We are british couple living in london with a distant aunt in Toronto..
We both are university educated (hoping not to sound pompus!)

My wife is a teacher and I a freelance Computer consultant we have 2 small kids age 6 an 1.

We are tired of life in london and are in search of a change and better quality of life for the family! (we have never visited canada!!).

I have looked at canada over the last 2 years and see we could apply to come over on the skilled worker visa. Does anyone have any experience of this please?

I have some questions please:

1) Best places to try and find Computer Jobs ?

2) Areas to avoid and ones with better schooling?

3) Do we all require medicals to come over (my wife hates needles?)

4) Places which are not the coldest in winter http://britishexpats.com/forum/images/smilies/smile.gif


Sorry if this is a long winded mail, but hopefully are journey will start now!!..

I know we must keep doing are own research but hopefully we can get some good tips from this forum.


Thanks in advance


Marlon

Hello, Marlon, and welcome to the forum.

Yes. When my husband and I did that thirty years ago, the application process took us eighteen months, and we thought that was a long time. Now I'm reading on this forum that the process is taking in excess of four years.

Some members of the forum are speeding things up by coming over on temporary work permits and then applying for permanent residence visas.

A couple of our forum members have managed to pull off a tricky conversion. They have come over to Canada on year-long Open Work Authorisations, which are available through BUNAC to Britons aged 35 and under, and then they have managed to convert to some other type of permit that allows them to work in Canada on a longer term basis.

Your distant relative could be of practical assistance to you if you move to the area in which she lives, but she will not be able to boost your application for immigration in any way (that is, she will not be able to sponsor you as a family class applicant or anything like that).

I suggest you read the BE Wiki article entitled Canadian Immigration Overview.

From what I hear, Greater Toronto Area, followed by Ottawa.

It would help you to read the BE Wiki article entitled Careers in Canada, although it's slanted towards people who are looking for employment rather than those who are looking for freelance work.

If your wife wants to work as a teacher in Canada, she most likely will have to apply for accreditation. Teacher accreditation is managed separately by each province.

It depends what it is that you want to avoid.

Sorry, I don't know. Some people state that academic standards in British Columbia are not the best, but my family does not have experience of BC's education system. The only place in Canada in which we have interacted with the school system has been Calgary, Alberta.

The BE Wiki article on Canadian Schooling would help to give you a general idea about schooling across the country.

Yes.

Coastal British Columbia. The trade off is that it has rainy winters. People say that its climate is similar to that of the UK, although they also say that it gets about 25% more precipitation than the UK. For some people all of that falls on the plus side of the ledger, and for others it falls on the minus side of the ledger. Several members of the forum state that one of the reasons they're coming to Canada is that they're looking for a four-season climate (by which they mean snow in winter and all that good stuff).