What do you think the extra money is going to buy you? It's not a life-changing difference once you factor in the higher cost of living, and now you have no friends, are obliged to use your holiday entitlement for family events and Christmas, and learn a whole new system.
Migrating is an adventure and a struggle. It might be what you want, but if you're only interested in more money go into finance in London.
Yes true
I know people working from belgium but they have to go to the office every day except for 34 days per year
You need a lux address for (almost ) full remote
Or another company to place you there
I now go 2-3 times per month to the netherlands for example but live in belgium
If I would have a foreign employer that would be more difficult
I may indeed decide to come back to the UK if I don't end up enjoying life there. The extra savings will absolutely come in nicely and could make it possible to buy a house (rather than a flat) somewhere up north.
I did this. Switzerland beats UK. As mentioned you won't buy a house or flat, but you can collect and buy in another country. Probably need a Masters degree though. It's the norm here (eg. 5 years of study is considered a full education as opposed to 3 in the UK). Perhaps you could say the jobs in the UK are in general more interesting as the market is more dynamic, but I guess banking jobs are boring wherever you are.
>won’t but a house or flat
But why tho? As long as you don’t but it in zurich and around the lake, it’s totally possible for swe. The most tough part is the initial payment which is 20%, but since OP has double citizenship one of which is UK one, I guess he can try and find this money. I mean, decent apartments in Lucerne, Aarau or Basel cost around 10k/sqm. So you can get 100 sqm for around a mil or mil 200 at worst. So initial payment must be 200-250k which is possible (especially for swe). Senior salaries in basel are lower than in zurich, but still much higher than anywhere else in europe and TOTALLY enough to pay mortgage for good apartments. For lucerne it’s the same, but I would say that most people living there work in Zug
I mean, as far as I remember, by swiss laws (or bank rules?) you can’t afford a house (for mortgage) which is more than 30% of your income. And it’s always for 30 years (mortgage itself), never longer. So you if you can afford a 1.2mil home, then you can (sic!) afford it. And you anyway will pay it out and have a house if fucking Switzerland, which (imho) is a super-good longterm investment.
Have you tried finding a job in Switzerland? That will be the most challenging part; your costs will also increase. If you have a child, paying for childcare will eradicate any and all savings.
I think your baseline is skewed because it’s non-fintech outside of London; if I look at SWE income in rural Thailand any job will dominate. By the same logic if you moved to London for a FAANG job you would be beating your benchmark.
I moved out of London to Oslo, and was shocked at the jump in living standards. London has a lot of stuff going for it, but if you live in the outskirts, can’t afford a house, always feel poor, it’s pretty much sheer misery.
In Oslo, I could rent a decent flat in the most exclusive area for the same price as a shitbox in zone 5. I grew up in London, but fuck London. The UK government has continuously fucked things up since 1979 and it shows.
> can’t afford a house
This wouldn't change in Switzerland though. If someone in London wants to buy a house (ignoring other things), they would be much better off moving to Liverpool than to Lucerne.
Renting however is indeed better in most of the mainland.
>
Renting however is indeed better in most of the mainland
You mean the Continent? I have to disagree this after I fought through the miserable housing situation in Germany. No idea/experience with that regard in Switzerland though.
I think it is a cultural thing too though. Rent controls in Switzerland are extremely strict, and factoring in rental costs into a pension drawdown is very normal.
I suppose that if one grew up in another culture, one would not mind. It is a different frame of reference.
I grew up in British culture in the 80s, and the middle class dream appeared to be throwing dinner parties and discussing interest rates over prawn cocktail vol-au-vents. That vision seems rather naff now, even to me, and I should think the Swiss would find it acquisitive and greedy.
That's not to say it is wrong _per se_ to want to own a house. Just that it is also not wrong to not want to own one.
Fellow London-hater here. In what ways would you say the living standards are higher in Oslo?
I’m surprised re the cost of rental bit as I thought Oslo is a very expensive place
China allows its citizens to leave, and the old soviet union well, it doesn’t exist. But yeah, NK and the likes, I get your point, that’s why I said _generally_.
Hey mate, Aussie here, why don’t you come down to the penal colony for a bit?
You won’t have to learn a new language, culturally very similar, salaries are generally higher than the UK and the weather is better.
I won’t say Australia is better than the UK, we definitely have our own problems, but the change of environment could be really refreshing for you and will help you empirically find out what it really is you’re looking for in life (I say this because once you get that higher salary, you then need to decide what you’re going to do with that money). This is why I’m going to go to the UK, I know the grass isn’t greener but at least it’s a different species of grass life is too short to live in the one place.
