Hi Expats
I am South African and my wife is English, we are looking to relocate to Denia, from England. I am a web designer and my wife teaches english and is a personal trainer, what are the prospects for work for my wife and web design development jobs for myself as I will be self employed. Are there many expats living in and around Denia?

Yep, about 20 mins away just outside Oliva
Work is not plentiful in Spain at the moment as is hit by recession. Dont forget as a self employed you will need to pay €238ish pm into the system each month, even if you have no turnover

I know someone who makes a good living as a web designer, but he has to work bloody hard to do it. I know for a fac t people have cut back on language lessons at the moment

We have a place near Denia (although we are still living in UK at the moment), and by pure coincidence one of the step aerobics/personal trainers at our local health club in the UK moved out to Pego 18 months ago. She is excellent, and has impeccable references but is finding it hard to get any sort of work which could possibly described as 'full time' in the fitness field.

Hi Noel

I don't expect there to be much Personal Training work, but work teaching English should be easy enough to find, There are about 3 million people living with in an hours drive of Denia in the large cities such as Alicante, Valencia and Benidorm, surely there should be Web work there?

And they are all tightening their belts due to the recession, learning English is way down the list of things to spend money on..

No ... as I just told you, people are cutting back on lessons for English / Spanish around here. I know this from various sources in Javea, close to you. Demand has dropped and lesspons are cancelled because of the recession, which has hit Spain quite badly

I'm sure there will be work for web designers .... just bear in mind there are loads of them already here catering to the English market and it will take time to build up contacts

Point taken re: the english teaching. We wil both be fleunt in spanish by the time we make it out there, so that will help.

when are you moving over ?

I personally know some personal trainers - they seem to be doing ok - but the web designers I know are not - they are looking for work in the UK and are struggling to get anything

As we understand it there are plenty of personal trainers and instructors already employed/with a client base in the area and it is a question of waiting for a position to become vacant, rather than extra resources being required in this field! Still if all the reports of Brits packing up and leaving in their droves are correct, who knows what the position will be in 6 months ...
And as for the IT field in the UK ... anyone who is lucky enough to have a job is staying put ... recruitment agencies are very short of positions to offer! We know this from personal experience!

It has been raised ---I now pay €264 per month.

If you want to make it, you need to think outside the box a little bit.

Regarding teaching English, there was a thread on here recently about teaching English in Andalucia:

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=590661

There are some positive stories there, including one member who says her husband who teaches English is swamped with work. Another member does website translation work and she also has more work than she can handle. If your partner is an English teacher, and you are a web designer, maybe both of you can look into this as a venture. As you said, you plan to be fluent in Spanish by the time you move.

Also, regarding web design, why confine yourself to looking for clients in a particular area. Post your qualifications and bid for jobs on many of the freelance sites. There is competition from offshore providers, but if you can understand the client's requirements and communicate efficiently, you can land gigs even if you are not the cheapest bidder.

Another option for you as a web designer is to start your own network of sites. Learn SEO and start building sites. It will take a year or so to ramp up to where you can make a living off it. But, once you are there it gets easier.

The people I know who scraped a living (on the black) giving English lessons are having to pack up and go back to UK because most if not all areas now offer FREE English classes.

The Spanish teachers are also suffering as same applies to them as FREE Spanish classes for all are being offered everywhere.

With most ex-pats incomes coming under pressure from the poor exchange rate everyone seems to be cutting down so fitness classes and private lessons would be first to go.. As for web designing, who will want it? not ex-pats for sure and to expect to get work over a Spanish person or company is a non-starter here.

Hi,
Firstly, if you trully are interested in getting work, go to Madrid. I always state that I've never come across anyone who went to Madrid looking for work, and failed to find it within a short time. I accept that times are hard, and this may no longer be the case, but it's certainly the best place to find work in Spain (especially as regards teaching English). Once you're established here, you'll be able to travel down to the coast at weekends.
Secondly, as mentioned above, location isn't necessarily a factor as regards finding web design work. Look on gumtree and craigslist (London versions), as well the normal elance and findacoder sites. Also try and search for other web designers based in Spain (like the guy in the link below who lives in Madrid). Try and find out what works for them:
madrid webdesigner

Lastly - good luck. In this current economic climate you're going to need it wherever you go. As are we all.