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Considerations for an Oversea Move?
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.
I am considering a move to the U.K. to be with a significant other.
If you met her in a chat room, make sure s/he's really, really significant before moving overseas.
Lots of info at Escape Artist.
Stop eating my hands.
as far as the actual physical move is concerned, some donts
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
While the link that is provided is fairly comprehensive, other sources of information, both referential and anecdotal would be appreciated
And since this is Ask Slashdot after all, let's just throw "wild speculation and unfounded rumors" in the mix
Karma.Burn(3);
is a move in the wrong direction, pal. Confiscatory taxes, grossly over-regulated work environment - and that's -if- you can get a work-permit. It's very, very difficult for foreign nationals to get work-permits in the U.K., especially in the high-tech field.
to be with a significant other
How many do you have? Be aware that polygamy is illegal in the UK.
I live in the UK, and my parents have just moved to greece. I'm also researching where I can move to escape the oppresive police state that labour have us in.
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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
I would assume you've visited the place already, but if you haven't, you'll need to. Despite a similar language, culturally it's chalk & cheese. I lived there all my life and found it oppressive. I prefer the US considerably.
I'm currently considering something similar. The hardest part I've found is finding the right job. Why would a company look into canidates from overseas when there are so many availible locally? Definatly not easier to interview non-local canidates. So do you just take that leap of faith, spend a bunch of money to move there and then look for something when you land?
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?
.....
As a uk resident, i know that the cost of living varies hugely across the country. The north and west of england (including wales and scotland) are fairly reasonable, but the south east (where the jobs are) is VERY expensive. In your sort of job you wouldnt even be able to consider owning a property in or around the London area. If you look at the bbc's website (www.bbc.co.uk/news) there have been many stories in the press recently about this. :)
Hope this helps a little, and good luck with your significant other
Tom
Turn all of it into something easier to carry, such as money. A garage sale is your best bet, or even E-bay. If you're sentimental about a 900 lb. antique wardrobe or something like that, then give it to a dear friend or relative who will keep it for you. When you get to England, you can turn all that money back into all the stuff that you want.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
i think the hardest part for me in moving from the usa to europe is the exposure to new ideas like democracy, real political debate and political representation for those on the left (no, not democrats or american liberals - they're called center right).
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
..I can tell you that the technical details of moving, gaining residency and work permits, etc. was greatly aided by the use of lawyers. Be prepared to spend a bit of time visiting and registering in official offices. Applications for things like residency permits and such aren't fully explicated -- you'll be told to do steps A, then B, and then C, and then D. It's hard to see that path from A-->D. Be prepared for this.
:-).
Make sure you have a mental and logistical buffer if "it" doesn't work out -- and that can be either the relationship, the expat thing, or the employment thing. It'll give you a bit more confidence to see it through.
If you're moving to London, I certainly hope you enjoy drinking
My experiences... ship the stuff you are planning to need in the foreign country as early as possible. They may claim six weeks for it to arrive but when we moved from England to Canada, it took more than six months.
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.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Be sure to ask for a return tickst ;-)
How about asking your significant other?
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
Its the truth. I'm a UK resident, a Java/PHP/Perl developer - there ain't no jobs over here. If there were then I would have one.
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.
A good place to start looking for a job in the UK is on Jobserve. Another usefull site is Lester Associates. Although they specialize in people from commonwealth countries they can find you a job, help with tax information, visas, etc. so they are probably a good place to start. I used them a few years ago when I spent a year in London and have no complaints. Another usefull site is 1st Contact
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...
People couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.
I lived in China for a year while in college, and my wife grew up in Arabia (her New Yorker father worked for the oil company there). We would love to spend some time over seas with our kids, but perhaps in an Asian or African country.
Anybody have any experience/ideas for working in the rest of the world?
-------------------------
A person of moderate zeal
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!
--Matthew
If you use OSX/BSD/Linux move to Canada, we don't have enough of you guys. It drives me nuts how few people use these great OSs. It is like they pay homage to microsoft!!
I just married an Australian last month, and we got her a green card fairly quickly, but it was only after months of research, paperwork, and headaches that the actual filing went so smoothly... We'll begin working on my Australian visa shortly, as we want to travel back and forth freely rather than settle in one country or the other, and we both have careers which can be done essentially anywhere (but it's a lot more profitable in the USA, especially if you're earning US dollars and spending them down under!).
