Migration is often associated with departure. Yet return can be just as important for a city’s development. The latest report from the Warsaw Talent Cluster 2 project shows that people who come back to Warsaw after years of living, studying or working abroad bring more than professional experience. They bring new skills, networks, resilience, agency and a different way of thinking about work.
As part of the Warsaw Talent Cluster 2 project (2025-2026), the City of Warsaw, in cooperation with the Center for Research on Social Change and Human Mobility (CRASH) at Kozminski University, carried out an in-depth study of return migration and its significance for the development of the capital.
The report focuses on people who, after a period of living, studying or working abroad, decided to return to Warsaw. This is a group still mentioned too rarely in urban policies, even though its importance may be considerable. Return migrants bring knowledge, professional experience, intercultural skills, familiarity with international work standards, contact networks and new models of management and cooperation.
Warsaw as a city of return
Warsaw is now the largest labor market in Poland and one of the most important academic, business and technology centers in Central and Eastern Europe. It is here that high-skill sectors are concentrated: IT, finance, research and development, professional services, technology, the creative sector and international business.
According to the report, Warsaw serves as one of the main places where return migrants reintegrate. Between 2016 and 2022, around 50,000 new residents arrived in the capital as a result of internal and international migration. Warsaw also accounted, on average, for about 51 percent of the positive migration balance of the largest Polish metropolitan areas with a positive migration balance. In 2024, the migration balance for Warsaw exceeded 4,300 people, indicating a recovery in mobility after the pandemic period.
In the broader national context, the scale of returns is also growing. According to data cited in the report, around 60,000 people returned to Poland in 2023, compared with 29,000 in 2021. At the same time, around 1.55 million Poles were staying abroad temporarily, while the most mobile group consists of people aged 35-39, a period of intensive professional development.
Not one group, but many stories
One of the report’s most important conclusions is that return migrants are not a homogeneous group. They differ in motivation, stage of life, professional and personal capital, and needs after returning.
The study, based on an analysis of statistical data, 54 cases of return migrants and 20 individual in-depth interviews, made it possible to distinguish different types of return. These include people returning for family and personal reasons, those focused on professional and economic development, migrants guided by identity and values, and people combining strong professional skills with a strong need for social rootedness.
The qualitative analysis revealed an even more complex picture. The authors of the report identify, among others, family-oriented migrants, career-driven migrants, situational and crisis migrants, identity and culture-oriented migrants, pragmatic seekers of quality of life, and strategic migrants who plan their return as part of a long-term professional and financial path.
This is important information for the city. Since the motivations and needs of returnees differ, support should not be universal. A person returning with a young child and looking for stability needs a different kind of assistance than a specialist from the technology sector, and different support again may be needed by someone who returns after years of working in international organizations and tries to translate foreign experience into a local career path.
Migration as an accelerated skills course
The report presents migration as an intensive process of building human capital. A stay abroad provides not only language skills or an entry on a CV. It is also a school of independence, adaptation, psychological resilience and acting under uncertainty.
Return migrants bring hard skills: experience of working in international organizations, knowledge of procedures, standards, technological tools, management models and sector-specific practices. Equally important, however, are soft skills: the ability to work in multicultural teams, greater openness, agency, assertiveness, negotiation skills, independence and readiness to make decisions.
In practice, this means that return migrants can bring to organizations not only knowledge, but also a new work culture. They are often more accustomed to communication based on trust, transparent rules, a partnership approach and greater autonomy. They can become natural connectors between the local market and international business, academic or social environments.
Capital that does not activate itself
At the same time, the report makes it very clear that returning alone is not enough. Experience gained abroad does not always translate automatically into a professional position in Poland.
Returnees face challenges such as rebuilding contact networks, gaining recognition for their skills, adapting to local workplace norms, having their experience acknowledged and, at times, dealing with so-called return shock. After years of living abroad, coming back to one’s country can be more emotionally and socially difficult than expected.
That is why one of the report’s key conclusions is the need to create mechanisms that help make better use of the capital of return migrants. This is not only about “help with returning,” but about intelligently including these people in the city’s ecosystem: the labor market, entrepreneurship, the innovation sector, universities, social organizations and local communities.
What can the city do?
The authors of the report recommend, among other things, creating a simple first-contact point for people returning to Warsaw, a Welcome Back Point in a one-stop-shop format. Such a place could help with practical matters connected with return: administrative formalities, access to public services, setting up a business, taxes, insurance and finding one’s way in the labor market.
The recommendations also include mentoring programs, career counseling, platforms connecting returnees with employers, tools for validating skills, support for return entrepreneurship and initiatives strengthening social and professional networks.
This is especially important because return migrants can be an asset for Warsaw in several dimensions at once. They can strengthen the labor market, develop entrepreneurship, introduce new organizational standards, build international bridges and support innovation. But for this potential to be used, it needs proper recognition and institutional support.
A city that attracts and welcomes people back
The Warsaw Talent Cluster 2 project shows that competition for talent is not only about attracting new residents from abroad. It is also about the ability to welcome back those who return with international experience.
For Warsaw, this is an important lesson. A city that wants to be a modern talent hub must not only attract people, but also understand the paths of mobility, return and reintegration. It must see return migrants not as “people who came back,” but as individuals who have gone through an intensive developmental experience and can become carriers of knowledge, contacts, new practices and social energy. In this sense, return migration is not the end of a story about departure. It may be the beginning of a new story about the city’s development.
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Based on the report: Warsaw Talent Cluster 2. Return of talent to Warsaw, authors: Izabela Grabowska, Magdalena Gawrońska, Emil Chról, Ivanna Kyliushyk, Olga Wanicka, Center for Research on Social Change and Human Mobility (CRASH), Kozminski University.
The report in Polish is available on the website of the Warsaw City Hall: https://um.warszawa.pl/waw/wspolpraca-z-nauka/-/warszawa-blizej-pozycji-lidera-w-przyciaganiu-globalnych-talentow
