owner of one of the five labour providers contracted to operate the Seasonal Agricultural Visa scheme in horticulturere marked in an interview with the PRIME Project that “(… ) social media platforms are widely used to connect with prospective seasonal workers, and positive feedback from past workers on these platforms often gives potential applicants confidence in the recruitment process.”

Digital literacy and vulnerability in the search for seasonal jobs

Using social media for job searching has made it easier to find work, but it has also increased the risk of encountering scammers who present themselves as government-affiliated or licensed agencies and exploit applicants’ lack of knowledge about official procedure.

Many victims across Central Asia have fallen for scams. Several people told the local news outlet FinRatings that they responded to social-media advertisements offering seasonal work in the UK, took out loans to pay agencies that promised high-paying strawberry-picking jobs, and were then left without the assured employment. Authorities registered over 25 formal complaints in Almaty, Kazakhstan, but victims contend that the actual numbers may exceed 200. Similar cases have been observed in Uzbekistan, where a group of fraudsters was exposed for deceiving unsuspecting people out of nearly $50,000, and in Kyrgyzstan, where more than 150 people paid $1600 each to private companies. In Tajikistan, authorities also arrested the director of the private firm Arsa, who allegedly collected 22,000–25,000 somoni from applicants for non-existent jobs in the UK and misappropriated over 550,000 somoni. These examples represent only a portion of the incidents reported across the region.

According to this 2025 study, one explanation for why people are prone to fraud is that digital transformation has been relatively late in Central Asia compared to other regions of the world. This has resulted in unequal access to digital skills and limited capacity for individuals to critically evaluate digital content. These findings are further supported by the research of Zadotin et al., which notes that digital literacy awareness in parts of Central Asia is as low as 25-27% (notably in Tajikistan), while in Kazakhstan it reaches roughly 68%, still below the global average. Without these skills, users are often unable to distinguish genuine job offers from fraudulent ones, especially when those scams mimic legitimate platforms or use persuasive language. In this context, many applicants are not cautious enough, making them less likely to verify recruitment offers or detect the scammers’ emotional manipulations.

Migration strategies

To mitigate these risks and make labour migration fairer and safer, we need to address the gap between digital transformation and ethical recruitment through actionable policies. First, UK scheme operators and partner sending-country governments should mandate an independently audited randomised ballot system, replacing first-come-first-served registration. This would reduce the ‘race to register’ and ensure the scheme does not favour those with faster internet or better devices. Furthermore, sending-country governments should reduce digital exclusion by establishing officially accredited regional recruitment centres in major cities. These would help people to submit applications offline and provide community-based workshops on safe browsing, identifying job scams, and understanding official recruitment pathways.

Understanding the vulnerabilities faced by Central Asian seasonal workers before they arrive in the UK is essential to designing a policy strategy that will ensure an equitable registration process. Implementing a randomised ballot and community-based support are the first critical steps in building the institutional trust, legitimacy, and fairness that current digital systems lack.