Perry_1990

Hi Everyone,

My and my wife are thinking of moving to Canada with our 2 kids, (3 Year old & 11 Year Old). We have just started looking into it and by the look of it we appear to be eligible for Express Entry.

What salary would people recommend in getting if getting a job offer before we arrive?
I am currently on around £110,000 in the UK, this includes salary & bonus. My wife doesn't work currently and she won't work straight away once we move.

Atlantic Xpat

What do you do in the UK?

Perry_1990

I work in IT, I’m a computer Engineer (System Administrator/ Infrastructure Engineer)

Atlantic Xpat

i'd suggest then, looking at jobs, similar to yours in the provinces you would like to live in and trying to understand the Canadian equivalent salary. It's not a role I'm familiar with but I'd be surprised if you would earn CAD$ equivalent of GBP110k. (Which is somewhere around $200k in real terms).

What you can achieve as a salary is a function of the market where you plan to work as well as your experience. If the going rate for that role is $100k then you are unlikely to be able to find a job for double that, no matter how experienced. But you know that!

MrMrsT2023

100-150 salary per year means different standard of life depending on where you are living. Would be doable and fine in say, Edmonton or maritimes but challenging in Vancouver/TO.
inwould advise to look at the housing market to get an understanding of what that could mean for you and family.

christmasoompa

As above, it will very much depend on where you are. Would you need a job offer to get a visa or are you scoring enough on the CRS without one?

And again as said above, you need to see what the likely wage is for your salary in Canada. Do you know your NOC code? I don't know what kind of software engineer you are or where you'd like to live (if you get a choice - depends if you do need that job offer or not, if you do you may not get much choice in where you go), but putting that in to Job Bank gives an median salary of $49.38 an hour across Canada. https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/marketrepo...3B.jobsearch74 Assuming a 40 hour week, that's $102,710, so nowhere close to your current salary. But do search for your exact NOC to give you a better idea.

Perry_1990

No, I wouldn't need a job offer. I am scoring enough on CRS without one. It says I would qualify for Federal Skilled Worker (FSW) Program. NOC Code is 22220.

christmasoompa

Fab, what's your CRS score? The last draw was at 531 points or above, will you lose points on your next birthday or have you got a while to go before those start dropping?

For your NOC, the salary is lower, median for Canada is $32.00 per hour ($66,560/£40k - https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/marketrepo...ation/24514/ca). If that's accurate (hopefully those in the know with experience of your job in the Canadian market will see this and give you some info), then that would be a serious downgrade on your current lifestyle I'd say, no matter where in Canada you end up.

Perry_1990

I am 33 currently so I think my age won't lose me points just now.

My CRS score says it 396 but I am eligible for FSW as my score is 75 out of 100, if i change it to having a job offer then my score goes up to 446.

christmasoompa

OK. So you will lose points with every birthday (you start losing points once you turn 30).

Being eligible for FSW is only the first part, that gets you in the EE pool of applicants, but once in the pool there are regular draws made to invite people to apply for PR. As above, the last draw the points score was 531 or over to receive an invitation. There are 'targeted draws' where they invite people in certain occupations or with certain skills, often with a lower points requirement. Unfortunately your NOC code isn't eligible, but do you by any chance speak French?

Perry_1990

Oh isit, how many points do you lose on each year?
Nope, I don't talk french unfortunately.... what other options may I have or am I going to be up against it to get into Canada?

christmasoompa

5 points lost each birthday. So not major, but not going to help things either. Your points score is too low at the moment even with a job offer, the minimum is usually 480 or above for a non targeted draw to be in with a chance of being selected, you can see all the previous draws here - https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration...ry-rounds.html

Sounds like your only option is a job offer, I'm afraid I don't know enough about your job to say if you'd be likely to find a sponsoring employer or not, but hopefully those in the know will advise. One of our forum pros, dbd33 has been in IT for a long time as an employer I believe so he may be able to give you some advice. He may also be able to advise on likely salary, because if Job Bank is accurate and you'd only get around £40k a year then there's no way you should be considering a move to Canada with a family of 4 IMO.

Once you get a job offer, you would go over on a temp work permit, and then once your points have increased enough you could apply for PR (you'll get points for working in Canada).

Other possible options would be a Provincial Nominee Program (if you choose a not so popular province i.e. Manitoba, you'd have more chance), a study permit for one of you if you have the funds and want to study further, or the IEC program which would get you over there temporarily on an open work permit (so no sponsorship needed, you can work for anyone) and get your points score up. The age limit for IEC is currently 30 and under, but it's increasing to 35 for UK applicants at some point. Don't know if that will happen before you turn 35, but hopefully it will - https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration...h-youth0.html# Or is your wife under 31 now? If so, she'd be eligible for that route.

What does your wife do? Have you checked her point score as well?

Perry_1990

Thanks for your reply, it is really helping me.
I will take a look at the open work permit, as you say hopefully it does increase to 35 as they will help. My wife is a year older than me by 1 year so unfortunately we can't apply for that yet.

My wife hasn't worked since 2019 as we have a baby, In the past 10 years she has worked for 4 years as a pharmacy assistant. Do you know if her points can be added to mine?

christmasoompa

You can't add her points, but you will get points for her language abilities, education etc - when you did the points test it should have asked you about her background too. You can see a full breakdown of all the possible points here - https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration...stem/grid.html

Do double check her points as well, if she's older then it's not likely she'll score higher but a lot of weight is given to education, so if she has a higher level of education then it's possible she'll score more. https://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigr...d/crs-tool.asp

If not, then I'd just get job hunting (read the Job Hunting section of the Wiki for tips and tricks) and see if you can find a job offer to get you over there, but also keep an eye on the IEC changes in case the age limit does increase before you turn 35.

HTH, good luck.

hh619

If you are earning £110,000 for a System Administrator / Infrastructure Engineer role in the UK, you must be a contractor? I work as a contractor in the UK earning circa £650 p/d and I have never seen a role paying above $150,000 for my skillset (DevOps, Cloud Architect. Containerisation, AI) in the whole of Canada, let alone the equivalent.. which would be circa $240,000.

I always have my eye on the Vancouver job market, and for a Sys Admin / Infrastructure Engineer, you'd be lucky to get $110,000. I think the same can be said for the Toronto job market.

Word of advice... keep earning that £110,000 while you can, and start learning AI/LLM/ML.