Considerations for an Oversea Move? 64
An Anonymous Coward asks: "I'm currently working as an 'IT technician' (lowly tech support position) in the southern United States, but I am considering a move to the U.K. to be with a significant other. What's the best way to gather information like the U.K. technology job market, immigration laws, cost of living, housing arrangements, and of course, how I would move my belongings? Sites like this would be most helpful." While the link that is provided is fairly comprehensive, other sources of information, both referential and anecdotal would be appreciated.
significant other (Score:2, Funny)
If you met her in a chat room, make sure s/he's really, really significant before moving overseas.
Escape artist (Score:3, Interesting)
for starters.... (Score:1)
Ask /. (Score:3, Funny)
And since this is Ask Slashdot after all, let's just throw "wild speculation and unfounded rumors" in the mix
Karma.Burn(3);
Moving from the U.S. to the U.K. (Score:3, Informative)
Confiscatory taxes (Score:2)
Re:Confiscatory taxes (Score:1)
Re:Confiscatory taxes (Score:1)
Re:Confiscatory taxes (Score:2)
Re:Moving from the U.S. to the U.K. (Score:2)
It's easy, so long as you can get into France first. The next step is to throw away any identity documents you have (you may be able to sell them). Now make your way to Sangatte, where there is free accomodation and food while you make repeated attempts to smuggle yourself into the UK by stowing away on the Eurostar. Don't worry about the police, the French police don't care and will let you break into freight yards without lifting a finger, and the British police are so hamstrung by red tape that they won't be able to stop you without filling in a dozen forms first. When you arrive in the UK, pretend that you don't speak English. Pretty soon, you will get an apartment, free money from the taxpayer, everything you could want. Once you're sure about your SO, just get married, come out as an American, and you're all set.
Moving (Score:5, Informative)
Moving your belongings though
1) Forget your car, sell it. We drive on the left over here, and have right hand drive cars, not left hand.
2) TV. It might work, but I doubt it. We use Pal. Get one over here. 28" widescreens are from £300 ($450) up. DVD players about £90 up ($140). Sky TV (multichannel) or cable arround the £40($60) per month charge. ADSL/Cable arround £30 ($45)pm.
Make sure you get a region free dvd player otherwise your region 1 disks wont work in our region 2 players.
Digital terrestial TV is taking off here too.
Your Computer will work, but SWITCH THE VOLTAGE before you plug in! We use 230VAC, not 110. You'll need new power cables.
Try this one too
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06
Re:Moving (Score:2)
Of course, you could bring your TV & only watch videos on it. Then you wouldn't even need to pay for a TV license. That's what I did when I lived in the UK.
TV License (Score:1)
Oh, and you're not allowed to shoot people if they break into your house. Apparently.
Re:TV License (Score:2)
And forget about broadband.... (Score:1)
I'm in Manchester, right near Piccadilly Station, and the exchange *still* isn't ADSL enabled. And I don't think NTL's cables come near enough us yet...
Re:And forget about broadband.... (Score:2)
culture shock (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:culture shock (Score:1)
the hardest part (Score:3, Interesting)
As I recall from when I lived in Germany as a high school student, in order to keep his work visa, my dad had to go into immigration and basically prove that he was the only one qualified to do his job. (i.e. no German could do the job that he was doing, therefore he was not competing with German citizens for the position he was doing) Is this common in European Countries?
Re:the hardest part (Score:2, Informative)
Cost of living varies drastically (Score:3, Informative)
Hope this helps a little, and good luck with your significant other
Tom
Re:Cost of living varies drastically (Score:2)
As Tomah4wk says, London/SE is still the most expensive, although just going West or North of the M25 usually gets you into a saner cost bracket.
How to move your stuff: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:How to move your stuff: (Score:1)
You are very optimistic about resale values and cost-of-living differences.
If I sell all my stuff in the US, there is absolutely no way I could use the cash to replace it in England.
Re:How to move your stuff: (Score:2)
the biggest adjustment.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:the biggest adjustment.... (Score:1, Offtopic)
"red ken" seems to be doing ok in london.
besides, at least leaders get elected in the u.k....
Experiences (Score:5, Insightful)
Take as little as possible. Forget most of your electronics. Forget anything big, like chairs or tables or the like. Ideally, you'd take a few items of clothing, a laptop, and some music CD's, buy pretty much the rest when you get there. Forget about taking your car. You likely will stop driving, anyway, once you get there.
