Advice on moving to Sydney please.

[UnnamedFemaleProtagonist]

DH's colleague who moved out to Sydney contacted him yesterday and said they are looking for more people to move out there. It is a banking job and the salary is circa $90k AUD.

We have three DC: 10, 5, 2 and I am a full time student just finishing my second year. We are fairly skint, we have no free income after bills/food and our (mortgaged) house is too small.

My parents live in France and would be happy for us to make the move. We have said that we are potentially interested and DH has made moves to find out more.

Obviously we would need to know about the relocation package etc, but any thoughts? What do we need to consider?

In Sydney you commute for as long (or as short) as you can afford. People commute massive distance.

I'm on the north shore of sydney atm (nice, peaceful, on a train line, less pricey than eastern suburbs or inner city but still quite pricey), and I pay $110 a day for my daughter to go to childcare. I've just paid $200 for ds's soccer registration, $180 for a term tennis lessons, $120 for a term ballet for dd. I aim to spend$200 a week on groceries.

As a starting teacher, I think your salary will be around $48 000.

Check out Turramurra - nice area, for some reason a bit less expensive than surrounding suburbs. Beecroft also looks very pleasant to me, though I don't know it so well. Both are houses with gardens kind of places. You won't get a house with a garden close to the city on 90 000.

Look into your chance of getting a teaching job in your area, they are extremely difficult to get.

We're in Sydney. There is no way I would even think about moving here on that kind of money (which is extremely low for banking tbh so the job is unlikely to be at a level that would come with a great relocation package). Yes, of course people manage on lots less, but if you want to live somewhere decent and enjoy what Sydney has to offer you would really struggle.

As has already been said you are looking at $4,500 per child (plus $110 admin fee) to send your kids to your local public school (and as this goes to the government, not the school, you will also be expected to pay the school contribution which you will be billed for and can be $200/500pa). There is no "no child will miss out..." around here - if you don't pay your children will be excluded from whatever the money covers. You will also have to pay for uniforms, text books and stationery. (Your kids might also go back a year at school, depending on their birthays, but that's a different thread!).

If you want to work childcare is expensive (and can be hard to find depending on where you live) and as a 457 visa holder you won't be entitled to any rebate (or any kind of government assistance as, obviously, holders of business visas are not supposed to be a "drain on the economy"). Getting your qualifications recognised here can also be expensive and time consuming.

Things like kids' activities are a lot more expensive (and when you first arrive you automatically multiply by three terms but here there are four) - I pay $175 per 10 week term for DD's ballet lessons, $190 for DS2's martial arts, swimming lessons (now finished thank goodness) worked out at $18 a go. I've been looking at threads on here recently talking about £5 ballet lessons in England.

I don't mean to sound all doom and gloom, and if you can make it work Sydney is an amazing place to live, but I think it is best to be realistic. I've been here five years and have met a lot of unhappy expats struggling because they just didn't get how expensive it is.

No! Don't give up! And don't let people put you off. Sydney is a great place to raise a family. It will be a huge adventure for you all. And the lovely weather makes up for being skint .

Just to clarify, DH's colleague is on 90K but he is a few levels above her. We have a lot to think about and the school costs do sound very high and therefore off-putting. Is there a chance that my (anticipated) first class undergraduate degree in English Lit won't be recognised?

Your degree will be fine. If he wants a management salary it would be useful to get the institute of management membership here. The trouble my DH is having is that they would rather home grow their managers do he could easily get a job for $90,000 it's finding one for 150,000 that's been more of an issue but not impossible. They insisted on face to face interviews though he has had to go out on a reckie visit

3 and 4 bed houses in Asquith on the internet with a garden for rent at $500 - $600 pw - the latter with a swimming pool. Just about 1 hr commute.

As Mosman has said there won't be a problem having your degree recognised, but if you want to teach just the degree probably won't be enough. Have a look at www.det.nsw.edu.au which outlines the approval process you would have to go through to be able to teach in public schools (on a 457 you won't be able to apply for permanent or "temporary contract" positions but you would be eligible for casual if you can get approved status). Private schools won't have the same unified approach, but from my experience private schools here have higher standards, not lower, for techers.

Sydney is the strangest place in terms of the corporate employment market, it is a very "small town" and recruiters like to be able to pick up the phone and get personal recommendations for any kind of a senior role. There are lots of expats here but they tend to be either at the lower end of the market, or have been brought in at very senior levels from overseas. The in-between ones (i.e. $150-$200k) are hard to get, a lot of people have to accept "starter jobs" if they want to make the move. DH did actually manage to get a $150k job from overseas (IT) but lasted less than a month. The job was nothing like he had been promised but luckily for him he had PR so could walk. On a 457 you have 28 days to find someone to take over your sponsorship or leave the country, it happened to a good friend of ours last month.

Have you considered trying to get PR from the UK? Obviously it depends on whether you fit the criteria, but I was reading in the paper the other day that the skilled migrant quota looks like being raised. It would take you a while, but it does mean that once you arrive your DH would be in a much better place employment wise, you would be eligible for things you wouldn't be on a 457 and if you had a bit of teaching experience under your belt it would make you more employable too. If your DH is in IT btw you are welcome to PM me - DH has done a lot of work with Westpac so if your DH wanted to send a copy of his CV my DH would be able to give an indication of what kind of salary he is likely to get around here.

You will almost certainly be UNable to get a teaching job with just a degree - you will have to get a teaching certificate here as well, which may cost quite a lot as unless you are a permanent resident (on a permanent visa, not a temporary one) you have to pay overseas fees for any course you do.

Are you looking to make this a permanent move, or just temporary based on your DH's work contract? As has been said already, your entitlements differ quite substantially depending on which, and if you are on a 457 visa you will have to pay school fees.

If you move further out of the city, you will get better rates for rental - Newcastle is the second biggest city in NSW and is about 2 1/2h N of Sydney, but you will get more house for your money there - so might be worth looking further out as well.

No, he's not in IT he is a relationship manager.

I wasn't expecting to teach with just my degree but I thought instead of doing the PGCE here I could do the Australian equivalent.

He hasn't even spoken to Westpac yet and he doesn't even have a cv written up.
This is all pie in the sky on my account, just to see if it is even feasible.

Apologies for the over use of 'even' in my last paragraph.

You would be looking at doing a grad dip in education, if you want to google it.

Make sure you check the cost of overseas students doing it though, as it seems likely that's what you would be paying.

Very hard to give advice on suburbs to consider as Westpac has retail branches EVERYWHERE and they multiple corporate offices in various locations too.

Assuming he will be in the CBD, I would recommend somewhere on the train line to the North West so maybe look at Beecroft, Cheltenham, Epping, Pennant Hills. Nice leafy suburbs with good schools and easy commute to the city.

I'm surprised they are recruiting overseas seeing as there have been so many redundancies in banking in Sydney. Westpac is a pretty good company to work for though (or so I've hear). They are primarily a retail bank but they do have some IB and corporate functions too.