I'm looking at moving to the UK
 

I'm looking at moving from Australia to the UK. I was born in Australia, and live in Brisbane. I grew up in Adelaide, and my family moved to Brisbane when I was 13. I'm 24 now. I have never been out of the country.

I have a mate who moved to England several years ago, who now lives in Bath. I am planning to use his place as a base and figure out where to go from there.

I'm not sure where to go yet... London looks quite nice?

Is it hard to find work as a software developer in London?

I'm looking at heading over next July/August. How cold does it get? should I buy winter clothes here, or wait till I get to england? I'm betting Aussie winter clothes won't be good enough for england.

I'm hoping I can use england as a base to explore europe a bit. If I like the place enough, I'll stay there permanently. I'm getting my British citizenship before I leave (my mother is english, so I can do that).

Can you lot give any advice as to what problems I might encounter? and if moving over there is a good idea?

Thanks.

Re: I'm looking at moving to the UK
 

Is this a genuine post, or a pi#s take?

Re: I'm looking at moving to the UK
 

It's a serious post. A half asleep serious post, but still serious.

Re: I'm looking at moving to the UK
 

Getting a job, well until you get citizenship, it's a no goer as what's the point in sponsoring someone when there's so many.

There area lot of jobs out there though, but depending on your skill set and experience, a lot of the top jobs are asking for people to have masters these days, for anything exciting at least....the money ain't bad, but you won't get much out of it after rent, which ain't cheap...so unless your living out of london and having a fun long commute, you probably won't have a lot of spare cash to actually travel.

As for winter, depends where you go, but London, tbh, it's pretty mild, pair of thin gloves and a light jacket and your sorted.

There's a lot of aussie's out in London, so shouldn't be hard finding a spot of home there either.

Re: I'm looking at moving to the UK
 

so Ozzies do want to move from OZ???
Not sure how you will fit in to the UK...sun doesn't shine as much, dull and depressing sometimes...but if your heading for London then i hope you have plenty of money!
London is very entertaining, couldn't live there myself, but is good for a holiday..but it is so expensive, the houses are anyway.
But good for you for wanting to explore the world.. UK not half as bad as people make it out to be,.....and YES the climate in London is ok, still gets cold in winter but nothing to worry about.
Up North will be colder obviously, but the winters are getting milder anyhow!

So enjoy yourself. ;)

Re: I'm looking at moving to the UK
 

Too true! I was in London all of last week and all the barstaff in the pubs we went to were Aussies, mostly on the 2 year working holiday maker visa. I was chatting to a guy on the till at the HMV (CD/DVD) shop in Hammersmith and he was from Adelaide. He said that apparently at any one time there are 800,000 Aussies in the UK. There are Aussie pubs and pie shops in various parts of London......and for some odd reason most Aussies live around the Earl's Court area.

A good place to find info for anyone from the Commonwealth countries coming over on an extended stay in the UK is to check out the TNT magazine website....there are loads of messages for flat-shares, jobs etc:

http://www.tntmagazine.com

Don't forget that you will need to get a National Insurance number to get a 'proper' job as opposed to an illegal 'cash in hand' type job. Read the stickies at the top of this forum.

Re: I'm looking at moving to the UK
 

I am a Perth girl living in London and I think you should definitely go for it!!

London is very vibrant place with lots of Antipodean and other cultures living here. The nightlife is amazing, though we don't venture too far out from our local area due to the high cost of transport. Bath is one of the prettiest places I have ever visited though I would get bored there if I was there long term. The english countryside is lovely, and very different from madcap London. There many positives to the UK.

Software development is in high demand. My boyfriend is a computer programmer with a first class honours degree and he earns 30,000 pounds per year, but a word of warning: he is permanently broke. It took four months for him to find an appropriate job, though he did a bit of temping (data entry I think) In two years here, he has only been to Europe twice. This is due to the extortionate cost of living in London. He pays 575 per month in rent (a tiny little place) plus bills. His gym is 80 pounds per month. In Oz I only paid 40 dollars a month!! Live in a ex-council house in a tiny room barely big enough for a single bed! I pay 70 pounds per week.
Transport costs are high. Ispend about 30 pounds per month. I am a teacher and constantly broke too, and apart from a 3 week sojourn through Eastern Europe when I first arrived I haven't travelled back to Europe either. Being this poor is having a serious impact on my happiness here. Try to get a contract (rather than going full time permanent) as I know people doing this in your industry who earn 300 pounds per day!!! Lucky buggers.