Cost of living in England is expensive. Make sure you have a job and make sure you have somewhere to live. Rent may be several times higher than you are currently paying... four to eight times more than you currently pay if you will be living in or around London, 2 - 4 times more elsewhere in England. Do not even think of going if you do not have a job lined up already.
Get used to the rain. Be willing to accept that people tend to be much more grumpy in England (at least, compared to Canada). A friend of mine who tried moving to England described people as 'angry f*king c*nts' in England and she's not far off the mark.
people in Britain (Score:2)
o The rain - the weather in Britain is pretty variable, both in terms of location and time. East Anglia is almost arid from the rainfall point of view. It probably depends on where you come from whether you will like the weather. Quite a lot of people like the variability and seasonality. Spring and Autumn in Britain can be fantastic if the weather is good. Summer can be wonderful except when you get weeks when it keeps raining!
o Grumpyness? It's just a bit of a culture clash. People here tend to not be so open to people they don't know and don't welcome personal questioning. Once you get to know someone they'll appear less grumpy. They may be taking some aspect of your personality badly (it works both ways), however here they wouldn't tell you what they don't like about you.
Re:people in Britain (Score:2)
What's even more funny is that even though the original post is comparing Britain and Canada, I can see a similar difference in attitudes between Canada and the United States. Being Canadian, I'm a bit taken aback when someone in the U.S. turns to me in an elevator and starts talking about how it's such a "blessed day" today. Also, perhaps a dozen times, I've had complete strangers (Americans) start complaining about "God damned foreigners" and how they're ruining America. I always find that one quite amusing: "Where y'all from anyway?" (smile)
I don't mean to say all my experiences are like that, but overall, I find that Rick Mercer had it right when he said "Americans are very generous, both with their money, and their opinions." To us 'foreigners', it might seem rude, but as you've pointed out, it's really just a cultural clash.
Re:people in Britain (Score:2)
Americans are much more likely to be up-front and open about their opinions on more controversial topics, though, I'll give you that. The Canadians I've met personally are pretty much universally just plain NICE. They don't bring up topics that are likely to be controversial. We have a whole branch of the family that lives up around Edmonton, and I always look forward to reunions. I guess they must at the same time be dreading them, eh?
Re:people in Canada / U.S. (Score:2)
This is certainly true in general, and explains why in Canada, Americans are considered "arrogant". However, individual differences are far greater than these cultural tendencies, so there are still many arrogant Canadians, and many nice Americans. Gotta love diversity!
I guess they must at the same time be dreading them, eh?
I doubt it... I'm pretty sure that blood is still thicker than borders. (and ours is a pretty thin border)
Return Ticket (Score:3, Funny)
Duh (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't bother - no jobs here! (Score:1)
Fact is buddy, the market is dead worldwide. Moving aint gonna solve a thing. Worse, moving abroad will almost guarentee you get stuck in the circular file - why give a job to a foreigner who will no doubt cause visa/tax hassles when you could just give it to a national and not have any of these worries?
As far as cost of living/salaries go - you won't be able to afford to buy any kind of accomodation - for the kind of job you mention you would be lucky to get more than about £18K - thats well BELOW the national AVERAGE income of £25K. Added to this the fact that to buy an AVERAGE house is going to cost you in the region of £120K it begins to look VERY bleak.
My advice is look towards Germany and France - where cost of living is cheaper, though salaries similar. Certainly, that is what I'm going to be doing.
Re:Don't bother - no jobs here! (Score:2)
I have to agree with A/C, the IT job market is rather flat in the UK at the moment.
Finding a Job (Score:2, Informative)
Managing a work permit is going to be tough. There are ways though. One possibility might be a student visa. IIRC there are some types of student visas that allow you to work 20 hours a week, so it might be a way to get some studying done while working on the side to pay the bills.
Be prepared for the culture clash. They do things a lot differently there in the old world. It is worth it though. Even if you weren't going there to be with your significant other it would still be worth the experience of living in another country.
Good luck...
How about non-european countries? (Score:3, Interesting)
Anybody have any experience/ideas for working in the rest of the world?
Re:How about non-european countries? (Score:1)
Things are decent here, salaries seem to be proportionally higher due to the fact that cost of living is out the dog's ass (although cigarettes and taxis are way cheaper here than in the states). Hong Kong is modern, clean (for being the most densely populuated region on the planet), and the people aren't overly nice nor f*ing c*nts as a previous poster described.......theres also asignificant expat population in beijing, and in chiang mai (northern thailand, beautiful)
Geek comments (Score:1, Redundant)
Here's some geek-specific advice, since that will tend to be in short supply in general sites (and might be of interest to other readers):
If you have more than one computer, accept that you only want to transport one - the laptop. Don't have a laptop? Time to get one, particularly if, when you first get there, you'll be taking up space in your SO's current place.