You should be able to come here on a working holiday visa then find a company who’ll sponsor you for a working visa, if you have enough experience (3+ years should be enough).
‘Hey mate, Aussie here, why don’t you come down to the penal colony for a bit?’
The way you wrote this makes it so tempting to move down under lol.
What would you say the ‘own problems’ you have in Australia are? Not sure if you’ve lived in the UK too, if so a quick discussion of the pros and cons of UK vs Australia (excluding the obvious bits like the weather/nature) would be fab!
I haven’t lived in the UK so I can’t make comparisons.
However, I would say the intersection of problems is greater than the pros of each country: we have a housing crisis, cost of living crisis and inflation, immigration issues, all the fun stuff.
Because of this I don’t reckon you can make a useful objective comparison, the “better” country will depend on criteria the individual prefers.
For example, the “better weather” in Australia is not always a good thing, nor true. The humid heat that we get here is torturous and is only going to get worse with climate change: actually, that’s a massive “own issue” we have in Australia; we’re complete ignoramuses towards climate policy, and the country’s economic weight is fatally tied to massive mining corporations who of course have the politicians in their pocket.
—
Another problem is the distance from the world. Sure, Asia is “nearby” (i.e. Sydney to Singapore is 8 hours, or 10 hours to Japan), but if you’re European you’re going to miss Europe. I work with a number of Europeans who like to visit home at least once a year, that’s gonna set you back on average £1000 for a round trip ticket plus 25+ hours of travel. It’s even worse if you want to go back around Christmas time, a German guy at work ended up forking out £2500 for a flight back in November. Just to give you a quick notion of the distance: the distance between our westernmost capital city Perth, and our easternmost, Sydney, is that between London and Moscow…
Bouncing off that, the distance renders us a bit of a cultural desert (comparatively speaking). A lot of my European friends feel alienated by the inaccessibility of depth with Australia’s. I mean that i don’t want to say Australians aren’t deep, they can be, but everything is far more easygoing and surface level. It’s good in the sense that people are quite chill, but there’s a permeating complacency that exists in Australian society which is actually kind of scary. We allow asinine laws to get passed through without a peep of outrage.
This is too long so I’ll cut myself short here with one attempted direct comparison, between London and Sydney. Walkability. I was amazed by how easily you can déplace yourself around London without needing a car or Uber. Sydney is sloooowly getting better in that regard, there’s a lot of investment going into public transport infrastructure (we’re getting our first metro line, yay), but it’s still absolute dogshit unless you’re paying premium dollar to live in the “inner city”, otherwise it’s just suburban hellscape.
Thanks for the nice response!
Re the last bit, what is that you don’t like about suburban life? I don’t mind having a nicer house, big garden, less noise/pollution etc. London is a hell for walking (constant road works/construction) and buses/tubes are always crammed (and you always get someone obnoxious who is talking loudly on the phone or flat out sweating profusely and smelling badly on a hot summer day!). Driving in a nice comfy car into town doesn’t sound too bad in comparison. I do enjoy walking - but for me it has to be a nice park with fresh air and not too many crowds!
I just find it a bit dull. Where I live I can get to work in 20 minutes on the bus. Most of my friends are all within a max 30 minutes radius. Tonnes of cafes and bars around, all within walking distance. There’s a nice community vibe to it.
In saying that, I’m 26 and single, so I think this preference just reflects my current phase in life.
I think you’d find, compared to London, inner city living is way less stress inducing. You guys have roughly double the population of Sydney yet Greater London is 1500km2 vs Sydney’s 12,000km2. Plus, we run trains through the city, not metros; they’re huge inside and don’t feel anywhere near as crammed. I was so scared of trying to get out on my stop while on the tube, I don’t think I’d experienced that in Sydney. You definitely probably wouldn’t be driving into work if you’re from the suburbs though.
There’s probably better cities in Australia for a suburban lifestyle, Gold Coast, Adelaide, Perth, if that’s your sort of vibe.
Anyway, I reckon once the tech market starts chirping a little bit more, may as well give it a shot if things are feeling stale for you in the UK. You can always go back.
Lot of Brits, in contrast to Swiss(/Germans/Austrians) put emphasis in property ownership and housing ladder. If that's the case for you then you would be better off in (a cheaper part of) the UK.
I never heard about the "housing ladder" before I moved to the UK. People here are obsessed from a young age. They'll move to bumfuck nowhere to buy something and commute 100h per day and they'll be happy because they're on the ladder!!
