Qualifications and finding work as a couple
 

Hi all,

I'm new here, this is my first post on the forum but hopefully won't be the last as I'm setting the wheels in motion now :)

Im a trainee primary school teacher in the UK (about to start my final year), a mature student embarking on a career change from IT. My partner still works in IT, he has a good (degree level) job with a good salary but has no degree having worked his way into the position.

We have been talking about moving abroad for some time now and are finally at the stage where we want to start making it happen. Things are slightly easier for me as when I'm a qualified teacher I have some idea about where to find work, many opportunities provide accommodation and I have some idea where to start. We are slightly more worried about my partners situation as he has no degree and we don't know if this will affect him finding overseas employment or not.

I suppose this would depend on where we go and at the moment we don't have anywhere definite in mind. Both of our preferences would be somewhere in South East Asia (I've travelled there quite a bit and love it), perhaps China or maybe the middle east as teaching jobs are more available there. Does anyone know whether there are any specific countries are pretty much impossible for expats to find work without a degree so we can rule these out? He would be looking for IT related work ideally (he works on a software helpdesk for the NHS), but would not be against trying something new if it was a possibility.

The other thing is, how do you go about moving away when there are two of you in a couple...how do you manage to find jobs at around the same time? Does anyone have experience of this? Is it more likely that one of you finds a job, you go and the other one looks for work out there?

Sorry if these seem like silly questions, but I need to get my head around this so we can start making things happen :)

Thanks,

S

Re: Qualifications and finding work as a couple
 

Can't help with the answers but welcome to BE.

If you think you would prefer to be in the far east or middle east, you could try asking direct in those forums, and you may get the answers you are looking for.

Either way, good luck with your journey :)

Re: Qualifications and finding work as a couple
 

Hello and a big welcome to BE.

Excellent information can be found in the BE Wiki, not forgetting the Living and Moving Abroad forum that will help you, another set of great help is the permanent threads at the TOP of each forum, they are very pertinent to that particular forum and makes sensible reading.

Moderators deal with any problems that arise such as inappropriate posts, spammers etc, you will find their names at the bottom right hand side of each forum's index in bold font.

Please contact me if I can give you any further help.

Rosemary

Re: Qualifications and finding work as a couple
 

Welcome to BE and good luck!

China, without a degree would be pretty hard and you'd need some niche skills to have a decent chance of sorting something out cold, unless you've got contacts for you.

Saying that, it can be very quick process. Mate was flown over for a interview on Monday, offered the job on Thursday and they got him his visa within 2 weeks and he was working within a month start to finish...but he was being brought in to set up and manage a tool design office for a large Western retail chain after having years of experience in similar design work. He then went on to a media design outfit after a few years but has now opened his own studio and loving it.

Anyway, the ME and Asia forums will be great help, so worth searching through past threads and the wiki up top :)