/. - we found extremely helpful resources on Yahoo Groups, some of which seemed almost tailor-made for us. Don't accept an answer on anything really significant from just one person, as the information out there varies widely in quality... for example, we consulted lawyers and some friend-of-a-friend senior officials at the INS about immigration issues in this post-9/11 world, and learned a lot about the months and months of delays we were facing... then, during an online search, we discovered Direct Consular Filing - which nobody had told us about, for obvious reasons, 'cos it involves bypassing the INS entirely and simply filing your petition at the consulate. An expected 6-9 month wait turned into a 1-day process, but only after we'd gone through literally dozens of other "answers" to our overall question of "how can we do this quickly?"!
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
Perfectly Normal Industries
If you aren't in a hurry, and have a good amount of stuff to move, go for a small container. Someone said to sell all your electronics... I might argue for keeping the DVD player with region 1... it might come in handy, especially if it is dual-voltage. If it isn't dual voltage... it might be worthwile to buy a small (500VA) transformer.
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...
You only need 1 job site in the UK, JobServe, 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, 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.
A few months ago I moved from The Netherlands to Spain, also to be with my S.O.
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!
Brain Tags |
I lived in Canada for 3 years on an employment permit and had no problem getting a Quebec medicare card (and social insurance number). My SO was also covered, as we were considered de-facto (common law married) after 6 months together. However this only covered GP's and public hospitals. Medications or dental cover was not covered in any way. Fortunately my company provided full health cover as part of my employment conditions, which took up the slack.
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!
Don't expect to be able to get broadband. Even if you're living in a city centre. You could well be stuck with a 56k dialup
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...
Just a couple of comments:
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.
If so your immigration hassles to the UK could be eased as you may qualify for dual citizenship. Ireland is the best know: if you have a parent, grandparent or even in certain circumstances great-grandparent born there (north or south) you will almost certainly qualify for Irish citizenship. My girlfriend is American but had a grandmother from Northern Ireland so once she'd got her Irish passprt she was able to move here to the UK under the rights granted to European Union citizens under the Treaty of Rome and work with next to no problems (well, she's still trying to get an NI number - SSN equiv - but you don't need one to work here, though it makes it slightly easier). As an irish citizen she can even vote in all our elections!
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.
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.
I'm an australian looking to make a move to the UK or US in a couple of years. I haven't started googlizing yet, so forgive me if there are some obvious stuff I should have found there. I'd be interested to hear about people's experiences moving TO the US. Job finding and Post Graduate Education are my particular points of interest.
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.
;-)
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)
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Compared with the 47% taxes we pay on my wife's income (US, FICA etc., & MN)?
--
E_NOSIG
...behind.
Every place or country has its particular environment and mindsets differ.
If you plan to have children, think about this: they will be strongly influenced by the environment where they will grow.
You, too, may be in for a change with passing time.
This is one of the main reasons I don't want to go to another country (although mine is far from perfect).
Make sure her area can get high speed Internet access. If not, dump the hillbilly.
As someone who recently moved to the UK (from Africa) and has now found work (after much nerve-wracking searching), I wish you good luck - you'll need it; it's not easy out there. Nope, not at all.
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.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
If you have a TV and you're the true law abiding citizen that every slashdotter is, you need a TV license ( £100ish p/year) in the UK, even if you just watch videos on it.
Oh, and you're not allowed to shoot people if they break into your house. Apparently.
As an Englishman married to an American, living in the U.S. of A. my advice would be, don't go. Your standard of living will be significantly lower, your tax bill will be significantly higher and it rains way too much for anyone's good. Don't get me wrong, I love England but you aren't going to find living there easy at all. On the plus side, the Education system is still the best in the world despite the government's best attempts to destroy it over the past 25 years.
The Final Word
High taxes, disintegrating services, a thin job market and nasty immigration procedures (unless you're an 'asylum seeker' in which case you can do what you like) are just a few good reasons not to move to the UK.
But the most important reason, I think, is the general decay of their society. I have lived in the US and UK alternately for some years, and I have to say that in the last four or five years there has been an absolutely terrifying downturn in the UK in terms of quality of life, civil liberties, violence, and just plain atmosphere.
Ask her if she'll come to the US.
I lived in London for ~3 years from 1979-1983. I loved it. First, The stuff above about the work permit being very hard to get is, as they say in London, "spot on". You may have an "out" since your S.O. has to go there. (I was in the US military). If he/she is a US military sort (and you are married), you will actually get a preferential treatment when you apply to jobs on the local US Military base or office. Even if your honey isn't military, be on the lookout for other spouse-preference type programs, maybe there's one with her/his company.
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.