Jarek Djano looked back six years to when he first arrived in England from the small village of Zamrow. “Each pound I sent back home could buy three or four loaves of bread. Now it can buy only one,” he said.

“Now I have to work six, seven days a week. Before I only worked five. It’s getting to be a strain on my wallet.”

Mr Djano, 41, a builder, moved to London two years before the Government lifted restrictions on the movement of Polish workers. Since 2004 an estimated one million Poles have settled in Britain, taking advantage of the higher wages British employers were prepared to pay. They became so much a part of the country’s life that Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s – as well as innumerable small local shops – started stocking Polish food and drink, and libraries began to stock books and newspapers in Polish.

But a crumbling pound, a tightening economy and boom time in Poland have persuaded thousands like Mr Djano to return home. “I want to go back in May,” he said. “A lot of people I know are going back. It’s not worth being here any more. Everything is very expensive. And the pound doesn’t buy much. My wife was never happy with me being in London. She came once, but it was too crowded, too much traffic. My family lives in a village, it’s completely different.

“My children are 18 and 15 and they need lots of money. Every time they call, they say, ‘Papi, give me more money’.”

Seven years of hard work have left Mr Djano with a glowing reputation among the middle-class residents of Twickenham, but he would not advise friends in Poland to come here now. “I could survive in England, but if I were in Poland I’d say, forget it. If you have a job you’re fine. If you work only one week a month, it’s not good.

“My friend came to England a month ago, he’s still waiting for work. His boss told him there might be a job in a month. He tells me, ‘No more England, I’m going home’.”

Mr Djano’s decision means that finding a cheap, honest, eager-to-work builder in 2008 is going to be considerably harder than it has been in recent years. Polish builders, with a reputation for working long hours at a fraction of the price local workers charge, have spent four years forcing their British rivals to raise their game. But many are now questioning the economic benefit of staying in Britain, where the building trade has been hit hard by the credit crunch.

Inquiries from householders fell by 40 per cent in the last quarter of 2007, a result of the economic situation, the Federation of Master Builders said. “Consumers are being much more cautious about home improvement,” a spokesman said. “I’m expecting the results for the first quarter to be worse than the last three months of last year. We think it’s a direct result of the credit squeeze. The public’s uncertain about what’s going to happen with the economy and in these periods people hold back on working on their houses.”

Poland, by contrast, is enjoying a construction boom. Profits at PBG, a Polish building company, rose by two thirds in the fourth quarter of 2007 as the country prepares to host the 2012 European football championships. An expected 500,000 visitors have led to a massive renovation of the country’s sports complexes, road, airport and rail infrastructures, and tourist facilities. Polish builders are in high demand. “Lots of people are going back for Euro 2012,” Darek Osiak, 26, a gardener from Warsaw, said. “There’s building going on already. The economy is growing and people are very confident.”

Maciej Pobug-Radalowicz, 40, runs his own builders’ firm in Warsaw. “I see a lot of builders coming back from England now. They can’t seem to save enough money over there any more, I’m sure it’s because of the exchange rate. I also think it’s because they haven’t learnt to speak English while they are there and can get exploited by foremen.”

The swing in migration is affecting all Poles, not just builders. Ryszard Multan, 26, took a break from his double shift at the Front Line restaurant in Paddington to tell The Times: “I’ve got my ticket to go home. March 30. I can’t wait to go back to Poland. I started work in the restaurant on the minimum wage, £4.85 per hour, to save money to restore my parents’ flat, At that time I could only have earned £1 an hour in Poland.

“But now the exchange rate means it’s not worth staying. In Poland the situation is much better and I can earn three times more than I could two years ago.”

Lewis Woodward, head of marketing at Reed Employment, said that fewer Poles seemed to be available to work. “While the number of Poles entering the UK remains strong there is talk of a growing trend for workers to head back east, where countries like Poland are experiencing a boom.”

Sebastian Ksiazek, 32, came to England eight years ago speaking almost no English. He began work as a builder but is now a successful shipping clerk in London. “I couldn’t even say ‘hello’ when I came here,” he said. “The beginning was tough. I started with a cleaning job, working in kitchens. Three years ago I was working as a barman when a customer asked me to work for him. He offered me a job because I would never let him buy on credit. He liked that about me.”

Despite his success, Mr Ksiazek is leaving. “My wife and I will go back. Opportunities are getting better in our country. Plenty of my friends have gone back and they’re doing very well. I like London, but it’s not my home.”

Cost of living

743,000 Eastern Europeans applied to register for British jobs between 2004 and 2007

468,000 Poles successfully applied, 66 per cent of the applications

1 million Poles estimated to have migrated to Britain

£1 equals 7.23 Polish zloty (2004)

£1 equals 4.83 Polish zloty (2008)

8% of Poles left the country in the past three years, fleeing 16 per cent unemployment

£800 Polish monthly average wage (2003)

£1,967 English monthly average wage (2003)

Source: Home Office and Poland’s statistic office

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