jam85

Hi all. My family and I are considering morning to Canada, specifically Kelowna or the surrounding region. I am a Canadian citizen by birth, so there is no problem with the visa situation. I have not lived in Canada since I was a child in the 90s. My questions are more around quality of life and what to expect.

A bit of background. I work in London for a bank as a software developer and am doing 40-45 hour weeks. The pay is good, and so is our general lifestyle. However, due to various circumstances I am about to take a 20% pay cut and finding another job is difficult in Brexit times. Even if I did find another job it is unlikely to pay as well. Another issue is the commute which on good days can take 1h15.

We are considering moving to Canada for the following reasons:

- Improved work/life balance. At the moment work coupled with the commute can be stressful and I need to take lots of time off. I can get by like this at the moment, it won't be doable after a pay cut.
- Potentially better education for my son. My son is 5 and is August born and he is his 1st year of school. He is the youngest in the year and really struggling. I *believe* from what I've read that he would be in the equivalent to the year below in Canada and I understand schooling is at a more gradual pace.
- An improved outlook on life. From what I remember of living in Canada, it is more peaceful and optimitisic. No British cynicism (no daily mail).
- Access to the outdoors. For a British family, we are unusually outdoorsy. We regularly like to go for bike rides in the New Forest, go to beaches on the weekend, go for walks in the countryside etc... This is partly thanks to having a dog. Also, I would love my kids to learn how to skate and ski in the winter like I did as a child.

We have a number of concerns:

- Finding a job and salary. I know this is an entire thread in itself. I've seen a few roles in Kelowna that I can apply for online, but the salary information is usually missing. I have no idea what to expect and so budgeting is difficult. It would be irresponsible of me to move us to Canada only to not find a job, or to find a job but have a low salary and for us to be ultimately worse off.
- Missing aspects of the UK. Like old pubs, castles, public rights of way and relaxed log leash laws. Also being able to take a 2 hour flight to Italy.
- Reduced paid vacation. I've read that some people feel they need less vacation in Canada.
- Weather. I see this as a good and bad thing. For one, winter sports is definitely a plus, and although I can cope with the cold, I'm not sure my family will.
- Nursing qualifications. My wife has a nursing diploma and is an NHS nurse. I understand you need a degree to be a nurse in BC? How does the pay compare?

We are considering doing a recce trip to the area. What else can we do to get a feel for how things might be?

Moses2013

Can't comment what's best for you but they can't reduce your salary unless you agree, so I would check your rights before doing anything. Regardless of Brexit, it still hasn't happened and software developers are in high demand. At least here in Ireland the average salary in tech has increased by nearly 10% this year alone, so I would imagine the same elsewhere. Maybe not in Banking but what about other areas?

Atlantic Xpat

There's a lot to unpick here but let me give you a few thoughts....

1. You've really got to do your due diligence on the work situation in your chosen area. I live closer to you in London than Kelowna () but I don't imagine that Kelowna is a big centre for finance software development. So you might find a role their but it could be a struggle. Received wisdom is that the finance roles will be in Toronto & frankly there you are going to have the same if not worse commute than London. So you need to find roles and get an idea of salary. That probably needs a boots on the ground visit to Kelowna.. Nursing salaries are probably online somewhere by the way - google BC college of Nurses. Likely their collective agreement is published somewhere. How easy will it be for your wife to get a job? No idea but nursing, qualifications and getting a job comes up reasonably often on this forum so try a search
   
2. Then find out about the cost of living. Housing, taxation, utilities etc. You will be surprised at how much more expensive some things are in Canada than UK. (& price differences across Canada but thats another subject entirely). Then you can see whether you can make a move work financially for you and your family. Important to get that grounding in tangibles before considering the intangibles of quality of life, access to the outdoors etc.
   
3. The lack of holiday could be deal breaker. Different jobs, locations, companies get different amount of time off. (I have 4 weeks off for example) but generally it will be less than in the UK. (My colleagues in our head office in London have 5-6 weeks off!). Figure that you may want to travel back to UK at times and thats going to chew up 2 weeks or more of your vacation, which could be all of it. Again, only you can tell whether thats going to work for you and your family.
   
4. Are there things you can do to make your life better in the UK. (I know you can't fix Brexit and the seeming descent of the country into a toxic cesspool of deeply partisan hatred) For example does your employer - or potentially others - offer flexible working? So you don't have the commute every day. I'm not in the financial industry but my employer does both here and in the UK.
   
5. You'll have to sponsor your wife as a spousal PR. It's the easiest route to PR but do research what is needed. Like all things Canadian bureaucracy its not as straight forward as you think!
   
6. Oh yeah, and should you not be able to find a job in Kelowna but want to be in Canada in fintech but not in Toronto, this local employer here in Newfoundland https://verafin.com/ are making waves and seem to always be recruiting. There was a fella on here recently who was moving over to work for them. (I have no affiliation to Verafin and Newfoundand is not for everyone :-))

dbd33

The BC Lottery has computing facilities in, or near, Kelowna. That's like banking, isn't it?

Siouxie

Hello and welcome to BE!