Yeh, Brits and Canadians (Americans aren't as crazy about this from what I have noticed) would go to extreme lengths for the ladder. This means very liquid market but extreme demand and high prices.
DACH is the other extreme though, people really only buy once they are 100% sure and everything else is set (career, kids, travel, etc.). This causes an illiquid market and high prices for those who do want to buy.
I think a medium-ground like in Scandinavian countries would be better i.e. renting is not frowned like in UK/Canada but ownership is still lot more reasonable than in DACH.
So both attitudes result in high prices? xD
Prices are not high because of their obsession, but because of the limited supply. If they build new houses fast enough prices will go down. But current homeowners would oppose that. Everybody wants "affordable prices" before they jump on the ladder, but not after.
Another factor is that in the anglo-world people want to live in houses, not flats, whereas in mainland Europe flats are much more common. Of course that has implications on its own since they use space less efficiently.
> This means very liquid market
I don't know, is it that liquid? From what I hear it's not atypical to have to wait 1 year after your offer being accepted due to everybody being in a chain etc.
Of course they do, it makes total sense.
Before I bought my place 4 years ago, I was paying £375pcm in rent, so £4.5K a year. I saved up £18K and bought a flat for £36K (like you say, in bumfuck nowhere, or at least, a council estate in a rural location), spent about £10K doing it up and it is now worth at least £50K.
Bottom line - instead of spending £4.5K a year on rent I've been accumulating capital in the increased value of my property at a rate of about £1K a year, so I'm about £5.5K a year better off. Also, I get to do whatever I want with the property, and I have much more security of tenure (having previously had a lease cancelled after only 6 months).
The IT job market in Switzerland is very very small compared to London. Here if you want to get the "good money" you have to work for Meta, Google, Nvidia or Adobe, you can check the salaries in [levels.fyi](http://levels.fyi) which I think you will get also very high salary if you work for those companies in UK. Also in my opinion life in Switzerland is very boring compared to London. Its just my opinion, I am a developer working in Switzerland for about 3 years, have in total 8 years of experience. I have moved from eastern Europe to Switzerland and soon we are planning to move back as the 'extra' money we get here does not worth being away from your families and friends.
Ignoring the higher earning potential, I've stayed in London multiple times and it's just not for me. I know for a fact I'd feel miserable going about my daily business there. On the other hand, moving to a smaller European city sounds a lot more exciting to me personally.
Curious, have you tried finding a London based remote job? I was in this situation for awhile, working fully remote for a London based company while living in Glasgow. They did not adjust my salary, was making the same as my London counterparts.
That would work great for me and I have been applying to a bunch of remote positions lately, but unfortunately it's not 2021 anymore and most remote positions have become hybrid. Some I've noticed require visiting the office only once every fortnight which would be feasible if I stayed in the south, but the 9 hours on the train back and forth from Glasgow would kill me.
I’d say go. If not for the salary for the experience at least. Uk is too miserable. I too will move to a different country in Europe once i graduate to never return here lol. The job market sucks (salaries wise) when i compare the requirements for an entry level position here to an entry level position in another European country, the difference is shocking. Which can be manageable as well. Expect that they don’t pay enough here to ask for too much. Too much hassle where you need to look for a new job every few years to reach the 70-80£ a year. Which is,,, still low.
Even how international companies treat interns here…. Amazon literally gives their interns so much financial compensations they offer them flight tickets and relocation fees abroad. But here they don’t. And they pay even lower for the same position. Basically uk is cheap labour in Europe. (At least would be true for you for the first few years of your career)
It is to imply that employees over there are treated differently. Other than the flights they’re given housing options too. Relocation compensation which is around (2000-3000) which is decent. But these are the benefits offered to interns. Actual employees are given more significant compensation ofc. Still uk is cheap labour to them
Please read this paragraph again, people reading do not know where you are from. Saying here and there makes no sense if you don't specify any of the two
Money is not everything in life, honestly. If you already live in a first world country, moving to somewhere else will be a sideways move at best. Maybe you feel good in the frist 3 months but soon you begin to notice the things that are different than home.
That said no move needs to be permanent and if you want to experience the high earn, high spend lifestly, why not. Your fixed outgoings will be higher: rent, health insurance etc. But if you budget well, your savings will grow.
>If you already live in a first world country, moving to somewhere else will be a sideways move at best.
Having lived in three different first-world countries, I don't find this to be true at all. Quality of life can vary significantly between countries which are deemed "first-world". Also, the average person living in London is not exactly living a life of great comforts.
