Hi everyone - just wandered if there's any IT workers who have successfully made the jump from the UK to Ontario preferably the GTA... I'm currently a contractor in the City working in Banking and just wondered how you are finding the Canadian IT market.

That is one hell of a loaded question!

Mr Madmac is in IT and does have a permanent full time job in local government now (Guelph)...... however getting into the sector was really difficult and you need to be prepared to drop your career expectations. Start low and work your way back up again. I will mention to him to read your post.

Oh and so far we have both found the IT level here behind the UK...... so here you seem even better ........ but without that elusive Canadian experience...... it takes time to get established.

Hi Thanks for the reply

I'd be glad to hear from Mr Madmac regarding the market. Is there a contracting market or is it mainly permanent roles or temping? I have heard about this 'Canadian experience' but I wouldn't let that bother me...

I'd be trying to get into the banks as thats where most of my experience lies plus I know a lot of the banks I have worked at have offices in the Toronto area.

The market will very by individual. I've managed to land a very nice Business Analyst job with a progressive media company. Took a while to find work and it was a bit depressing at first, but we had the funds to take our time. I found a lot of the large companies weren't interested in touching me with a barge pole, but smaller companies and younger companies are much more open. My advice would be to look around the smaller younger companies as they are more likely to hire someone based on individual suitability rather than the more pigeon holing approach of the larger organisations.

Some of the job ads make me laugh. You should see some of the Ontario government ones. They advertise them as anyone can apply, but you need at least 4 years experience of all their internal working methods and bespoke systems. Same with a lot of banks and large corporations, job requirements that only people who have worked for them before can meet.

I'm a contract programmer working in the GTA (well, currently in Guelph and remotely to Connecticut but mostly in the GTA). I do some pimping locally and, from time to time, work in the UK. Rule of thumb is that rates are about half here, that is you get paid the same in dollars as you would in pounds but the tax breaks are better here, using the grey areas but not doing anything actually illegal, my income tax rate on $100,000 or better has been about 15%(averaged over twenty years and audited).

In my view the market here is all about who you know. Some organisations such as Metro Toronto and the WCB have a deserved reputation for overt corruption; it cost me a big screen TV to place a Cobol contractor at one of them and in others curious arrangements apply. For example, many organizations (especially the Feds) can only use firms on their suppliers list, I have a supplier number for most places in Canada that have large computers but I'm not in regular contact with them; most of our work is for firms outside Canada. Every now and then someone phones and says he has a mate at XYZ firm who's willing to give him a contract and that they need a number to make it work; I rent them my number. I think this is more common than a large organization tendering openly for a contract.

I know some contractors at one of the banks, they support the ATM network. They've been there, on and off, since the late eighties. Similarly I've had one contract, now part time, since 1986. I know the same happens in the UK, the people I work with there semi-regularly have had the same contracts since I first dealt with them in 1990, but here it's the norm. You just have to get your foot in the door then it's like a proper job but without benefits.

Exactly what I found out. I accepted a totally crap role as my first foray into IT over here. The pay was something around $10hr but I was willing to take it for experience. As it happens I was offered another role on the exact day I was due to start the first one. They offered me a whole $8 an hour more.

Yup - I actually earn less in dollars now than what I earned in real money back home. That money does go slightly further though.

Who you know - been done to death on other threads. It's the Canadian way. In IT within the KW-Guelph zone you'd be surprised how small a world it is. Everyone knows everyone else. This can work to your favour if you've got a good reputation or are as corrupt as the next person. However, if you ever bad mouth a particular company/person then it gets around very very quickly.

I spoke to an IT agency bod the other week and she mentioned someone I used to work with was an acquaintance of hers. I spoke to said person (who is a friend) and he filled me in with the actual details of acquaintance: i.e., the woman had failed an interview test abysmally and was now persona non gratis in the local developer niche. That's why she was in recruitment.

My advice: be prepared to accept crap at first or be prepared to wait a long time for a good role to come along. You need to prove yourself and get yourself known. It's all about networking (oh and ignore dbd's comments on anything regarding an ancient programming language called doughball or brickwall or cobol - he's scary ).

Hey, America runs on Cobol.

I never did find anyone to do that PC DOS Cobol job so I am. Yikes! I hate having to dabble with lesser languages, such as Cobol or C (we have to do lots of C), anything not written in BAL seems a bit gimmicky to me.

A programming language named after the Carthaginian God they sacrificed babies to?

You work in very suspect circles my friend.

Wow interesting stuff!!! so have any of you been tempted to up and move to the states to earn the greenback instead of the loonies?? Is it easier getting into the states once you're a landed immigrant?? Surely our skills are in much more demand no?

I sacrificed meself to Basic Assembler Language for my babies.

I've primarily worked "in" the US since about 1990. I used to be physically there often (record was 260 nights in US hotels in one year), now it's mainly VPN stuff; at this moment I'm working in Connecticut and Ohio. At least, I think the computers were once in CT and OH, now that everything's virtual and outsourced the non-defense ones can be anywhere. I send the bill for the OH work to the offshored accounts payable department in Mexico.

When I started coming to this board I discovered that it's not strictly kosher to just go and do a contract in the US but no one has ever bothered me about it. Some firms want billing from Canada, some from the US, that has to do with their state taxes and, especially in California, their employment laws.

btw, I mainly bill Canadian clients in US dollars, if they make a fuss I bill from the US.

Does it depend what area you specialise in or is that all IT ?

What?

sorry i should have left the quote in,

Is it hard to get in on the same level as you are here position in company,
or are there certain areas that you would be able to do that, does it depend on your experience,
Why is the pay so different to uk ? been looking around pay is less than half here ?

sorry i should have left the quote in,

Is it hard to get in on the same level as you are here ( money ) position in company,
or are there certain areas that you would be able to do that, does it depend on your experience
Why is the pay so different to uk ? been looking around pay is less than half ?