gta_area

I am a 27 year old data analyst currently working from Toronto, Canada. I want to move to Australia with my fiancée (no children), but not sure where would be best suited for us. Since there is a fair bit of demand for what I do, I am fairly flexible in which city I can live and work. Our intentions are to experience and see if Australia is somewhere we might want to permanently live. I want to be able to cover our basic expenses, travel around and enjoy Australia, and still be able to have some savings. These would probably be our expenses:

- More modern/new type of Condo
- Cheap car to get us around
- Cell phone
- TV cable
- Internet
- Furniture
- Groceries

In a nutshell, I want it to be more of a work/vacation type of experience without the pressures of trying to just “survive”. We will probably be entering the country with about $10 – $15K AUD. Annual income of about $65-70K per year (AUD).

I have only heard about Melbourne and Sydney, but I’m sure there is more options than this. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

ivorfatarse

Sorry dude can't help with the answer to this one as we are in the same boat.Everywhere seems to have its pros and cons its ok doing research on the net but i think the best bet is to just go and try it out.Good luck in your decisions,tough as it may be.

si

nikki75

Ok, I don't really have an answer to your question, but from what I can tell, there is a lot more IT work on the east than the west.
But since you are under 30 you can easily get a 1 year working/holiday visa and see which place you like best.
I did see some IT job postings specifically for that kind of visa on http://seek.com.au/

Personally, I'm heading to Perth. Not because of the multitude of IT-jobs, but that's the only place I know some people

All the best!

Fima_Cege

We are moving to Perth mostly because that is where we have the most friends.

I also work in IT (linux/unix security, some PHP, SQL etc) and there are not that many IT jobs but.....not going there to work my ass off...Although there are a lot of opportunities at the moment with the energy boom etc.

We visited Perth in 2003 for 1 month and it was brilliant. Nice and spacious and I kinda like the fact that it is so isolated...creates a more villagey feel even for a city.


Hoping to get there for around Mar 09.

nikki75

Hey,
I guess we are in a similar situation then.
Going to Perth 'cuz that's where the friends are (well close enough anyway).
I'm in also in IT (Oracle DBA, Siebel Analytics/OBIEE) - and very glad to hear about the energy boom
Also did a one month visit (6 months ago), and hoping to get there in the spring of 09.

When did you apply for your visa? And what kind?

Good luck to you all!!!

gta_area

Is it generally cheaper to live in Perth? Also, does the weather differ at all being on the opposite end of Sydney?

Pinkie

Hey there

Sounds like a great adventure you've got planned! In your position I would seriously see if you can get a bit of a holiday when you get here and see all the big cities. We did 6 weeks (we were very lucky though) and spent a week in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane (we drove from Adelaide to Brisbane too as it was a big holiday). Just before anyone says they're not all the big cities, I know that but those are the ones we had chance to visit.

It only gives you a taster of the city but we didn't like Perth that much for the same reason another poster says they do like it - the feeling of isolation. Plus it's more expensive, or certainly was when we were looking. Sydney is amazing, but quite a big city and a bit flash for us and Melbourne is lovely but more expensive. Brisbane was great but we felt it was more somewhere we'd like to holiday than live. So when ended up back in Little Old Adelaide which is not a lot of people's first choice but we absolutely love it. Couldn't be happier with the choice but I doubt we would have chosen it not having actually had the chance to visit first.

Sorry this is so long () but my point is if you've got the option, no kids etc, then take the opportunity whilst you can as everyone finds something different in each of these places, they're just so different. You would get more for your money in Adelaide and the weather is beautiful, we have seasons which is nice but most of the year it's sunny and warm. But it's quieter than some of the other cities so it all depends on what types of people you are.

Good luck with the move anyway, it's going to be exciting whatever you do

Fima_Cege

Great to hear from you!

My OH has dual nationality with the UK & OZ as she was born in...you guessed it Perth!

Therefore I am applying under the spousal visa subclass 100. So fingers crossed I'll go straight to PR. All medicals, PCC's etc have all been submitted last month so just a case of sitting and waiting.

Our daughters will both get citizenship by descent so no probs there.

We should def keep in touch. Similar skills, location and timeline....

k76

How about Toronto Australia? http://www.toronto.com.au/

I'm not kidding, a very nice seaside suburb on the shore of Lake Macquarie. There's quite a few canadians around Lake Macquarie, and we even have a decent ice hockey team!

Fima_Cege

You'd think it would be cheaper to live in Perth but the house prices are on a par with Sydney...I know incredible....

They have a lot of mining jobs, oil is taking off now and WA punches above it's weight with its revenue generation. All this contributes to what I would call over pricing..
Also the isolation can push up car prices etc but not sure by how much this is just what my Aussie friends tell me and is largely anecdotal.

Not too sure about the weather difference.. we visited in June (winter) and it made the national news because there was frost in the morning!

Fima_Cege

I have several very good Canadian friends including my best man.
In fact one of them lived in The Vines for a couple of years (north Perth) and said it was the only country other than Canada that he would settle in. Sadly he has relocated to Calgary again.

So never say never.....

Chat later...gotta get some sleep now!

JackTheLad

Hi Nikki,

What version of Siebel Analytics have you worked on? Do you do much configuration and development? If you do a search on www.seek.com.au, you'll find lots of Oracle and Siebel jobs in Sydney, Melbourne, and even Canberra (government projects). You'll find Siebel jobs much more easily in these cities than in say Perth or Brisbane. JTL and I are approached by agents every couple of months for Siebel projects in Sydney or Melbourne, but we've got a very young family now and just can't move about.

I know you've got friends in Perth and wanted to be near them, but wasn't sure how certain you were about settling there. It just might be worth considering other locations if you were planning on working in Siebel which usually pays significantly higher than Oracle or MS SQL.

Mrs JTL

P.S. Before you leave Toronto, will you please have a burger and a float at Mr Green Jeans at Eaton Center for me and tell me that they still taste as good as 20 years ago? Thanks.

imanaussie

Yep, I agree with this totally. You should take a 'working holiday' around Australia, get a feel for each and every place then decide which one rocks your boat most.

Cheers

Fima_Cege

Imanaussie - couldn't agree more - everybody's circumstances are different and one of the reasons that we like Perth is due to the fact that we have small children. We have friends in Sydney with the same and they ahve a huge commute to work and its very smoggy (what they said). We haven't had a commute to work for years now, (unless you count a 20 minute bike ride) so any kind of travel is going to grate a bit. Still anything under the hour mark is acceptable (fairly). Not emigrating to spend time on a motorway though!!!! We also thought about Brissie, but the humidity put us off. We lived in the eastern province of saudi where it was also very humid in the summer months and we do not want to go back to that again - ugh. We like the climate of perth, and we're slightly biased - i was born there and so we have a bigger support network of friends of my parents and friends that we have also made along the way. From the experience of working abroad for the last 10 years, don't forget about support networks - especially if you currently live close by or are close to family and friends. Have to say we didn't really think of Adelaide which is weird but I suppose our two biggies were Brisbane/Perth. Definately do a reccie, and if you have kids take them with you as it stops you getting too much into holiday mode, and makes you look at the bigger picture - family houses, neighbourhood feel, schools (biggie).

Oh gawd, so much to do , so little time - grins

Fi and Gang x

copa

brisbane..

sub-tropical, not too big ... not too small and not as expensive at sydney etc