Any computers that provide an external service like http, consider co-locating in the U.S., either with a colo company or with a friend you trust. The cost may or may not be too high, if it's too high, you can't provide that service and make the move.
Any computers that provide an internal service like file servers, get rid of. Your laptop has to do it all (it will be cheaper to replace such services when you get there and have the money/time/wherewithal to do so).
Good luck!
Doing something similar myself... (Score:2, Insightful)
The above is a whole series of stories unto itself, but other issues we're facing include:
- climate changes. Depending on where you live in the USA, you may not have appropriate clothing for the UK; certainly, my Aussie wife is not yet fully prepared for my Colorado winters...
- medical care. Australia's socialized medical system is efficient and user-friendly; and my wife is an asthmatic. We'll either have to get medical insurance here, or be prepared to drive to Canada whenever she needs more medications
- pets. She has a dog, and we could bring him over but then he'd face months of quarantine if we wanted to take him back down under, which is unacceptable. So he'll have to stay with family while we're in the USA, and she misses him quite a lot. The UK has similar anti-rabies regulations on pets.
- financial. Are you going to close your American credit card and bank accounts? If not, will they pay overseas postage to send you bills and statements? Do you have investments here that might be expensive to simply liquidate? Are you prepared to learn about your options and obligations under U.K. investment law, or can you afford professional help for all this?
- there's others but I've been typing all day already
It's a safe bet there's some online message group which can help you even more directly than
Re:Doing something similar myself... (Score:1)
Why is that? I am Australian and I couldn't get any sort of cheap/discount/free medication in Canada when I lived there. Has something changed?
Medical cover (Score:1)
My #1 recommendation would be to make sure you have adequate health cover. I expect that as a US citizen you won't be eligible for any of the free government medical assistance. An accident or serious illness requiring hospitalisation could easily send you bankrupt!
Re:Doing something similar myself... (Score:2)
If you're in New York or New England, you'll have appropriate clothing for most of north-western Europe.
medical care. Australia's socialized medical system is efficient and user-friendly; and my wife is an asthmatic. We'll either have to get medical insurance here, or be prepared to drive to Canada whenever she needs more medications
You will be fine in the UK for emergency care, but you will definitely have to pay for dental and anything else.
The UK has similar anti-rabies regulations on pets.
We've no choice - blame the rabies-infested French!
Are you going to close your American credit card and bank accounts? If not, will they pay overseas postage to send you bills and statements? Do you have investments here that might be expensive to simply liquidate? Are you prepared to learn about your options and obligations under U.K. investment law, or can you afford professional help for all this?
I'm English and I've worked in the US and Europe. The financial side really depends on your bank, if it's some local operation (and by "local" I mean anything up to something the size of Barclays) then you're going to have to take care of setting up a new account, moving money and payments, etc, yourself. But if they're a global player like Citibank or HSBC (not the bit of HSBC that used to be Midland's high street operation) then it's much easier. Citibank, for example, will let you maintain parallel current accounts in difference currencies, move money between them without a commission, etc, and they have branches everywhere. Citibank branches look the same wherever you are, and they all speak English.
The only thing you might need to watch out for is repatriating money - not sure how that works from a tax perspective. In all the countries I've worked in, I've always been paid directly to my accounts in London (in whatever currency) rather than opening a local account.
Moving Logistics (Score:1)
Generally, selling everything and starting over is the best bet, especially if you will be staying there for at least two years. Lots of initial cash outflow, or discomfort, but... it'll do.
For what it is worth, if you move before the end of the year, you can charge the moving expenses against your income taxes without itemizing. IANAA, but I think you can charge selling things for less than their value, or get some kind of a break there. If you move in the new year, this is worthless, as you get a substantial (US) tax break as an expat abroad.
For a work visa, you will (almost certainly) need an employer sponsor. Some EU countries (Sweden) give live-in significant others "resident" status, but the working through the kinks can be hard...
Work Permits hard to get (Score:3, Informative)
You only need 1 job site in the UK, JobServe [jobserve.com], as everyone advertises there. Be warned, though, the downturn has made for lean pickings.
