Jack_Judge

Whenever I'm comparing the cost of living in Vancouver vs London I use a very simple method but it seems to hold true for me.

I work as a freelance contractor in the IT industry and we get paid on hourly or daily rates.

My last contract in London was a short two month caretaking gig, my rate was 54 quid an hour. My first contract in Vancouver was likewise a two month placement using an almost identical skillset for very similar companies, my rate was C$54 per hour.

So in both cities an hour of my time is worth 54 units of the local currency. I know there's a boatload of other differences (taxes etc) but the one immutable fact is my earning potential which is identical in both places. No monies or goods are crossing borders so exchange rates don't apply, I'm earning, living and spending locally. So in this case income tax for me is just another expense like food and transport.

The upshot for me is that all prices can be compared on a one-for-one basis, dollars equals pounds when I'm looking at prices.

So as a tourist I didn't think too badly of paying 8 or 9 bucks for a beer, not even a full pint, because that's only 4 to 5 quid and hey I'm going back to London in two weeks. But as a local... put it this way, would you be happy paying 8 or nine quid for a beer in London ? And nothing fancy either, this is just regular bar prices.

I'm not going into owning a house or running a car here, I'm simply talking about much a person can earn in a day in both cities and how far that money will go in the local shops.

iaink

This is a thread for the regular Canada forum rather than immigration I guess.

The flaw in the logic is thinking that earning potential is a fixed thing, surely it depends on a particular employer and also on how good your negotiating skills are? I suppose for any given widely understood job function there is a fairly well defined pay scale, but lets take minimum wage as the base level. In the UK its £6.30, in BC its $10.25, so to me the conversion rate is more like x 1.6, which largely agrees with most peoples anecdotal experiences in Canada of something like 1.5 to 2 as a resonable cost of living reckoner.

Maybe you should charge more, or maybe you were making out like a bandit before. Also things like "London Weighting" probably screw up comparisons too.

I came from a fairly crap paying job in Norfolk to a company that was actively headhunting me, so I was in a strong negotiating position I guess. On the face of it my "earning potential" magically increased threefold on coming to Canada, not taking the exchange rate into account, so maybe individual experiences are not the best thing to base a decision like this on?

dbd33

I do that "in" Toronto and London (lots of other places too, usually remotely). Expenses, if any, are calculated in the same way for a job anywhere but the rate varies between Canada and the UK as you describe; the number's the same but one rate is in pounds and one in dollars. This may seem greedy for remote work which is essentially the same regardless of billing location but the UK clients want things done on time so there's an element of pressure there that somewhat justifies the higher fee.

Vancouver's an interesting case in that incomes are low while the cost of living is high. My child who lives there mutters about moving to San Francisco or NYC, expensive places but ones where the income potential is enormous. An alternative way to accumulate lots of stuff would be to work for the Feds in somewhere like New Brunswick; Canadian wages but a low cost of living.

Jack_Judge

Don't get me wrong, this wasn't really a rant, more of an observation and I wondered if anyone else had come to a similar conclusion.

So you're physically based in Toronto but you telework in London ?
That's feasible with a 5 hour difference, but Vancouver's 10 hours behind the London, it just doesn't fly, I've tried. By the time we get to our desks on the west coast London's going home for the evening, in fact the whole bloody world's already had their day and gone to bed by the time we get going. Even the frickin' east coast is already halfway thru their day and heading out to lunch while I'm still cleaning out the coffee pot for the first cup of the day.
It's so bloody isolated here

Y'know I really miss that degree of professionalism, it gave you a sense that your work mattered and you'd made a difference. No one seems to give a toss over here.

Wish I could mate, but as long as I'm living in Canada I'm trapped in Vancouver.

Photoplex

Vancouver has low rates for IT contracting, and even for salaries.

When the Calgary company I was working for (back when I was foolish enough to still be an employee) was taken over by a large Vancouver based multinational, most of us in Calgary were getting paid more than our new Vancouver managers. And in some cases, more than the managers manager. Caused a lot of friction.

