sackofspuds

For those of you from the UK who are living in Oz now or who have lived there for say a year or more, how does what you earn now compare to what you earned in the UK?

bondipom

A bit more however I have less holiday, commute further, work longer hours and work some awkward hours.

mlbonner

Can of worms time....

What I'm on now is more than I was on in the UK. However my starting salary here was just under what I earnt in the UK. I have been out of uni for a few years so I think where ever I was working I would hope to jump up a few career rungs quite quickly anyway, so my situation is possibly not the best comparison.

Some things here are cheaper, some things are not, other things you just plain cannot get! At the end of the day though, my way of life is better here than in the UK & no amount of money can really buy you that

sackofspuds

I'm interested in what people earn compared to the UK even if they are doing something completely different. For example, I would struggle to retrain or open a business here in the UK because of the financial pressure to keep a steady income coming in. In Oz, for a variety of reasons, I'd be under less pressure and so could consider changing job. If I ended up earning more there than here then it would be moving back to Oz that allowed me to achieve that.

bondipom

What do you do now and what jobs can you see yourself doing?

Shellfish

Well, my husband earns about 30% a year less which is quite a lot plus he got a company car in the Uk but he doesn't travel as much and lives closer to work and our rent is a lot less now...

I actually earn more than I did in the UK now but then I think I was probably on a crap salary back there.

cresta57

I earn a lot more here than in the U.K only difference is here I work for myself where as in the U.K I worked for an employer. I work a lot more hours but that's my choice as we're building our own house and want a smaller mortgage. Once it's built and the current housing boom has slowed I expect to be able to kick back a bit and spend a bit more time diving.
I find the actual rates for self employed [subbies]are slightly more here while the rates for employed [award rates] are a bit lower.
This varies from town to town as it does in the U.K
An example is:
When I left the U.K the average rate for brickies in Grimsby & Cleethorpes [N.E Lincs] was hovering around the £9 per hour mark on the books and approx £12 as a subbie.
Here in Gympie the award rate for brickies is a shade over $22 per hour with Subbies earning approx $35 per hour.
As I said rates vary from town to town.
My own experience of living here is that many things appear to be a straight swap pounds for dollars: fuel, car servicing, tools, groceries all approx the same in dollars as we'd pay back in the U.K

sackofspuds

I work in IT now, most of my experience is as a hands-on IT Manager for SMEs but I've been contracting in 3rd line support positions for the last year.

Very few opportunities doing that in Adelaide and that's where the all-important family support is, so I'd start my own business, either on the IT side or as something completely different. I've had a few ideas.

Working for myself does appeal. I'm 41 now and sick of the boom/bust world of IT. I have no perm IT job and even if I get one (market is pretty good) there's a good chance I'll be redundant within 5 years, come the next IT bust, and then it'll be very hard to find a new IT job. Alternatively, 5 years is sufficient time to build up a business that will provide me and perhaps my wife with employment for the next 25 years.

Stu.E

On the exchange rate, I'm on about 3k sterling short of what I was earning in London and my partner is on more. But it feels lile loads more because of the cost of living compared to London.

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Indeed.

BTW You cannot even begin to use the exchange rate. This is one of the reasons why people can not get realistic about salaries...I wish people would take a course in economics.

On exchange rate, I am earning the same.

In real terms, it may be as much as twice, maybe 3 times when you consider the terms of how I now get to live.

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