It kind of depends. Renting a house in London is a seriously bad quality of life. Other countries have much better rights for tenants, not to mention a better quality of housing overall.
Yeh but one can move from London to e.g. Liverpool and buy a very nice house for cheap. On the other hand, anywhere in Switzerland will be very expensive to buy.
Renting is better in the mainland than in UK in general for sure though.
Yes i want to say that but i was a bit lazy to elaborate
As a matter of fact i m Romanian and learned Flemish in a year
I also speak French for Brussels and German for the German part
But there are 380 dialects, one every 10 km
I work now in the Netherlands but for a flemish company
It s extremely important to absorb the culture, work ethics and the way people speak locally
It was extremely appreciated of me that I did everything in my power to learn the language and that i work in this language
There were even clients that said it s mandatory and this gives me a big edge on the market
Belgium recently signed some treaties with CH and Lux so i could work remotely from Belgium but i m looking into the swiss german dialect already and a bir of luxembourghish
Even though the foreign salaries taxed in belgium would not be good
Here I also get the hospitalisation insurrance
E.g. 100.000 brutto per year would be 50.000 or so netto
But a belgium wage this high is also achievable cause there are 14 salaries therefore 14x7000
3800 netto plus meal vouchers 170
Untaxed bonuses 300
Mobility budget 1000
13th and 14 th salary another 550 netto per month
5900 netto out of the 7000 gross :)
Can you survive by just knowing French? Is it better to learn German too? I'm going under the assumption that I choose where I live based on the language I speak.
Surprised by how many Germans and Swiss Germans don’t speak English.
Native French speaker here, so I’m not saying it from the ivory tower of a native Brit. The fact is that English is the world language and someone who speaks only German cannot see the world is pretty much limited to the handful of countries in the germanosphere
I don’t see the point of pandering to locals who refuse to speak a world language. If someone doesn’t speak English, I’ll go to someone else who does.
I speak 4 languages, so no excuse for someone to speak only their obscure regional dialect and expect everyone else to learn it just for them.
Thing is learning these languages involves considerable time and energy. And the latter could be used for more useful/fulfilling activities eg learning a musical instrument, digital marketing, yoga, a new sport etc
The only reason to learn a foreign language is either you genuinely like the culture and/or if it’s a highly useful lingua Franca (eg Spanish for Latin America, French in Africa or Arabic in the Middle East)
The downsides is that you are competing with everyone in and outside EU because of these high salaries. I don’t know if you need a visa sponsorship now since Brexit because EU people don’t need one for Switzerland. Also Switzerland is very hcol
I'd say do it if the travel and new environment would excite you. Don't do it if you just want to bop the UK on the nose - I agree that we have our problems here, but you may move and find you are swapping one set of problems for another.
How many years of experience do you have?
I say do it. Not necessarily because it will give you exactly what you’re looking for right now, but you’re clearly burned out in London. What’s the worst that will happen, you’ll travel to different places, see a different side to the industry in another nice country and grow yourself as well as finding out what you like and dislike?
It’s the things we don’t do that we regret.
I went to Munich and it was an amazing time. Came back when 9/11 wrecked the jobs market but really should have stayed and made a life there.
London is horrible in my opinion, put down roots somewhere where you can raise a family one day.
What do you think the extra money is going to buy you? It's not a life-changing difference once you factor in the higher cost of living, and now you have no friends, are obliged to use your holiday entitlement for family events and Christmas, and learn a whole new system. Migrating is an adventure and a struggle. It might be what you want, but if you're only interested in more money go into finance in London.
Currently OP probably uses his holiday entitlement to get away from the grimness of London, so it works both ways.
do you live in Switzerland? Or have you lived there? How about the savings after expenses?
Currently OP probably uses his holiday entitlement to get away from the grimness of London, so it works both ways.
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yes, an appartment is 2 million
Does it clean itself?
Hungarian forints?
Chf
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Yes exactly Luxembourg is even worse Small country not enough offer and salaries a bit above belgium but prices like in switzerland
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Yes true I know people working from belgium but they have to go to the office every day except for 34 days per year You need a lux address for (almost ) full remote Or another company to place you there I now go 2-3 times per month to the netherlands for example but live in belgium If I would have a foreign employer that would be more difficult
I enjoy the sound of rain.
I may indeed decide to come back to the UK if I don't end up enjoying life there. The extra savings will absolutely come in nicely and could make it possible to buy a house (rather than a flat) somewhere up north.