As a contractor in Calgary, I don't even get out of bed for less than $110/ph

dbd33

On and off, yes. I find the worst though is dealing with the west coast, the late start there is much more inconvenient than getting up early to deal with Europe. That was true when I had to fly as well, three hours back is enough to confuse me going there and back whereas I'd leave Detroit at midnight or so, crash on the plane, go to work in London and, so long as I could leave mid-afternoon, I could be useful that day and back to normal the next.

Now nobody travels and everything's interneted I can make $110/hr in bed. More if I also do some computing.

Jack_Judge

And that is the icing on the shit cake that's been my life since I moved to Vancouver.
I hate this miserable little city.

iaink

Family ties keeping you there?

Jack_Judge

Yah.
My own childhood was pretty crappy and my dad was a twat, so I've wanted to be a dad and have a happy family life since as long as I can remember. I met a Vancouver girl in London, we got married and had a son. I'd waited 44 years but he's worth it, he's freakin' perfect I kid you not.
But wifey wanted to move to Vancouver to be closer to her family, I gave up everything, and I mean *everything* to be with them.
Wifey now says she'll divorce me if we move away from the area.

So that's my choice. I can exist in Vancouver or have an actual life elsewhere, but this is the only place I get to be dad.

So when the guys are saying they're getting hourly rates more than double what I'm getting... I'm the only breadwinner in our family. I haven't been able to afford to go home in the 18 months since I got here and I don't think I'll be able to go home next summer for my 30 year school reunion.

The bitch of it all is that I'm frickin' good at my job and I can guarantee that if you've lived in the UK in the last ten years then I've worked on something that you've used.
Ever watched iPlayer ? You're welcome.
Did you watch any TV in the UK between 2006 - 2008 ? I was one of the dozen or so broadcast engineers that put the pictures on your screen.
You played the National Lottery online ? Oh I could tell you a couple of juicy stories about getting out to the public.
Your kids ever use the Disney websites ? That was a pleasure.
You ever used a Blackberry ? On behalf of the rest of the BISB (online services team) I apologise for the week long outage in 2010.
And if you've used O2 as your mobile provider I was the engineer who rolled out their online shop platform in 2012. Incidentally, O2 are a great bunch of guys, genuine pleasure to work there.

Sorry, this has been bottled up for a while. The only person I can talk to about all this within 10 timezones is gonna divorce me when we go back home.

Life's a bitch and then you die. Or in my case, life's a bitch and then you marry one.

Photoplex

Man... that's a steaming mug of horseshit.

Will she not even consider a move within Canada? Or somewhere "exotic"? With your credentials you'd be snapped up in Palo Alto, California. Maybe the lure of sun would be enough?

scrubbedexpat091

Vancouver wages are lower in a lot of industries overall. So many people want to live here, its an employers market, why pay more if you don't have to type of thing.

ExKiwilass

agree with jsmith. I could def. earn more $$$ somewhere else.

THat is shit. Maybe time for pharmaceuticals? I'm honestly sorry to hear you are trapped like that.

Can't you work remotely for some west coast US IT company? At least you're on the same time zone.

Jack_Judge

I *have* to mate, that's the dichotomy. I can be a father to my son in Vancouver or I can have a happy life elsewhere.
No snark, what would you choose ?

Jack_Judge

Thanks man. Never been a fan of pharmas, but I got a genuine appreciation for weed in the 90s when I was working in Amsterdam. Those guys are so cool, pretty much my favourite nationality.
The weed in BC ain't bad although its reputation is overhyped. Problem is that to get it legally I need prescription, not a problem as the cycling accident I had a few years ago left me with more metal than bone in my right hand along with constant low level pain.
The problem is that I need to get on to a family practitioners register to get a prescription and unless you've been on their waiting lists for a few years then that just ain't happening.


It would appear not. As a Canuckistan PR I don't have the automatic right to work in the states. And no one's gonna take a punt on you when there's local talent available who've never known EU working rights.

JonboyE

A choice between being a father to your son or being "happy".

**** me, that's a tough one.

There is a third choice you know: man up.