JB92

Hello BE!

Firstly, I've recently found this website and its so interesting and very helpful. Everything I've read on different issues have opened my eyes to alot of things I hadn't given much thought to!

My plan is to move my family to Canada. Thats the dream. We're a young family and my wife is Canadian (half Scottish) with Canadian family. I am currently serving in the British armed forces and that is my plan for another 2 years. My goal is to successfully navigate the hurdles of immigration, work and a place to live (very undecided on this part) with a focus on quality of life for my 2 young daughters (7 and 8) and after looking through threads on this website I have realised that my goal and the future of my family in Canada is going to take alot of planning and alot of work from myself (which I have no issue with)

Has anyone found that their own situation has been similar? I have no "skilled work" qualifications as it stands and not really sure what I'd like to do for work but am definitely a jack of all trades and not fazed by any task or hard work to work towards my end goal!

I see alot of successful people on this website and its very inspiring.

Please, any advice on:
The best job sectors to work towards?
Great places to live with great quality of life for kids?
Any idea if my wife's citizenship and family will help my own immigration process?


You are all very helpful and I appreciate anything you have to say!

christmasoompa

Hi welcome to BE.

Best areas to live will depend on many things, if you can give people more info on what you're after (climate, amenities, landscape, housing budget, French speaking or not etc) then people can try and steer you towards a province at least.

Yes, your wife being Canadian helps massively, as she'll be able to sponsor you for Permanent Residency - and your children, if they're not already Canadian citizens.

HTH, best of luck.

JB92

Yes my children have Canadian citizenship as well as British. So its just me, the odd ball haha! Yeah I understand it was a bit broad! Climate wise though we're pretty happy regardless! My wife is from Calgary originally and I've spent a couple of summers and winters in alberta with work as well (sleeping outside in the prairi for 6 weeks also lol) I'd really like to take advantage of the landscape and the amazing outdoors! The closer the better! The issues I have in my planning is work! I have a dream of great landscapes good summers and even harsh winters but I am realistic and do understand that my job will effect everything! I was wondering if anyone was unsure of work (with an intent to work towards a certain job) before moving? Or found when they arrived that certain job sectors were better for their situation once there? Id love to leave the army and have great work to life ratio in Canada but I understand this isn't always the case and I am very prepared to make sacrifices as I have done most of my working life! Does anyone feel their children's quality of life has improved? Thank you for any information! As you can tell I'm only in very early planning so any experience you've had good or bad that you weren't expecting would be great!

christmasoompa

Have a search of the forum and you'll find loads of relevant threads. For my children, the UK is better, but for others Canada is better. Different strokes for different folks and all that, and it will depend on where you're coming and go to/from as well. But there are loads of threads that would be worth reading.

Workwise, with less annual leave in Canada than the UK generally you may not find your work/life balance necessarily improves, but again a search of the forum will bring up some threads that will be useful reading. And it will depend on your job, what would you be qualified to do or any ideas for work at all?

JB92

I've had a look at different threads very interesting stuff fules my ambition as well lol for work in the UK after the army my intention was to try and get into renewable energy or any sort of energy (oil and gas for example) i feel that its a good sector of work with good opportunities so maybe something like that in Canada? Thinking alberta would be good for that? To fall back on (in the uk) I am qualified to drives artic lorries and dangerous/hazardous goods. Just wondering if jobs in renewable energy or oil and gas are tough to come across over there?

Rhe

I'm still in the UK, so just advice on the job hunt as it sounds like you are open to anything and looking to train in the UK beforehand - I would recommend thinking about areas you'd like to live and just doing an open search on indeed.ca - aka leave the What section empty and just put the Where. It might give you a good indication of what types of roles are out there. Or even just put 'sustainability' in the What field as a key word. Similarly, look at what companies are in the area and the types of roles they are advertising. I'm doing this at the moment because I want to make a career change ideally when we move so I'm sort of hunting in my field but also keeping an eye on other jobs.

I'm in Construction and my prep for moving to Canada is doing some of the international qualifications that come up regularly in job adverts - LEED and PMP. I can do these easily from the UK and they will be accepted in Canada so it is an easy win :-) In technical fields like engineering, having a UK qualification isn't a waste of time....but there are quite a few steps to get it accredited in Canada so definitely good to see what the job advert requirements are and try and work backwards. From my research / knowledge, oil in Alberta is obviously a big thing or if you're really open, anything data related or computer programming related are quite reliable and very easy to do remotely so there might be more opportunities (my husband is in data analytics so I've been browsing for these types of jobs but others who live in Canada might have a more knowledge of course!).

Hope that helps (from one job hunter / hopeful career changer to another!)

dbd33

The Alberta oil industry is notoriously boom and bust and it's not booming now.

JB92

Amazing advice btw and I've definitely been doing that after I read what you had to say!!
We've decided we'll move to calgary (where my wife is from and has family)
I think I'll be doing a physical outdoor job and I have looked at on rig drilling but this seems very experienced based (rightly so) and I don't know if I'd be able to support my family fully the way I'd like to on entry level wages! But this seems to be the problem I keep running into after being 14 years in the military! Just thinking out loud on this forum!

Also, if anyone is going through a career change I'd love to hear about it!

AdrianR

Like dbd33 said, the O&G sector is cyclical - we've been on a down-slide since 2014/15, and what little recovery there was has been halted by the cancellation of Keystone XL, the takeover of Husky Energy, and the general anti-oil climate. Wages for the lower-scale jobs in O&G (swampers, toolpushers, derrick-hands etc) have been on the decline for the last few years - I have personally observed a drop from around $35/hour to almost $20 (I work in an industry associated with the oil-patch) - and it really is a young man's game at that level; you won't see many roughnecks over the age of 40 as the work is punishingly hard.

Your best bet would be to think long and hard about what civvy-street skills you could parlay from your military experience - not just the practical stuff, but also the 'soft skills' of organization, self-discipline, initiative etc. I would also suggest trying to get some sort of qualification that may be recognized at some level - I find most of the Canadian work culture to be very hot on credentials.

Lastly, I would say that if you are doing this for your kids then that's a good reason. If the missus is a Canadian national then don't sweat over the immigration process - you will already be ahead of the pack in getting permission for you to begin work as soon as you land.

RohitMehta

as you can driver lorry....go for it over there and once get Canadian experience buy your own truck and keep on adding more and create a transport company of your own. Want to to your situation dont delay with you immigration process, start it like yesterday. It lengthy and even if you get PR quicker get it and carry on with you routines here till you ready to move. Atleast biggest hurdle will be cleared.
(As our honourable member said—-from career changer to another)
All the best