bkelly

We're heading to Sydney in november (hopefully if house sells and visa is granted by then!!!) I'm an electrician and my wife is a scrub nurse. We're 28, just married and both looking forward to the aussie way of life... we're sure it beats a rainy day in Glasgow!!! We have close family in NSW but would really appreciate any extra advice about the whole moving process and of course finding work similar to what we do at present in Sydney... We also have a wee dog that's coming with us - so any experiences of quarantine would be welcomed!!!

soapy©

use the search option on the top of the page. type in Pets, sydney, the jobtitle your after and any other questions you might have.
you will see plenty of threads with the answers you need. its a good way to start on this forum.
oh and welcome.
where are you from in glasgow?

Swerv-o

I'm sure that your wife won't find any trouble in finding work as a nurse - I have been into hospital twice and the places are full of expats working. My housemate is a nurse at the Royal Prince Albert Hospital, and she says that they are always looking for people to work there, and they offer really good training incentives to stay too.

Not so sure about electrician, I guess that there will be all the monkeying around getting re-qualified to do.

Sydney is a fantastic place to live, and it really does offer an excellent quality of life. Where abouts are your rellies?.

S

DrWho

I'll kick you off with the dog... Have a read of this... AQIS

Good luck...

bkelly

We're originally from a village just outside Glasgow called Houston but we live in Renfrew just now.

We'll be staying with family in Randwick for a while until we get jobs etc. Thanks for the replies and info.

soapy©

randwicks a great spot to start
we landed there first and we all ended up with jobs in randwick. is it that area and around that your looking at?

bkelly

Yeah, we've both been before. My wife spent a year travelling Australia and stayed with her sister in Randwick for a while, and we went on holiday for 3 weeks a few years ago so we're familiar with the area. She really likes the Gold Coast as well but it'll be Sydney to begin with as we've got family to stay with until we're settled and working.

suzimc

I used to live there wen I was young! It's such a gorgeous area.

My hubby and I are heading for Sydney too, some time in the second part of 2007, but not sure when yet.

JDH

Hi,

I had to reply to this one as you're similar to us. We're just 28 and been married a year, my husband is an electrcian, i'm not a nurse though, i'm an office worker and we also headed to Sydney.

We know a few nurses and they've had no problem getting work, they do agency stuff so move around but a lot of it has been in the Prince of Wales hospital in Randwick and also another private one in nearby Bronte, there are lots of agencies about and they've signed up with a few of them, the money is good - $30+ per hour. So agency work is good if she wants to start doing that.

Now in terms of an electrician, it hasn't been as easy or as expected - everyone said to us before we came how easy it would be for him to get work and how he'd be so well paid i wouldn't have to work etc etc. The plan was to set up his own thing, he obviously knew this would take time because of building up contacts etc but what he didn't know was that he'd have to obtain a NSW licence (yes you need a different one for different states) which would mean more expense and back to college. (he'd just re-traded in the UK from a Telecomms/Data engineer and been to college for 2 years on a saturday and also paid 1000+GBP himself so he's not up for going back to college just yet). He has been able to work for a firm by working under the owners licence but the highest he can earn is $24 per hour. Also another expense (i think about $100 ish) was when we got here he had to go to the Department of Fair Trading and take all his references, certificates etc and get his trade recognised in Australia - just a rip off from the government i think as he had all this done previously - it's how we got the point to get the visa!!

I don't want to dishearten you about it in anyway, I just wanted to tell you beforehand as we didn't know and expecetd it to be easier than it has been.

In terms of Sydney, I think it's great and Randwick is a good spot near the city and also near the beaches, there's lots of places to eat out in Randwick too, there's a popular little area called the Spot with lots of little eateries - am sure your wife already knows that. We eat out so much more here as it's just so much cheaper than the UK.

Good luck with it all anyway, feel free to PM me if you want more info