kancell

hi guys,

it's been a long time since i have been on this forum, since a previous dream move to Canada collapsed due to a sudden terminal family illness before we even got home from our Ottawa reccie. it's been a few years since now and my family are still grieving but we are slowly getting there. this incident opened my eyes somewhat to living away from close family, but has not entirely quelled our ambition to experience life outside the uk.

having recently came back from another fantastic holiday touring santander, bilboa and san sebastian, we may have come to the conclusion that going on holiday about 5 times a year to spain is perhaps not enough for us and are considering whether we should just move there! no matter where we have been in spain, we love the heritage, culture, family values, way of life, speak enough of the castilian language to get by.... and the sun isn't bad also!

so, probably the main thing i figure we need to seriously look into is employment as sadly we have a lot of work to do before retirement! my wife and I are 28 and 32 respectively, she is a BEd Hons teacher, and I am a BEng Hons engineer. i am just wondering if there are many UK people working in these professions within spain at present? i know the economy isn't currently great but was hoping our skills and experiences would be somewhat transferable i.e. wife into international school, me into a utility company like iberdrola (currently work for SSE).

we are not really fixated on any particular area of spain, the fewer tourists the better, we have been to all coasts and more inland places like madrid, toledo and seville. most likely a coastal location would be more suitable for the hot summers, and the odd escape to the beach!

any general thoughts and advice would be appreciated. no particular urgency, just need to do some fact finding whether this is a feasible 3 - 5 year plan to aim for.

thanks,

kevin

agoreira

Whilst your degrees might mean something in UK, I fear they will count for very little in Spain. Your wife might get work in an international school fairly easily (not particularly well paid) but I'd be amazed if you got any serious work with just enough Spanish "to get by". Spain's biggest export success at the moment (apart from the train!) is well educated people, they are leaving in their thousands. If they cannot get work, your chances must be very, very slim. I can see why you might want to go, but if you both have decent jobs in UK, I'd stick with that for the time being and console yourself with visiting Spain several times a year. I was reading this earlier today, it's not a pretty picture he paints, I'm afraid.
http://www.grahamhunt.co/spains-fore...ucation-bubble

Domino

as agoreira says above, having a UK degree only makes Spain glance at you - not employ you. You have to have the language to use the degree and the experience you have in working in the UK. If for no other reason than you would be a safety liability in the Spanish workplace, but you know the problems there are in parts of Canada for those who don't speak French - then multiply it by 100.

There are international businesses who operate in Spain, who employ non-spaniards. ISTR last year Oracle the computer people were complaining they couldn't get people who spoke English.

I would suggest you start looking at internation employment agencies who may be able to find you a job here, but it may not be the best place for you and the family. But regrettably they won't try very hard if you can't speak Spanish.
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cricketman

Spain produces very good engineers (it is a very tough 7 year degree), many of them are now working overseas because of the lack of jobs in Spain. You would normally need to be fluent in Spanish, English and possibly one or two other European languages to get a good job

For teachers, your only chance will be teaching English in a private school or in an international/British school where the salaries are usually pretty rubbish, or you may be able to get a one year placement in a state school, there is a scheme run by the British council

Still, if you really want it then dont give up! Improve your Spanish and get in touch with schools/companies etc to test the market

amideislas

I don't know if Spanish engineers are really any better educated than anywhere else, and it's probably true that any education you received elsewhere will likely not count for much, and Spanish is a basic requirement,

...

but any suggestion that simply speaking Spanish will land you a good job is simply, wishful thinking. You need only read the newspaper to figure that out. Getting any job is a seriously difficult thing to achieve in Spain (educated or not), and employment opportunities are demonstrably far better almost everywhere else in the developed world.

Having said that, if you keep that in mind as you seek a life within a culture you find more suitable to you, you should be able to find your way.

In any case, good luck. Please let us know how it works out.

cricketman

I have two Spanish engineers in the family who have worked all over the world, they are highly sought after. One was offered $300k to move to Washington DC recently but chose to keep earning 40k euros in Barcelona

amideislas

That's nice. If it were actually true, I'd think it a bit daft to turn down such an offer, since the areas around Washington DC - particularly Virginia - are extremely nice places to live and offer a very good standard/quality of living, but it's a heartwarming story just the same.

Just out of curiosity, why is it that so few others seem to be aware that Spain is also #1 in engineering (amongst all the other things Spain is #1 in)?

cricketman

Believe what you want. She has 3 kids and wanted them to have a Spanish way of life growing up, and to see their relatives often of course

She has spent a lot of time in the US including a high school year and paints a very different picture then what you might

For certain things e.g. engineering of wind farms or high speed trains, Spain is indeed no.1 in the world. The problem is now there is no investment coming into the country, so these highly skilled and experienced engineers are being layed off

agoreira

¡Ojalá!

amideislas

Well,, that explains it - many people prefer to raise their family in a culture they grew up with and know. It's only when Brits do it that it's not acceptable.

Good thing the yanks haven't a clue about renewable energy. Makes Spain the clear leader, then, eh?

Renewable energy by country

mikelincs

Would be interesting to see how much that works out per million of population though.

Domino

In amongst the wind farms as part of the renewable energy add the PVE farms littering the countryside, adding their little bit to the country's energy needs.

just a pity that those with a degree who write for a living can't get their spelling right

amideislas

To be fair to CMan, let's see if I can reckon this out to favour Spain as the world's #1.

Population of Spain (according to Google) 47,190,493

Population of US (according to Google) 311,591,917

311,591,917 / 47,190,493 = 6.6

So the US is roughly 6.6x the size of Spain

According to this wiki of renewables by country, the US generates 520.1 and Spain generates 87.0, which means the US generates 5.98x that of Spain.

So, applying the aforementioned logic, one could argue that this proves that Spain generates 0.62 more renewable energy per capita than the US, and therefore is the indisputable #1.

Further, one could speculate the reason US fails so miserably in renewables is probably because their gas and oil costs are a mere fraction of what it costs in the EU, and comparing the state of the economies (US/ES/EU), surely leads to further rationale why paying ridiculously high prices for energy is a really good thing for Spain and the EU economy overall.

cricketman

Maybe so, I dont have time to look at the stats today, but my sister-in-law designs off-shore wind farms which are highly in demand across the world at the moment, and Spanish companies and engineers have a lead on the rest

Rosemary

Back on topic, please.

Rosemary