You can find the regulations for joining significant others at the Home Office [194.203.40.90], friends have done it and it does take time. You have to apply from outside the country. You can only join your partner and work if you are legally married, if you are unmarried but there is a legal reason you can't marry (i.e. previous marriage and not yet divorced), or if you are engaged to be married within 6 months (but then you can't work until you are). After 2 years together, you can apply for permanent status.
Of course, if you happen to be qualified as a teacher or a nurse, they will pay for you to go there... The down side being the schools and health system are the scummy pits of hell, far, far worse than any call-centre or help desk you've ever been enslaved by.
My experiences (Score:2, Funny)
I also used the internet to gather information about the best way to move, and I found tons of good quality sites. Unfortunately they are of little use for you, since my situation was completely different, but one might help you: I found the sites of the embassy's of great help. They gave more information than I expected: links to companies to ship your personal belongings, addresses of Dutch clubs in Spain, etc.
As for moving, I decided to move as little stuff as possible and left most of my belongings in Holland. I can suggest the same to you! After all, how long ago did you buy that sofa?
One last note: Before I moved over I first looked for a job. Having a job makes all the paperwork a lot easier to do!
Were your parents or grandparents from Europe? (Score:2, Interesting)
I believe some other European countries have similar deals to Ireland, so it may be worth checking your family tree. BTW, if this does apply to you, don't beleive anyone who tells you that the US does not allow dual citizenship and that you could lose your US citizenship - the old rules that meant that were declared unconstitutional and repealed years ago.
If you can't use that route, be aware that the UK is greatly liberalising work permit rules for skilled workers, and there's still an IT skills shortage in many places here.
Re:Were your parents or grandparents from Europe? (Score:2, Informative)
Move memories, not things! (Score:3, Insightful)
Take some photos of the US, your house, your yard, all the things you have, along with neighbors. People live a different life in Europe, and you won't be able to live the standard American life even if you want to. (there are good and bad points on both sides) You might however be able to find some advanatges to life over here that you can introduce to them. For the most part though take pictures. When I was in europe they were shocked to learn I just bought a house on one acre of land, and didn't consider that much at all, I wished I had pictures to show them how I lived.
Don't forget pictures of people. You won't get to see your nephew much anymore, so you have to live with pictures and letters. Remember professionals can often get better pictures of famious objects than you can, so make your pictures personal in nature. "This was my house in the US" is intereting. "This is the biggest building in my state, but I've never been in it" is not intereting. (IF you worked there it would be)
Sell as much as you can, ship the rest. You might love that table you have in the dining room, but if it is too big to fit in your UK apartment what good is shipping it? (I don't know the UK, so this is just an example). Give things away too. You can buy the basic needs of life anywhere.
The rule should be setimental value first, and avoid shipping the rest.
I hate to say this, but please make sure you are serious about the relationship. You would hate to get there, break up after a few weeks, and discover everything about the UK no annoys you because it reminds you of the failed relationship. (If you are even allowed to stay) This is personal, any only you can be sure.
Australia - UK / US (Score:1)
High Speed (Score:2)
Here are some sites (Score:2)
Jobstats (www.jobstats.co.uk) tracks 'the current state of the UK computing job market' by counting techie-wanted-ads placed online per week.
It's not totally accurate, but it's an adequite index of demand for IT people. It's not a pretty picture right now. The 'the U.K. technology job market' is bleak.
My advice to you is that if you have a job, seriously consider holding onto it for 6 months or so, until things pick up (as we assume that they must) by jobstats measures.
http://www.jobserve.co.uk/ is the site to browse and find jobs. It seems to have cornered over 80% of the online jobs market. If you do find a UK IT job online, chances are it will be via this site.
Moving to .uk (Score:1)
Move on over. (Score:1)
Second, London is awesome in any sense of the word. It's like New York w/o the crime. (downtown, anyway.) Everything is there. The world's best bookstore (Foyle's) with about a million square feet of books over 8 floors. (Wait, there's more!) Being one of the safest cities in the world means that The best Science and Technology Museum in the world, the great restaurants, the great Playhouses (ugh), etc., wonder of wonders, are all safe to visit. The best city transportation system in the world -- You are never more than 2 blocks from a bus or train stop and they are always on time and courteous! (An unheard of concept in DC)
London has districts devoted to what ever you are into. I love books. There is a book district (near Oxford Circus) that has boocoo antique book stores. I bought a book printed in 1507 for ~5 pounds, which is what is was worth. The point is that in most US cities you would have to know where the @#$% shop was. In London, you just get off a new stop on the train.
Have fun.