It is a great life experience to live over here, meet people from other walks of life and learn about British culture and history. The museums are awesome and there is plenty to keep you busy on weekends (if you have the money)
There are many social problems here and it can be smelly and dirty and many people are just downright rude or incompetent. I have seen several brawls, bashings and the murder rate is high. Don't expect friendly customer service and a lot of people look miserable a great deal of the time. I wish I had known this in advance because it really took me by surprise when I got here.

Futhermore, time spent in the UK is a great chance just to be young, party hard and not worry about responsibilities (like getting married and having kids)

Buy a good coat when you get here, wear gloves and a scarf and you should be right in the winter.


Personally, I will be heading back to Oz when my two years are up as my quality of life was far superior in Perth, but I am really glad I spent time over here, and don't regret it for a minute!!!

Re: I'm looking at moving to the UK
 

Contract work is the way to go if you don't have commitments, but there's no job security in it, which can be a problem for some.

As for smelly, well that's true for many large cities, NY, Paris, Milan etc...and that goes for customer service, least it's genuine :D
And high murder rate, it's not really, a lot lower than many other big cities.

Re: I'm looking at moving to the UK
 

I'm getting bored of pointing out your errors, but again, Australia has a higher murder rate than the UK.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cr...ers-per-capita

Re: I'm looking at moving to the UK
 

You should change your name to another Britsh sitcom character - you are Mr Yateman

Re: I'm looking at moving to the UK
 

London is very nice but as a previous poster mentioned it is a very expensive place to live and although you will probably be able to find development work there it will likely be very hard to find a decent job to start out with because you are young and will be viewed as a backpacker.

Bristol is a large city with plenty of work and it's very close to Bath why not start your job search there?

Having done a working holiday in England myself I would say that the biggest hurdles you will face will be potential employers viewing you as a backpacker (hence unreliable) so they will be less likely to want to take you on, and the possibility of running out of money. Make sure you move over with plenty of cash ie) enough to support yourself for at least 3 months and bring a set of really smart clothes. You may also have a hard time finding decent accomodation but if you have friends to stay with it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I think you should go for mate! It's not going to be easy but it's so worth the challenge. Good luck!! And stay as far away from the Walkabout as you can :p

Wow I actually think £575 a month is pretty good for London.
I haven't lived there since 2001 but when I did, I had a mate who paid £300 a week to live in zone 2.
I lived in zone 4 and just about managed on my £16,000 a year job. Transports costs are high, but then I used to walk the couple of miles to work in Hammersmith because more often than not it was faster than the bus.

Re: I'm looking at moving to the UK
 

I agree, I paid 600GBP per month for a studio flat in Ealing in 1990!

Re: I'm looking at moving to the UK
 

Here are some software companies to try in Bath first.






IPL -
Eveleigh House Grove St, Bath, Avon, BA1 5LR
01225 475 000
Co-Ordination Systems Ltd
P.O Box 2252, Bradford-on-Avon, BA15 1ZE
01225 864 404
P3 Corporate Pensions Software Ltd
26 Queen Square, Bath, Avon, BA1 2HX
01225 489 970
SK-Designs Ltd -
3, George Rd Miles's Building, Bath, Avon, BA1 2QS
01225 462 997

Exabre Ltd
17 Gay St, Bath, Avon, BA1 2PH
01225 788 000
Isotope Communications Ltd
Green Park Station, Bath, BA1 1JB
01225 444 674