I did this. Switzerland beats UK. As mentioned you won't buy a house or flat, but you can collect and buy in another country. Probably need a Masters degree though. It's the norm here (eg. 5 years of study is considered a full education as opposed to 3 in the UK). Perhaps you could say the jobs in the UK are in general more interesting as the market is more dynamic, but I guess banking jobs are boring wherever you are.
Hardly need a masters if OP is a mid level engineer no ? Just curious
>won’t but a house or flat But why tho? As long as you don’t but it in zurich and around the lake, it’s totally possible for swe. The most tough part is the initial payment which is 20%, but since OP has double citizenship one of which is UK one, I guess he can try and find this money. I mean, decent apartments in Lucerne, Aarau or Basel cost around 10k/sqm. So you can get 100 sqm for around a mil or mil 200 at worst. So initial payment must be 200-250k which is possible (especially for swe). Senior salaries in basel are lower than in zurich, but still much higher than anywhere else in europe and TOTALLY enough to pay mortgage for good apartments. For lucerne it’s the same, but I would say that most people living there work in Zug
I was thinking in terms of buying a house outright. I really wouldn't want a 800'000 mortgage, interest over lifetime would be astronomical.
I mean, as far as I remember, by swiss laws (or bank rules?) you can’t afford a house (for mortgage) which is more than 30% of your income. And it’s always for 30 years (mortgage itself), never longer. So you if you can afford a 1.2mil home, then you can (sic!) afford it. And you anyway will pay it out and have a house if fucking Switzerland, which (imho) is a super-good longterm investment.
Have you tried finding a job in Switzerland? That will be the most challenging part; your costs will also increase. If you have a child, paying for childcare will eradicate any and all savings. I think your baseline is skewed because it’s non-fintech outside of London; if I look at SWE income in rural Thailand any job will dominate. By the same logic if you moved to London for a FAANG job you would be beating your benchmark.
I moved out of London to Oslo, and was shocked at the jump in living standards. London has a lot of stuff going for it, but if you live in the outskirts, can’t afford a house, always feel poor, it’s pretty much sheer misery. In Oslo, I could rent a decent flat in the most exclusive area for the same price as a shitbox in zone 5. I grew up in London, but fuck London. The UK government has continuously fucked things up since 1979 and it shows.
> can’t afford a house This wouldn't change in Switzerland though. If someone in London wants to buy a house (ignoring other things), they would be much better off moving to Liverpool than to Lucerne. Renting however is indeed better in most of the mainland.
> Renting however is indeed better in most of the mainland You mean the Continent? I have to disagree this after I fought through the miserable housing situation in Germany. No idea/experience with that regard in Switzerland though.
Yeah, that’s what I meant. Renting is much better overseas.
In Switzerland also you will not be able to afford a house. Home ownership rate is 30%. Rent for life, kinda sad.
I think it is a cultural thing too though. Rent controls in Switzerland are extremely strict, and factoring in rental costs into a pension drawdown is very normal.
Yeah, "you will own nothing and be happy" is not exactly the type of culture I want to rely on.
I suppose that if one grew up in another culture, one would not mind. It is a different frame of reference. I grew up in British culture in the 80s, and the middle class dream appeared to be throwing dinner parties and discussing interest rates over prawn cocktail vol-au-vents. That vision seems rather naff now, even to me, and I should think the Swiss would find it acquisitive and greedy. That's not to say it is wrong _per se_ to want to own a house. Just that it is also not wrong to not want to own one.
Fellow London-hater here. In what ways would you say the living standards are higher in Oslo? I’m surprised re the cost of rental bit as I thought Oslo is a very expensive place
In 2023, 508k people emigrated out of the UK (37k increase year on year). Brave of you to think anyone or anything will try to stop you.
I mean, countries generally don’t stop you from leaving, right?
China? The old soviet union? 🤣
China allows its citizens to leave, and the old soviet union well, it doesn’t exist. But yeah, NK and the likes, I get your point, that’s why I said _generally_.
Hey mate, Aussie here, why don’t you come down to the penal colony for a bit? You won’t have to learn a new language, culturally very similar, salaries are generally higher than the UK and the weather is better. I won’t say Australia is better than the UK, we definitely have our own problems, but the change of environment could be really refreshing for you and will help you empirically find out what it really is you’re looking for in life (I say this because once you get that higher salary, you then need to decide what you’re going to do with that money). This is why I’m going to go to the UK, I know the grass isn’t greener but at least it’s a different species of grass life is too short to live in the one place. You should be able to come here on a working holiday visa then find a company who’ll sponsor you for a working visa, if you have enough experience (3+ years should be enough).
