I've been here almost 7 years (Brisbane). Project Manager, Business Analyst, Change Manager. Employment is pretty unstable, BA daily rate is around $450 to $500 - maybe more in Sydney but I rarely see much above the $600 mark - even in Sydney & Melbourne. Of course if you have specialist skills (SAP etc) then you could get $800 plus. There are hundreds of applicants for every job in Brisbane. Recruiters say there has never been a worse time to get work. $450 in Brisbane will get you a nice one bed flat. A decent house (one you fancy living in, built to UK standards) will be $650K plus. I am told that everything is more expensive in Sydney! With your incomes I think you would be absolutely bonkers to give up such a high quality of life in London to move to Australia. But if you fancy a bit of an adventure, are prepared to put up with a substantially lower quality of living and don't need to burn your bridges, you could give it a go. Having 25+ years of decent IT experience and quite a few contacts doesn't cut it for me - and the job insecurity and low rates are a constant worry. I would move back to the UK for work tomorrow if I wasn't stuck with my kids education here for another couple of years. It is a good place, don't get me wrong but you need a lot of money to afford it. Oh and while 120K was in the ball park for BA when I came over (2007), much nearer the 90K mark now

oh and hubby earns $80K as a teacher. Barely covers the rent and food! 2* $90K will leave you a little left over if you rent cheap (<$500 pw) - You won't buy on that salary unless you want to live somewhere really dodgy and commute a very long way each day.

I sincerely hope not.

I'm looking for BA work at the moment (mid range not senior) and they are offering 650 ish per day contract/110k pa perm...if only I could get something! Not sure how buoyant the market here in Melbourne really is as I think seek is misleading.

Not sure you can ever draw parallels between UK burbs and Melbourne ones, but as a sort of wild guess I would say Bromley would be closeish to Malvern in the facilities available.
And Malvern is v expensive. I would guess not a single house for $450,000- probably start around $650,000. So if you life is very comfortable in UK and you have no real worries, it would be a big leap of faith to come here for a bigger house....

Try $1m

Good luck finding a family house in Malvern for less than that

This isn't good news.. I was thinking of trying Melbourne for BA/Change work later in the year as nothing doing in Brisbane. Are there few vacancies, or an oversupply of candidates or both? I too find Seek pretty pointless - each job advertised multiple times by desperate recruiters, but of course most jobs don't get there in the first place, being sourced by contacts

Mostly all due to China's expansion though. Not forgetting the left leaning governmemts interventionist policies,especially towards housing.

Very unlikely Australia will continue being dragged along by Asia's Shirt tails indefinately.

Australia has had good fortune to be in the right place at the right time but with little to do with it themselves other than having stuff in the ground.

I would agree being in Hounslow West as well. But hopefully you would have ventured further. The poster you replied to made comments after seeing a little more and are far from being unique. In fact they are not such unusual sentiments.
I say this as a close relative left Australia after nearly thirty years expressing similar opinions but had kept them more or less under wraps for all those years.

I would stay in London if original poster. Hove would indeed be a good suggestion if wanting to upgrade.

I always thought outside of London,Brighton-Hove would be the only feasible alternative to the big smoke.

One would need a pretty darn good reason to come out to Oz these days. Better those with little to lose.

Even for adventure I wouldn't bother. Not long back from South Africa. Although folk complain of price rises over there still way cheaper than Oz. Eating out way better and folk friendlier ...

It always amuses me to hear people talking about a 'real' exchange rate, as if such a thing existed. Maybe they expect to go back to when a half-crown (12½p) was called 'half a dollar' because that was what it was worth when the pound was worth 4 US$.

Exchange rates will fluctuate all the time, but don't ever expect them to return to a 'real' rate of (say) $2.50 to the pound because that is a fiction. It may at some time in the future return to that rate, but that will be because of market perceptions at the time, not because you think it should. It may also drop to parity with the A$!

No
Yes
Yes

If buying affordable housing is your main driver then you'll be disappointed. You could rent somewhere here that would be much nicer than living in Bromley though.

If you have foreign currency or are very wealthy it's cheap but for most people it's a real grind compared to western countries.

Normal, middle class people I know who earn AUD1500 a month don't find it cheap, and they have none of the things like super, medicare etc that we take for granted.

It is a great place to visit though as you mentioned, and they have the added benefit of being able to own guns - although O Pistorious may disagree!

A month, or a week?

BB

That'd be a month - and you'd be among the relatively well off. I really don't know how people manage over there.

Wasn't his illegal?

I think his guns are legal