Ukraine is in a challenging situation with war and continuous threat to life for Ukrainians. Also work and the prospect of work is affected by the situation.
But Ukraine is an important source of talent. A lot of technical talent in particular comes from Ukraine.
Some of them are still living in Ukraine and others left the country and are now building up a life elsewhere.
Ukraine is home to more than 300,000 IT specialists, and the sector kept growing through the war. IT exports reached roughly $8.2 billion in 2025, and an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 tech graduates enter the market every year - Nortal.
Ukrainian refugees can be a great addition to your team and an extra benefit is that you help a group of people who are going through tough times with a great job and better (financial) security.
It’s important to understand that, since you are looking for refugees, you are not looking for Ukraine as your location parameter, rather you are looking for refugee host countries and keywords that indicate that they are Ukrainian.
You need to include two things in your search to find Ukrainian refugee talent based on their profile:
- The right keywords that identify Ukrainian refugees
- Countries that host a lot of refugees
1. Use keywords that identify Ukrainian refugees
For the keywords you have to include a keyword that identifies Ukrainians. You can include a keyword like Ukraine OR Ukrainian.
You don’t use the location field to identify Ukrainians since you’re looking for Ukrainians who are not living in Ukraine anymore (otherwise they wouldn’t be refugees).
2. Use countries that host Ukrainian refugees
Some countries host far more Ukrainian refugees than others. This mostly has to do with proximity to Ukraine and each country’s policies on taking in refugees.
As of 31 January 2026, about 4.38 million people from Ukraine held temporary protection status in the EU. The three largest host countries were Germany (around 1.26 million), Poland (around 966,000) and Czechia (around 397,000), which together account for roughly 60% of the EU total - Eurostat.
Outside the EU, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada also host large Ukrainian communities, so it is worth including them in your search as well.
The chart below shows the earlier 2022 distribution for reference:
Estimated amount of refugees per country. Source: UNHCR, October 4, 2022.
Include the countries you want to target in the location field of whichever talent search engine you use. Any tool that supports boolean keyword search combined with a location filter works, from LinkedIn Recruiter to an AI sourcing platform like HeroHunt.ai, which can search across profiles by keyword and country in one step.
3. You can legally hire them: the right to work
A big practical question is whether you can actually employ the Ukrainian talent you find. In the EU the answer is generally yes. Under the EU Temporary Protection Directive, Ukrainians who fled the war receive a residence permit plus immediate access to the labour market in their host country, without a separate work-permit process - European Commission.
In June 2025 the EU extended this protection to 4 March 2027, so the right to reside and work is secure for the medium term - European Council. National rules still apply for regulated professions, so check the specifics of the host country before you make an offer.
Practically, you have two common routes to engage someone remotely. You can bring them on as an independent contractor, which is simple to set up when the person is comfortable invoicing you, or you can employ them through an employer of record (EOR) that already has a legal entity in the host country and handles payroll, tax and benefits for you. Contractors are the lighter-weight option, while an EOR makes sense when you want the person as a full employee with local benefits and protections.
Written by Yuma Heymans (@yumahey), founder of HeroHunt.ai, the world’s first AI Recruiter. He writes about sourcing hard-to-find talent, including candidates who are not where you would expect them to be.