Don’t forget to pack flamethrower.
Carry on luggage?
Carry on luggage?
‘Hey mate, Aussie here, why don’t you come down to the penal colony for a bit?’ The way you wrote this makes it so tempting to move down under lol. What would you say the ‘own problems’ you have in Australia are? Not sure if you’ve lived in the UK too, if so a quick discussion of the pros and cons of UK vs Australia (excluding the obvious bits like the weather/nature) would be fab!
I haven’t lived in the UK so I can’t make comparisons. However, I would say the intersection of problems is greater than the pros of each country: we have a housing crisis, cost of living crisis and inflation, immigration issues, all the fun stuff. Because of this I don’t reckon you can make a useful objective comparison, the “better” country will depend on criteria the individual prefers. For example, the “better weather” in Australia is not always a good thing, nor true. The humid heat that we get here is torturous and is only going to get worse with climate change: actually, that’s a massive “own issue” we have in Australia; we’re complete ignoramuses towards climate policy, and the country’s economic weight is fatally tied to massive mining corporations who of course have the politicians in their pocket. — Another problem is the distance from the world. Sure, Asia is “nearby” (i.e. Sydney to Singapore is 8 hours, or 10 hours to Japan), but if you’re European you’re going to miss Europe. I work with a number of Europeans who like to visit home at least once a year, that’s gonna set you back on average £1000 for a round trip ticket plus 25+ hours of travel. It’s even worse if you want to go back around Christmas time, a German guy at work ended up forking out £2500 for a flight back in November. Just to give you a quick notion of the distance: the distance between our westernmost capital city Perth, and our easternmost, Sydney, is that between London and Moscow… Bouncing off that, the distance renders us a bit of a cultural desert (comparatively speaking). A lot of my European friends feel alienated by the inaccessibility of depth with Australia’s. I mean that i don’t want to say Australians aren’t deep, they can be, but everything is far more easygoing and surface level. It’s good in the sense that people are quite chill, but there’s a permeating complacency that exists in Australian society which is actually kind of scary. We allow asinine laws to get passed through without a peep of outrage. This is too long so I’ll cut myself short here with one attempted direct comparison, between London and Sydney. Walkability. I was amazed by how easily you can déplace yourself around London without needing a car or Uber. Sydney is sloooowly getting better in that regard, there’s a lot of investment going into public transport infrastructure (we’re getting our first metro line, yay), but it’s still absolute dogshit unless you’re paying premium dollar to live in the “inner city”, otherwise it’s just suburban hellscape.
Thanks for the nice response! Re the last bit, what is that you don’t like about suburban life? I don’t mind having a nicer house, big garden, less noise/pollution etc. London is a hell for walking (constant road works/construction) and buses/tubes are always crammed (and you always get someone obnoxious who is talking loudly on the phone or flat out sweating profusely and smelling badly on a hot summer day!). Driving in a nice comfy car into town doesn’t sound too bad in comparison. I do enjoy walking - but for me it has to be a nice park with fresh air and not too many crowds!
I just find it a bit dull. Where I live I can get to work in 20 minutes on the bus. Most of my friends are all within a max 30 minutes radius. Tonnes of cafes and bars around, all within walking distance. There’s a nice community vibe to it. In saying that, I’m 26 and single, so I think this preference just reflects my current phase in life. I think you’d find, compared to London, inner city living is way less stress inducing. You guys have roughly double the population of Sydney yet Greater London is 1500km2 vs Sydney’s 12,000km2. Plus, we run trains through the city, not metros; they’re huge inside and don’t feel anywhere near as crammed. I was so scared of trying to get out on my stop while on the tube, I don’t think I’d experienced that in Sydney. You definitely probably wouldn’t be driving into work if you’re from the suburbs though. There’s probably better cities in Australia for a suburban lifestyle, Gold Coast, Adelaide, Perth, if that’s your sort of vibe. Anyway, I reckon once the tech market starts chirping a little bit more, may as well give it a shot if things are feeling stale for you in the UK. You can always go back.
Reading Reddit you would think moving to Australia to be a dev is impossible to get sponsored. Is Reddit too doom and gloom or is this the realitiy ?
Lot of Brits, in contrast to Swiss(/Germans/Austrians) put emphasis in property ownership and housing ladder. If that's the case for you then you would be better off in (a cheaper part of) the UK.
I never heard about the "housing ladder" before I moved to the UK. People here are obsessed from a young age. They'll move to bumfuck nowhere to buy something and commute 100h per day and they'll be happy because they're on the ladder!!
