Vash the Stampede

I must warn you, it was shift work!

But it was only 15 minutes' drive round the corner from my house and it did pay well. I resigned from it when I decided to come over here; my mates thought I was mad!

I realise now that I took it for granted; I guess that's what you tend to do when you live in the Lucky Country. In fact, having spent nearly two years in the UK, it strikes me that I took a lot of things for granted back home.

Amanda&Paul

I was on £18,000 a year in the UK and am on $53,000 here in Brisbane. My hubbie was on £30,000 in the UK but is on $45,000 here. I think it depends on how in demand your skills are - tradies skills may be the reason we got over here but there is a reason that they need lots of them here - that is because they don't look after the ones they have.

It is difficult to truly compare living expenses as there are some you have here that you just don't have in the UK and probably vice versa. For those with kids I reckon it costs slightly more here.

Amazulu

Pensions the world over are in crisis. Australia is no different. UK pension system is in better shape than some European countries. I hate pensions, they are one of the worst forms of investment there is. The only advantage of them that I can see, is the tax relief you get on them. In the UK I never bothered, invested in property instead & plan to do the same here. Here, as a sole trader, I am forced to contribute 9% into a super fund, it p*sses me off but thats the rules. I did some research & chose ING for my fund.

Amazulu

This is interesting. The general consensus on here is that tradies are better off over here & professionals worse off. I think the opposite is true, in Perth anyway. The demand for professionals here is massive (so it is for tradies too) & money is fantastic, well it is for engineers. The only tradies that seem to make loads here are the ones who work up north on the mines, tough work, but they are on $4k/week (some on more, I know because the outfit I work for employs some of them).

wmoore

I'm in IT and I'm earning slightly more in Brisbane than I did in the UK - currently still on my 'probationary' wage. I didn't work in a city in the UK and always said I was underpaid ( ).

baconmaster

Please define average: mean, mode or median, statistical incompetence is one of my pet hates?

A dogs life

What pisses me off (and this is UK and Oz) is the fact they basically used up the money that our parents payed for their pensions. We now have the crazy situation that we have to work or else or parents pensions will be worth nothing.

I sometimes think my parents would have been better just sticking their money under a mattress, instead of relying on pension schemes,

Springbok

I thought it said U.K. comparison. London is not the U.K.. I come from South Africa and would not live there for the "average" monthly salary. I live and work up north. Smell the fresh air and talk to the friendly people. Wages are irrelevant as the standard of living is so different from person to person. Possessions to some folk is everything where lifes experiences are for others. The cost of living and wages things mean nothing. As long as one can get by with a healthy and happy lifestyle thats what counts. We are going for the experience and to live. If people want to be rich I don't think this is the place to be looking for wealth. Experince life not money.

Now get your guns out and shoot me down.......

Also thanks to the chap and his missus that wrote "Opinions are like A**eholes........." I almost wet myself when I saw that.

Me, Myself and I

mercador

I'd agree with that, the range is quite big. I think I mentioned before I couldn't get CCIE Voice at any price and ended up importing a Ukranian.

The market for entry level IT jobs has been completely trashed by recent arrivals who've floated across from Cambodia, etc. on an inner tube. They can't speak English but they are cheap!

arkon

I think this depends on what you do, I used to pay my 24-30 year old engineers slightly more than 50K pounds plus bonuses and that was in the midlands. Here they would be lucky to get about 50-75k AUD. So in this specialized IT fields they would be worse off. In my opinion from the research I've done the more specialized or professional you are the less well off you will be compared to back home, AND the worse of it all would be you might not even find a comparable job exists in the first place, so might be forced into taking on a more junior or less skilled roll. I know my primary job doesn't exist out here so if I wanted to stay in the same field would have to take on a roll similar to when I was working about 10 years back in my career. Luckily I've had a life change and am now a humble farmer!!

ShozInOz

Isn't that a special offer though (i.e. up to 5pm on weekdays)? I think so. Pizza Hut does the same deal here up to 5pm. Plus Dominos pizzas aren't worth 5 bucks anyway.

Just some clarification...

Pizza lover.

ShozInOz

A PhD qualified lecturer/researcher with some experience here in Sydney earns from about $65-77, Senior Lecturer $79-91, Assoc. Prof. $94-104 and Professor $121. Compared with the UK generally these are all low. Compared with the US they are very low. And yet the Universities are not nearly as good as either the UK or US, and teaching is harder because of the number of international students with low English ability.

But the good news is that the Sydney allowance is, wait for it, $3000...

Vash the Stampede

Very well said! Karma sent!

Vash the Stampede

Yes, but the crucial difference is that in Australia we stopped relying on them nearly two decades ago, with the introduction of the compulsory superannuation scheme.

When I came to the UK, I was amazed to see so many people still pinning their hopes on the (grossly outdated) national pension scheme.

National Insurance is the biggest rip-off around; I'd much rather be putting my money into the Aussie super system.

BadgeIsBack

This might be true in the sticks - although you are not that far from civilisation(!) but in Sydney and Melbourne 75pc of IT professionals can probably earn as much there in real terms as they did in the UK (ie discounting the top finance salaries) I think this 'professionals earn less' is a bit of a myth; its the tradies that seem to suffer,and admin support staff.