Moving to Scotland

[LaMariposa]

We are planning a relocation to Scotland in 2023, or possibly the start of 2024. 🎉

I have family in coastal Angus, and we both have friends further north in Aberdeen but DH says that’s too far from the the jobs market. We work in IT/financial roles. However his job is fully remote, and mine is currently 1 day a week in the office but there’s plenty of similar fully remote roles. He’s more worried about the children not having options when they are older.

I’ve not lived in Scotland since early childhood, but we holiday up there most years, normally with family or the west coast.

Anyway, we are considering Fife/Kinross area, mainly for the commuting options to so many cities. Does anyone have any recommendations, or areas to avoid? We have primary aged children, like the outdoors, and DD is keen to continue riding lessons. DS loves any sports clubs.

Thanks!

Have you considered Aberdeenshire? Lots of lovely towns with a short commute into Aberdeen. Lots of job opportunities in and around Aberdeen too. The new Aberdeen bypass also means it doesn't take long to drive further south. There's a train line from Aberdeen to Inverness, which has lots of stops in lovely areas for day trips/weekends away, and not far from the Cairngorm national park for summer and winter activities.

I would love Aberdeenshire, closer to friends and still accessible to family.
DH has family in the south west though, and may occasionally need to travel for work, so wants to be near Edinburgh for flights south.

I could offer you an IT Project Manager role with a start tomorrow, work from wherever you like, pop into Aberdeenshire office once every few weeks .... every one getting interviewed seems to be offered something else almost immediately!

But seriously, I know so many folk up this way working from home, with the occasional office day. As mentioned above, new road makes a commute south much easier & quicker. Great outdoorsy life for you all.

Aberdeen has a decent choice of flights - room for improvement still! But even Dundee has a flight to London City.

Hmmn tell me more @Goldunicorn - I’m an ex-PMP PM currently under-utilising my skills.

Let me check the latest when I'm in the office tomorrow & I'll PM you. At the very least, I can get you the name of the agency we're using, who would presumably have other options if we're struggling to pin someone down!

We live just outside Edinburgh, both work in software engineering. Edinburgh is brilliant for the tech scene and quite a few colleagues live in places like Dunfermline and commute in by train, it's great living close to Edinburgh.

Saying that, we're going to be moving back to Aberdeenshire ourselves in a couple of years to be closer to family, house prices are also much better in Aberdeenshire than Edinburgh so we're looking forward to getting somewhere bigger as we have kids (and the family help with childcare!)

DH wants somewhere big with a decent plot of land, he has an allotment and has dreams of polytunnels. Walking distance to primary school, and biking or busing distance to a decent secondary are my non-negotiables, which rules out a lot of the smaller villages.
The children just want to know if we can have goats or alpacas. Not sure I’m ready for that level of animal care though, we have chickens and cats at the moment and that’s enough for me.