As has been mentioned, you would need to sponsor your spouse and I would suggest getting your British Citizenship sorted out if you do decide to try the move across -much easier to return to the UK with it, should you ever want to.

The other thing is that if you intend to visit Canada even, your children - as Canadian Citizens - will need Canadian passports.. easy enough to apply for: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration.../children.html

Nursing is a profession that is heavily regulated - your spouse would need to apply for registration in your Province of choice, it's a long drawn out affair and something that would need to be done before she would be able to work. It's a 2 part (or more) process - https://www.nnas.ca/ and then https://www.bccnp.ca/Registration/RN...s/Default.aspx .. pay for nurses in BC can be found here: https://www.bcnu.org/Contracts-Barga..._Wage_Grid.pdf

I've been in Canada for nearly 20 years and I still miss pubs / architecture / historical places / countryside walks and easy access to Europe.. but it has it's compensations!

CanadaJimmy

Sounds like it could work out for you. To get that work life balance as a software developer, you're going to have to look for work-at-home opportunities, which do exist but can be hard to find. I had some luck with FlexJobs a while ago for this. The downside is usually lower pay, but if you live in the Okanagan area of BC you should have slightly lower cost of living and it might balance out.

It's hard to predict what will happen, but I'd say give it a try. If it doesn't work out, you can always return to the UK, right?

Danny B

I moved from Camberley Surrey straight to Kamloops at age 34 in 2007. My children were 3 and 11 at the time. During the early years we were always out and about exploring the outdoors, skiing, hiking, sight seeing, picnicking you name it we did it. The interior of BC is a fantastic place for kids to grow up in, no regrets here.

Work wise I lucked out, I arrived in Kamloops jobless and the only one job I applied for, I got. I work in IT for a Crown Corporation and started on 15 days vacation, I think I'm up to 27 now. Salary wise it's in the $80k - $90k bracket, all depends on what systems are crashing and how much OT I do.
Kelowna is the bigger/posher version of Kamloops. I can't help you with info on jobs, but here in Kamloops good paying IT jobs are scarce.
My Wife works for just above minimum wage in retail, she enjoys it.

The winters here are mild, it doesn't really get cold until January and then by the end of Feb it's over. March is the worst month as it's the thaw and makes a horrible mess everywhere. The Summers are hot, I mean really hot. Most days in July/August are in the 30's, I struggle more with the heat than I do the cold.

If you drive through Kamloops on your recce trip and you would like to know more about 'life in Canada' I'd be happy to meet up. There is a guy on this forum who met with us back in early 2007 and it really helped us make a decision.

Good luck

Vulcanoid

Kelowna isn't exactly a hub for banking or IT, but it does have a growing IT sector - jobs in Canada rarely seem to post salary in the advert, and often even say to 'include your expectations' in the advert. Which is frustrating. I'd suggest you try to benchmark from eg Glassdoor or other sites. If you have to, try to dig up a number from Vancouver, and then probably expect less.

Kelowna isn't cheap, but it's less than London - but your salary will be as well.

I know little about nursing, but your wife would need to go through the BC College to get her qualifications recognized, for sure.

Much easier to be outdoorsy around Kelowna than in Britain, with both the lake, and the surrounding parks and crown land (not limited to rights of way. can go anywhere).

Winters are pretty mild by Canadian standards - worse than the coast, but rarely below -15, and rarely for long. I've been on the beach as late as October and as early as March.

Vacation time will almost certainly be less, which does suck - although you get to live in vacation-land, so there's always that trade off Flights to Italy, that's gonna turn into 12 hours via Vancouver/Toronto.

Although Canada doesn't have the daily hate mail, Kelowna is one of the whitest, most conservative cities in Canada (certainly the most so of major BC cities), which might be something to bear in mind if those sorts of attitudes and statistics are important to you.

Another thing that might matter if you're concerned about QoL is that Kelowna is the most car-dependent city in Canada - it's very low density, the main highway is Highway 97 doing double duty as both the major local road & the provincial highway, there's a lot of driving to get between things that you might not expect would be.

jam85

Yeah thanks, been looking into other areas as well. Canada seems quite appealing.

Brooks52

jam85

Yeah I'm struggling to get any decent information about how large the industry is, and expected salary. Though the role doesn't have to be financial-based.

I'm hoping the deposit I'll bring over from the sale of my house will offset much of the mortgage. I've heard gas/electricity is much cheaper, but other things like broadband can be more expensive.

I know this is subjective, but do you feel you need less holiday than the UK? How much has reduced holiday leave affected your quality of life?

I am looking into other roles/areas in the UK, but given there is an opportunity to move to Canada, I also want to explore that.
Yes thanks. I've heard the process can take a YEAR.
Thanks - but we want to stick to the West of Canada.

jam85

It doesn't have to be financial/banking based. I'll look into BC lottery though, thanks.

jam85

Thanks for the info. In the process of getting citizenship sorted for the family right now.

Very useful info thanks.

jam85

Yeah I never considered FlexJobs. I'll look into that thanks.

jam85

Thanks very much for the info. We're planning to do a recce trip next summer and would love to meet up with someone who has been there and done that. If you don't mind, I'll PM you closer to the time?