Relocation: America to UK

R

richardsosborn

Has anyone here pursued a job in the UK from growing up in America,
and able to give any guidance to where to start the process?
 
H

HK

Has anyone here pursued a job in the UK from growing up in America,
and able to give any guidance to where to start the process?

Slightly off topic, isn't it? Be prepared for
the showers being a bit strange.

Harald.
 
D

Daniel Dyer

Slightly off topic, isn't it? Be prepared for
the showers being a bit strange.

Do you mean the weather or the plumbing?

To the original poster, first thing is to make sure you have (or can get)
permission to work in the UK/EU (a work visa or an EU passport).

Take a look at JobServe (http://www.jobserve.com) to see what kind of work
is available and how much they are paying. Keep in mind that the serious
money is in London (particularly the financial sector), but the living
costs there are much higher than the rest of the country so don't be
afraid to consider a lower paid (and perhaps more interesting) job
elsewhere (depends whether you want the big city lifestyle or not).

Dan.
 
P

Phillip Lord

Daniel> Do you mean the weather or the plumbing?


Both the weather and the plumbing are remarkably different between the
US and the UK. It's worth bearing both in mind.

The beer in the UK is better, having that essential extra ingredient
of taste. Well, unless you go and work in London of course.

Cheers

Phil
 
S

steve

Has anyone here pursued a job in the UK from growing up in America,
and able to give any guidance to where to start the process?


yanks go home.

you went there over 200 years ago , stole the country from the endemic
populace , suppressed them.
so at-least have the decency to stay there.
 
E

Eric Sosman

steve said:
yanks go home.

you went there over 200 years ago , stole the country from the endemic
populace , suppressed them.
so at-least have the decency to stay there.

What, and let all those tempting vacancies in the
Liberal party go unfilled?

(Disclaimer: My entire knowledge of British politics
comes from a "Beyond the Fringe" sketch, in which a few
Brits are trying to explain American politics. "It's
very much like ours, really: the two-party system. They
have the Republican party, which is the equivalent of our
Conservative party, and the Democratic party, which is
the equivalent of our Conservative party.")
 
J

Joseph Dionne

steve said:
yanks go home.

you went there over 200 years ago , stole the country from the endemic
populace , suppressed them.
so at-least have the decency to stay there.

Actually, you and "old Europe" came over here 400+ years ago, and 200+
years latter we wiped you butts and sent you packing. I only jest! ;-)

And, I'll apologize for all Americans for trashing your language. That
is truly our worst sin against mankind.

joseph
 
D

Daniel Dyer

And, I'll apologize for all Americans for trashing your language. That
is truly our worst sin against mankind.

joseph

You could at least say it like you mean it ("apologise") :)

Dan.
 
J

Joseph Dionne

Daniel said:
You could at least say it like you mean it ("apologise") :)

Dan.

But, that would be usage unbecoming of an American, right? Sorry,
again. I'll hang my head and stand in the corner for the next hour.

joseph
 
J

Joseph Dionne

Joseph said:
But, that would be usage unbecoming of an American, right? Sorry,
again. I'll hang my head and stand in the corner for the next hour.

joseph


I retract my previous contrition. According to
http://www.freesearch.co.uk/dictionary/apologize, 'apologize' is the
'usually' usage not the exclusive usage in the UK. However, I am sure
those few Brits saying 'apologize' have been corrupted by we evil yanks.

joseph :)
 
J

Joseph Dionne

Alex said:
It's only the posh ones who uses words ending in 'ize', the proles have
to make do with 'ise'.

Well, the preliterate is a "concept(?)" we in the Colonies have not, as
yet, adopted. So you speak of things of which I am unfamiliar.

joseph
 
A

Alex Buell

Well, the preliterate is a "concept(?)" we in the Colonies have not, as yet,
adopted. So you speak of things of which I am unfamiliar.

I think if you subscribe to uk.politics, all will be clear. It's
getting a bit off topic for this newsgroup.
 
?

.

Has anyone here pursued a job in the UK from growing up in America,
and able to give any guidance to where to start the process?

I'm not an American so I cannot say how you would go about this. I'm sure
if you visit an embassy/consulate they might be able to give you the
appropriate forms.

I have a question. Why do you want to work in the UK?

I've heard a lot of people in various newsgroups talk about the work
situation in their area and I'm under the impression that British
programmers are worked harder and paid less then Americans.

Additionally, the cost of living can be higher depending on where you are
moving from and where you are moving to.

