I’ve always wanted to live abroad and there are several cities around the world I’d love to try living in, but my number one has always been London. I’ve visited several times and also travelled around the UK extensively, I even did a semester abroad in the UK during my studies, yet I still want to go back.
But I’ve come to realize that after brexit it’s become nearly impossible to move there. Currently I live in New York and it was easier for me (as a European) to get a job here than in London. I think the only possible route for me at this point is applying for a permanent position at the foreign ministry of my country after which I would be able to apply for a posting at the London embassy at some point. But it would be a big career decision cause the pay is shit compared to the private sector and it would probably take me years to even have a chance to get sent there.
First I’d have to apply and get accepted for the program and I know for a fact that many people apply for years without getting in. Then I’d have to go through a year of training and after that work in my home country for 3-4 years to build experience or take a posting in some small mission in a developing and/or war-torn country because it’s virtually impossible to get sent to a European destination unless you first work in a “less-desireable” place for a few years. And even then it’s pretty much up to luck. I’m in my late 20s now which would mean I’d be well into my 30s before even getting a chance and I’m just wondering is it worth the risk when there’s possibly not even a reward at the end? But then again the only other way of getting there with my educational background and skillset would be to marry a British guy and the chances of that happening are pretty much non-existent so…
My guestion is, do you have a dream destination where you’d like to move? And how much work and time would you be willing to put into getting there? Or if you’ve managed to move to your dream country/city how long did it take you to get there?
I have also checked all the visa in the uk, the only possible way is marriage…getting a sponsored job there is even impossible
If you’re from the EU you can just move to Ireland for five years and then move to the UK after getting Irish citizenship. The housing situation here is bad, but once you get that sorted it’s a very nice place to live.
Ive always wanted to live in the Northern Seaside UK City of Blackpool, I can but dream one day one day
Ive always wanted to live in the Northern Seaside UK City of Blackpool, I can but dream one day one day
I have a dream destination and been working 5 years to get there. Even moved to another country to boost my chances but no opportunity to get a work permit
If you’re European and want to live in the UK, move to Ireland for 5 years, get Irish citizenship, then move to the UK.
It’ll take years snd you’ll have to deal with a horrific housing crisis but it’s a guaranteed & permanent solution.
For me it was Vancouver. I visited with my now wife when we were students in the mid-2000s and we said to one another ‘we’ll move here one day’. We tried to move over just after graduating but a company that said they were sponsoring my visa dropped the ball/made false promises and we had to head back to our home in the UK. From that point, it took nearly a decade to get legitimate work permits, another couple of years after arriving to gain residency and now, I think 16 years after we first fell in love with the place we just applied for citizenship. We also have a Canadian born kid with another arriving next month.
Anyway in that decade of trying to get a visa in our 20s we lived in Edinburgh then London, both experiences I wouldn’t trade for anything. But we’ve been lucky to travel pretty widely, and out of everywhere we’ve visited we just felt at home here.
Overall, it was worth the wait - there’s ups and downs like anywhere but I do love it still. The only other new destination I’ve thought about is SoCal where I’ve got family and my company has an office. But I don’t know, it was pretty draining completely resetting our lives once and I’m not sure I’d go through it all over again.
For me, my dream destination is my retirement destination.
It’s going to be at least another ten years to get there, living in other places and working a lot, saving, preparing.
It’s worth it.
Yes, and my wife and I are currently amid the plan.
My wife is a teacher and we always wanted to live abroad and eventually settle in Europe. As a teacher there’s plenty of opportunities to teach abroad, but they’re not without competition.
With little to no experience one can easily teach ESL at say a Korean hagwon. With some experience one can be a subject teacher at an international school in a less developed area of the world (SE Asia, LatAm, Middle East, rural China, etc.), and with international experience one may be able to break into the European international schools.
That being said though, the European international schools are some of the best schools in the world. So, to start off my wife got her first international teaching job in Peru at one of the best schools in the country to obtain international experience. We’re on year 2/4 in this country. The hope is that after 4 years she will be able to get a job somewhere in Europe that’s less competitive, like Spain or Italy. But the big goal is the Netherlands after either 4 years here or a couple more years elsewhere in Europe.
So, would we pursue a multi-year globe-trotting plan to achieve our pipe dreams of living in Europe? Absolutely.
And, for what it’s worth, my background is public policy and I seriously considered trying to join the US State Dept Foreign Service or UN for us to live abroad, but we decided that going through her career and the choice of where to live was a better option— so I feel you with the struggle of trying to join a service where they may place you, as an American diplomat once told me she was, “in a shipping container in Afghanistan”. It’s a real roll of the dice, and single people I’ve been told get the shittier posts until they get some seniority. It’s by no means an easy decision to make.
I think it’s always better to chase your dreams rather than be left with the what-ifs in life. Time passes anyway so you might as well spend it working toward your London goal.
But I also think its important to remember that realistically, dreams sometimes end up being just that: a dream. So we have to find ways to carve a life path that allows us to chase our dreams but find sustainability and happiness regardless of if we ever achieve it.
Some of the most important questions to ask yourself are these:
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If you get the embassy position but never get the transfer to London approved, would you still be ok with working at the embassy longer term? If not, would the skills you gained be easily transferrable to a better career?
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What would a reasonable timeline look like to chase the dream - for instance, if you get the job with the embassy, how long are you willing/able to wait for a transfer?
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In the years before even being able to apply for your transfer, would the embassy job pay enough to be sustainable? What will daily life look like for you and how will it change?
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Is it more likely for you to simply apply weekly for London jobs and find one that will sponsor your visa, versus the probability of the embassy job+transfer working out?
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NYC for me and my partner! Literally got a whole second citizenship to maximise our chances of getting there. When we make it it’ll have been a decade in the making. Though, we could have definitely gotten there faster if we’d made some more sacrifices but we decided to play a longer game to give ourselves more stability in the long term.
my dream holidays is always NZ from when I was a kid but next year I opt out NZ and choose Dubai, see if I am lucky
I put over a decade of work into my big move and it was worth it for me. But my strategy was to save up enough money that I could live in my new country without working. That gives me the flexibility to move to a new place if my dream destination had not lived up to my expectations. If plan A had not worked out all my work would not have been for nothing.
If London is your dream, you might be able to get a student visa and earn a degree in some field that is in demand. It would take time and money but at least if it didn’t lead to a job in London it might advance your career in general
It would absolutely be London. I don’t know if it would ever happen economically but saying where I am is going to destroy me