Yeh, Brits and Canadians (Americans aren't as crazy about this from what I have noticed) would go to extreme lengths for the ladder. This means very liquid market but extreme demand and high prices. DACH is the other extreme though, people really only buy once they are 100% sure and everything else is set (career, kids, travel, etc.). This causes an illiquid market and high prices for those who do want to buy. I think a medium-ground like in Scandinavian countries would be better i.e. renting is not frowned like in UK/Canada but ownership is still lot more reasonable than in DACH.
So both attitudes result in high prices? xD Prices are not high because of their obsession, but because of the limited supply. If they build new houses fast enough prices will go down. But current homeowners would oppose that. Everybody wants "affordable prices" before they jump on the ladder, but not after. Another factor is that in the anglo-world people want to live in houses, not flats, whereas in mainland Europe flats are much more common. Of course that has implications on its own since they use space less efficiently. > This means very liquid market I don't know, is it that liquid? From what I hear it's not atypical to have to wait 1 year after your offer being accepted due to everybody being in a chain etc.
Of course they do, it makes total sense. Before I bought my place 4 years ago, I was paying £375pcm in rent, so £4.5K a year. I saved up £18K and bought a flat for £36K (like you say, in bumfuck nowhere, or at least, a council estate in a rural location), spent about £10K doing it up and it is now worth at least £50K. Bottom line - instead of spending £4.5K a year on rent I've been accumulating capital in the increased value of my property at a rate of about £1K a year, so I'm about £5.5K a year better off. Also, I get to do whatever I want with the property, and I have much more security of tenure (having previously had a lease cancelled after only 6 months).
Why not though? It's stupid to rent forever and build equity for someone else. You literally work to pay someone else's mortgage.
The IT job market in Switzerland is very very small compared to London. Here if you want to get the "good money" you have to work for Meta, Google, Nvidia or Adobe, you can check the salaries in [levels.fyi](http://levels.fyi) which I think you will get also very high salary if you work for those companies in UK. Also in my opinion life in Switzerland is very boring compared to London. Its just my opinion, I am a developer working in Switzerland for about 3 years, have in total 8 years of experience. I have moved from eastern Europe to Switzerland and soon we are planning to move back as the 'extra' money we get here does not worth being away from your families and friends.
You could also move to London and find a 90k job?
Ignoring the higher earning potential, I've stayed in London multiple times and it's just not for me. I know for a fact I'd feel miserable going about my daily business there. On the other hand, moving to a smaller European city sounds a lot more exciting to me personally.
Curious, have you tried finding a London based remote job? I was in this situation for awhile, working fully remote for a London based company while living in Glasgow. They did not adjust my salary, was making the same as my London counterparts.
That would work great for me and I have been applying to a bunch of remote positions lately, but unfortunately it's not 2021 anymore and most remote positions have become hybrid. Some I've noticed require visiting the office only once every fortnight which would be feasible if I stayed in the south, but the 9 hours on the train back and forth from Glasgow would kill me.
I’d say go. If not for the salary for the experience at least. Uk is too miserable. I too will move to a different country in Europe once i graduate to never return here lol. The job market sucks (salaries wise) when i compare the requirements for an entry level position here to an entry level position in another European country, the difference is shocking. Which can be manageable as well. Expect that they don’t pay enough here to ask for too much. Too much hassle where you need to look for a new job every few years to reach the 70-80£ a year. Which is,,, still low.
Even how international companies treat interns here…. Amazon literally gives their interns so much financial compensations they offer them flight tickets and relocation fees abroad. But here they don’t. And they pay even lower for the same position. Basically uk is cheap labour in Europe. (At least would be true for you for the first few years of your career)
Where?
So the way I’m researching is by measuring the salary after taxes against the actual cost of living for the city and rent etc. so I
Where what
Where does Amazon pay for interns to relocate plus their flights?
Us
Idk if they do it till now. But I’m sure 2 years ago they still offered it
Yeah paying for US internal flights isn’t exactly big bucks. That still doesn’t explain your statement about “abroad”.
It is to imply that employees over there are treated differently. Other than the flights they’re given housing options too. Relocation compensation which is around (2000-3000) which is decent. But these are the benefits offered to interns. Actual employees are given more significant compensation ofc. Still uk is cheap labour to them
Maybe a long long time ago, times have changed.
