Tamby

My self and my partner (no children) are looking at jobs in Wellington we currently earn combined about £100k in bristol UK which is more than comfortable for us. I wanted to know what a comparable salary in Wellington would need to be to maintain a similar living standard as the cost of living appears to be higher in NZ? Any advice would be greatly received.

MrsFychan

what jobs do you do?

Tamby

I currently do procurement in complex projects for the uk gov and my partner works in software development.

Purrball

These are high-paying skillsets. You'll be more than ok, financially. You'll be earning more than most Wellingtonians. You may have to adapt, cut some corners here and there in terms of high-ticket consumer items, clothing or trips abroad, may have to be a little selective about what you drive, where you choose to live and how you spend your free time, depending on the specifics of what 'a comparable living standard' means to you and any other financial commitments you may have.

You don't have kids, so that makes life a lot easier in terms of cost and flexibility... but in my view, you won't be struggling unless you initially over-extend yourself in terms of property. Just go out there and rent for a while somewhere where you can easily meet the bills until you're settled in and get the full lie of the land.

If I was in your position, what I would be potentially slightly, but only slightly, concerned about is the relative narrowness of the job market when it comes to high-level technical or management positions and how transferable some specialised skills and UK-based experience might be.

davros1984

Working in IT in Auckland in a permie role (not being a contractor) and I'm at the senior tech level for NZ, the options are not that great. I could move into Architecture.. but that market appears to be swamped here. In addition, the market here is a lot slower and there isn't as much choice as what you'd be used to in the IT market at home. I would say I am certainly appreciated more here, but work totally dominates my life. My work-life balance here typically is worse than it was in GB. (I work 15-20 hours more a week than in similar jobs back in GB).

But career development and earning is tyoically not why you move to NZ... right?

Certainly with your skills you can get a job here, but you may not be paid as much as you are in Bristol.

I must say, earning that sort of cash in the west country that you do now is incredible, and many, including myself would be envious. What a high quality of life you could have in the westcountry bringing home that sort of money!

It seems that unless I work in central London, I'll have to take a fair pay cut on my Auckland salary when moving home (in the region of 15K GBP). But in comparison, houses in GB are approximately half the cost of what they are currently in Auckland.

Given the sort of life you can have in the Bristol/Somerset/Gloucestershire area at 100K GBP, I'd say to have a similar lifestyle here.. you're talking probably 250K NZD+ (especially if you have travel plans).

MrsFychan

what visa's would you be looking at applying for?

IT jobs management wise are few in Wellington and have lots of applications but soft ware development may be a little easier, you would have to see what sort are out there and salaries which you can easily do on Trademe and Seek.

As for Procurement roles personally no idea but again check out Trademe and seek.

You may notice that most adverts don't state salaries but if you email some agencies you may get some idea's from them.

MrsFychan

was looking for something for another thread and came across this for IT salaries, maybe useful or not for you

http://www.enz.org/salary-information-technology.html