Nobody knows yet what will happen in six months time, but your goal as hosts should be to encourage your guests to live independently within six months (see also our What Happens After Six Months? page). We have some advice towards this end:
1. National Insurance No., BRP, & Universal Credit
A NINo and BRP are crucial for your guests to be able to live independently. Prioritise applying for these; we have advice on another page for this.
Universal Credit (UC) is a short/medium-term solution to your guests' financial needs. Advice on applying for this is on the page linked to above.
2. Finding a Job
Many of your guests will have had careers before fleeing Ukraine. If you are able to help them find a commensurate job, that would be great! Use your contact lists! And ask around via our WhatsApp groups. Else, you may want to encourage them to take up another job, even as a temporary measure.
See also Convert Qualifications/Retrain below.
3. Financial Independence
Related to the above, you will want to encourage financial independence. There are practical various ways to do this on the spending side. (UC and a job being about the income side). You could set your guests up with an Amazon account, as well as one for supermarket deliveries (e.g., Ocado, Sainsbury). You will have to set your guests' expectations about costs of living. If they are receiving income in Pound Sterling (e.g., from UC or a job), this will be quite straightforward: it is just a matter of explaining how far e.g., £500 gets them. If they are receiving income in Ukrainian Hryvnia, we think that their income is roughly only one-third of what it would be in Ukraine, in real terms. The UK is an expensive place to live. Your guests need to know this.
4. Language Skills
For most jobs, English is going to be essential. Please see our Social and Language page about this.
5. Convert Qualifications/Retrain
Some of your guests may have Ukrainian qualifications that can be converted to UK qualifications, sometimes with a small conversion fee. Others may need to retrain, either in the same field or in a different field.
All individuals—including Ukrainian refugees—on Universal Credit are eligible for (a) qualification conversion costs to be covered, and (b) some free (re)training courses. There are Adult Education Funds for these.
For more information, please speak to or visit a JobCentre, or contact the relevant office of your local authority, e.g., West Sussex County Council.
6. Practical Independence
This subject heading covers a lot of ground, but the two most salient issues in our experience are (a) transport, and (b) childcare. Frankly, these are challenging matters.
Re: transport, in the short term, they will rely on public transport, you, and your own social network. (See note below on Ukrainians driving in the UK.)
In West Sussex, Metro, Stagecoach, and Compass have offered free travel for the first twelve weeks. To apply for this send an email to ukrainesupport@westsussex.gov.uk with the subject line of ‘Free Bus Travel’, giving the full names of those who require a bus pass, the address in the UK and which bus company the application is for (this will depend on your location): they will forward the information to the company.
We also strongly encourage that you surround yourself with people willing to help practically with things like transport. Your village/town may have a community WhatsApp or Facebook (etc.) group. These tend to be very helpful. If your village/town does not have such a thing, consider starting one. It will end up being much more than a network for helping your Ukrainian guests. If you would like advice on this, contact 07799271913.
In the long term, you will want to helping your Ukrainian guests to buy a car. There is a financial element to this, of course; but buying a car in a new country is a tricky proposition. Your guests will not be familiar with how buying a car works in the UK: you should help them with this practical matter too. Again, your network—including the people you've met through us—should be helpful here. We are not yet in a financial position to help with that side of things. A safe and decent secondhand car can usually be bought of £1000-2000.
If you guest has a Ukrainian driver's license, they will be allowed to driver here for 12 months from the issue date of their visa. However, they will only be allowed to drive automatic transmission cars if this is what their Ukrainian license stipulates; and after 12 months, they will need to resit a UK driving test. It is also not uncommon for Ukrainians to be out of practice driving manual transmission cars, even if their licences are for such cars.
Re: childcare, this will be a real issue when your guests start working; this is especially so if they have small children and during the school vacation. Childcare is incredibly expensive in the UK. We do not recommend that you volunteer very much as a babysitter. However, you might help your guest find a suitable childcare solution, e.g., via your social network, by finding out about local playschools.
7. Local knowledge
For your guests to integrate successfully, there is a lot they will need to learn about living in the UK, and especially in your local area. This is likely knowledge that you now take for granted, unless you have also just moved here from another country.
A lot of the important local knowledge has to do with social norms. We have different taboos, and different notions of political correctness. You will want to have conversations with your guests about these. [Pro-tip: When one of us—Jonathan—first arrived, he found Kate Fox's book Watching the English very illuminating.] We have found that norms around children come up often. You may also find that your guests express social views that are contrary to your own: this is to be handled with care.
Another large topic area is anything to do with money, and especially how much things cost. They will soon learn about the price of food and transport, but the price of power and housing, for example, may be opaque to them while they are staying with you. It is important for them to know about this. It is worth knowing that the median disposable (i.e., post-tax) household income in the UK is £31,400; the average household size here is 2.4 [figures from the Office of National Statistics]. These figures obviously cary depending on where you are, as do cost-of-living figures, and especially rent.