I was recently reading an article on 'agreed upon hours' versus 'actual
hours'. By that I mean the hours you are contracted to work and the hours
you actually work. For example, I am contracted to work 40 hours a week. I
actually work a 40 hour week. On the other hand, I worked at a company
that paid for 37.5 hours a week but actually expected the employees to
work 60 hour weeks. If I was making $65000/yr at the first job and
$80,000/yr at the second job then my hourly wage would be:

agreed actual
job1 $31.25 $31.25
job2 $41.03 $25.64

As you can see the second job appears to pay a lot more but the reality is
that the first job pays more when calculated hourly.

The article noted that UK was bad for actual hours worked. A number of
programmers claimed they worked many more hours then was agreed upon when
they took the job.

So my personal observations and a recent article lead me to believe that I
don't want to work in the UK.
 
D

Daniel Dyer

I'm not an American so I cannot say how you would go about this. I'm sure
if you visit an embassy/consulate they might be able to give you the
appropriate forms.

I have a question. Why do you want to work in the UK?

I've heard a lot of people in various newsgroups talk about the work
situation in their area and I'm under the impression that British
programmers are worked harder and paid less then Americans.

I'm not sure that's true (about being worked harder). I work in the UK
and I am contracted for 37.5 hours a week. Sometimes I end up working 40,
but not more than that at my current job (it would obviously depend on the
company you work for). In the EU your employer cannot legally ask you to
work more than 48 hours per week (in the UK though you can opt-out of this
protection and volunteer to work longer hours, but your employer cannot
legally punish you for not volunteering).

US programmers are almost certainly paid more on average, like most
professions in the US, particularly when you consider that direct taxation
as a percentage of earnings is lower so they get to keep more of their
money. But then I see a lot of complaints from American programmers
online about outsourcing to India and jobs being harder to come by in the
US than they were previously. This is probably precisely because American
programmers are paid more. Outsourcing does not seem to have happened on
such a large scale over here.

But it's not all about money. British workers generally get more weeks
paid holiday time than Americans, and don't have to worry about medical
insurance.
Additionally, the cost of living can be higher depending on where you are
moving from and where you are moving to.

Yes, especially if you work in London, which is one of the most expensive
cities in the world to live in (particularly to buy or rent
accommodation). But the financial district in London is also probably the
place to find the highest IT salaries in Europe. If you're used to US
petrol prices, filling up in the UK could be a shock.
So my personal observations and a recent article lead me to believe that
I don't want to work in the UK.

Just out of interest, which country do you work in and what are the good
and bad points there?

Dan.
 
?

.

Just out of interest, which country do you work in and what are the good
and bad points there?

I work in Ontario, Canada. The good points are similar to the UK. I don't
have to worry about medical insurance and we get more holidays then the US
but I don't think we get as many as the UK.

The cost of living in the large cities (e.g. Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto,
etc.) is higher than other places in Canada but generally the cost of
living is lower than the US. Some things like petrol is notably higher.

In my province the government regulates work. Some pro-business politicians
have changed things a little but generally speaking an employer cannot
force an employee to work more than something like 44 hours a week, they
must give 30 minute breaks (lunch) if you work for more than 5 hours, etc.
Unfortunately, the reality is that some employers can find other ways of
firing or laying off employees who don't work long hours. So occasionally
you find people being taken advantage of (like my friend who works 60 hour
weeks).

The down side is that we are heavily taxed. Also, if you live in the city
you pay a lot in taxes. More goes to the federal government than comes back
to the large cities.

Even the largest cities feel a lot safer then many American cities. I've
lived in the US for a while. My roomate had a bullet hole in his car.
Friends who were born in the US were not that phased by this. Freaked me
out. Additionally, I can walk almost anywhere at anytime of the day or
night without fear I'll get mugged or shot.

In the US I've seen neighbourhoods that looked like a nuclear bomb had been
dropped. I saw a neighbourhood where low income families lived across the
street from a federal prison. When I was a kid we worried about when we hit
our ball over the fence into the grumpy old guy's yard. Can you imagine
hitting your ball into the federal prison? It just seemed so surreal.
Driving down the street with a huge prison wall on the south side of the
street and residental homes on the north side of the street. Your front
yard would be literally 30m from the prison.

Like England, it costs more to live in the city but the best paying jobs
are in the city. A lot of people live outside the city and commute to the
city. Some people drive 2 hours to work and 2 hours back to home. I prefer
to live in the city.

Toronto also has a really good transit system. There are better ones but I
haven't seen anything better in the US.
 

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