Dancerace plc -
2 Brock St, Bath, Avon, BA1 2LN
0870 777 3033

Coe Consulting Ltd -


5 Dunsford Place, Bath, Avon, BA2 6HF
01225 423 238
A.Passfield Data Systems
Kingston House Pierrepont St, Bath, Avon, BA1 1LA
01225 317 202
B.Wordmap Ltd
26 Upper Borough Walls, Bath, Avon, BA1 1RH
01225 358 184
C.IPL
Eveleigh House Grove St, Bath, Avon, BA1 5LR
01225 475 000
D.Co-Ordination Systems Ltd
P.O Box 2252, Bradford-on-Avon, BA15 1ZE
01225 864 404
E.P3 Corporate Pensions Software Ltd
26 Queen Square, Bath, Avon, BA1 2HX
01225 489 970
F.SK-Designs Ltd
3, George Rd Miles's Building, Bath, Avon, BA1 2QS
01225 462 997
G.Exabre Ltd
17 Gay St, Bath, Avon, BA1 2PH
01225 788 000
H.Isotope Communications Ltd
Green Park Station, Bath, BA1 1JB
01225 444 674
I.Dancerace plc
2 Brock St, Bath, Avon, BA1 2LN
0870 777 3033
J.Coe Consulting Ltd
5 Dunsford Place, Bath, Avon, BA2 6HF
01225 423 238


er Systems Ltd -
Cramer House The Square, Bath, Avon, BA2 3BH
01225 471 300
A.P.L Mantrack Ltd
Old Malthouse Clarence St, Bath, Avon, BA1 5NS
01225 462 602

Romany Software
16 Pera Place, Bath, Avon, BA1 5NX
01225 447 743

Data-Designs.co.uk -
39 Milton Avenue, Bath, BA2 4QZ
01225 482 533

Alpine Communications - more info »
16 Woodlands Park, Bath, BA1 7BQ
01225 808 158

Focal Point
86 Coronation Avenue, Bath, Avon, BA2 2JP
01225 428 300

K.T.S.L Ltd
Saville House Weston Park, Bath, Avon, BA1 4AN
01225 422 655

Aimes
28 Lansdown Park, Bath, Avon, BA1 5TG
01225 428 652

E-CRM Solutions
115 Church Rd, Combe Down, Bath, Avon, BA2 5JJ
01225 840 490

NeverMind Ltd
64 Upper Bloomfield Rd, Bath, Avon, BA2 2SB
01225 585 000

South Stoke Structures -
4 Courtmead, Bath, BA2 7EB
01225 832 909

R Cube Systems Ltd
P.O Box 3213, Bath, BA1 7WD
0117 303 9098

K.A Spencer (Software)
74 Dovers Park, Bathford, Bath, Avon, BA1 7UE
01225 858 464

Gary Day Associates
Unit 7, Unity Court Broadmead Lane, Keynsham, Bristol, Avon, BS31 1ST
0117 986 9911

Flexops IT Solutions Ltd
93 High St, Oldland Common, Bristol, Avon, BS30 9TJ
0117 949 7083

Leadme Ltd
11 Cowhorn Hill, Oldland Common, Bristol, Avon, BS30 9QU
0117 932 7650

Rimworld Ltd
180a Purlpit, Atworth, Melksham, Wiltshire, SN12 8HH
01225 704 458

Faitec Ltd
20 Bond St, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, BA14 0AS
01225 760 852

Infusion Games
Unit 3 1st Floor, Pucklechurch, Bristol, Avon, BS16 9QH
0117 937 4745

Zircon Software Ltd
Avon Court Castle St, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, BA14 8AR
01225 764 444


And this link may be useful

http://www.approvedsoftwaredeveloper...2-595707a8e2df

If you want to be successful in Uk, I'm sure you will make it happen.

Hope these help and best of luck

Re: I'm looking at moving to the UK
 

I know Bath quite well, but it has been a while since was there. Can tell you that the winters are not too bad, but if your part of Oz is anything like the hotter parts of America, you will be in for a shock as to the greyness and cold in Autumn and Winter. But when Bath is nice, it is wonderful.
It has a one-way system from hell and you best learn the place by foot, which is easy as the city center is small by comparison. You wont stand out in the Summer as it is a big tourist trap and as far as that goes, it is quite central for sight seeing in that area. You are probably like most yanks and a 50 mile drive is no big deal. I hear the traffic congestion has become chronic, though. Best of luck.