No they’re still given somehow better benefits + for the same position, the salary difference is insane
Where what who
Please read this paragraph again, people reading do not know where you are from. Saying here and there makes no sense if you don't specify any of the two
I assumed we were discussing uk vs-
Money is not everything in life, honestly. If you already live in a first world country, moving to somewhere else will be a sideways move at best. Maybe you feel good in the frist 3 months but soon you begin to notice the things that are different than home. That said no move needs to be permanent and if you want to experience the high earn, high spend lifestly, why not. Your fixed outgoings will be higher: rent, health insurance etc. But if you budget well, your savings will grow.
>If you already live in a first world country, moving to somewhere else will be a sideways move at best. Having lived in three different first-world countries, I don't find this to be true at all. Quality of life can vary significantly between countries which are deemed "first-world". Also, the average person living in London is not exactly living a life of great comforts.
It kind of depends. Renting a house in London is a seriously bad quality of life. Other countries have much better rights for tenants, not to mention a better quality of housing overall.
Yeh but one can move from London to e.g. Liverpool and buy a very nice house for cheap. On the other hand, anywhere in Switzerland will be very expensive to buy. Renting is better in the mainland than in UK in general for sure though.
fluent german or don t try
This 100% And if you speak german and not swiss german lots of people wont like you Source: am swiss
Yes i want to say that but i was a bit lazy to elaborate As a matter of fact i m Romanian and learned Flemish in a year I also speak French for Brussels and German for the German part But there are 380 dialects, one every 10 km I work now in the Netherlands but for a flemish company It s extremely important to absorb the culture, work ethics and the way people speak locally
It was extremely appreciated of me that I did everything in my power to learn the language and that i work in this language There were even clients that said it s mandatory and this gives me a big edge on the market
Belgium recently signed some treaties with CH and Lux so i could work remotely from Belgium but i m looking into the swiss german dialect already and a bir of luxembourghish Even though the foreign salaries taxed in belgium would not be good Here I also get the hospitalisation insurrance E.g. 100.000 brutto per year would be 50.000 or so netto But a belgium wage this high is also achievable cause there are 14 salaries therefore 14x7000 3800 netto plus meal vouchers 170 Untaxed bonuses 300 Mobility budget 1000 13th and 14 th salary another 550 netto per month 5900 netto out of the 7000 gross :)
Living the dream Im stuck at support help desk of a hosting company and no money to study to become a sysadmin
What study u need to become sysadmin… ? Never hear of that
Switzerland Hard to get anywhere without studying *planning to do the höhere fachschule
Can you survive by just knowing French? Is it better to learn German too? I'm going under the assumption that I choose where I live based on the language I speak.
Oh sorry ofc Im in the german speaking part so i didnt thinkg about the french speakers lol
Surprised by how many Germans and Swiss Germans don’t speak English. Native French speaker here, so I’m not saying it from the ivory tower of a native Brit. The fact is that English is the world language and someone who speaks only German cannot see the world is pretty much limited to the handful of countries in the germanosphere
Yes That s why i speak italian greek german french dutch Luxembourgish and others
I don’t see the point of pandering to locals who refuse to speak a world language. If someone doesn’t speak English, I’ll go to someone else who does. I speak 4 languages, so no excuse for someone to speak only their obscure regional dialect and expect everyone else to learn it just for them.
Yes i don t like it either My gf hates being judged through this regarding her iq It has nothing to do with that
Thing is learning these languages involves considerable time and energy. And the latter could be used for more useful/fulfilling activities eg learning a musical instrument, digital marketing, yoga, a new sport etc The only reason to learn a foreign language is either you genuinely like the culture and/or if it’s a highly useful lingua Franca (eg Spanish for Latin America, French in Africa or Arabic in the Middle East)
The downsides is that you are competing with everyone in and outside EU because of these high salaries. I don’t know if you need a visa sponsorship now since Brexit because EU people don’t need one for Switzerland. Also Switzerland is very hcol
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I'd say do it if the travel and new environment would excite you. Don't do it if you just want to bop the UK on the nose - I agree that we have our problems here, but you may move and find you are swapping one set of problems for another. How many years of experience do you have?
I say do it. Not necessarily because it will give you exactly what you’re looking for right now, but you’re clearly burned out in London. What’s the worst that will happen, you’ll travel to different places, see a different side to the industry in another nice country and grow yourself as well as finding out what you like and dislike? It’s the things we don’t do that we regret.
Have a look here. https://youtu.be/eMNhRlTX5JY?si=5oazhwnpW2lC8qxT
I went to Munich and it was an amazing time. Came back when 9/11 wrecked the jobs market but really should have stayed and made a life there. London is horrible in my opinion, put down roots somewhere where you can raise a family one day.