I moved to Australia back in 2016 and while not in an immediate rush, I am starting to put together a gameplan for an eventual return.

For those who may question why, I initially left as a 25 year old backpacker and now at the ripe old age of 32, my priorities have just changed, as is the natural way of things.

There’s greater potential for career growth back in the UK and with home ownership being a primary goal of mine, I feel much more comfortable pursuing that and investing in my own country.

Obviously having a support network of family around me again will be a much welcome change as well.

I don’t take everything I read online as gospel, especially social media but some have suggested I might be quite shocked to see how things have changed since I’ve been away.

As such, I’m curious to get more perspectives on what life might be like when I arrive back in the motherland.

Any thoughts or experiences welcome, please share!

  • StillComfortable2@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    To answer the initial question:

    • there seems to be a lot move visibly poverty; people wearing poorer clothing and eating cheaper food even in middle class areas, but that was an effect of the Great Recession

    • the demographics seems to have really changed; there are far more Middle Easterners and the vast majority are Muslims. There are more blacks in certain areas as well. You can spend a lot of time in the UK without seeing Indians that aren’t Pakistani/Bangladeshi. You seem to get more visible racism as well - I remember seeing a couple of incidents involving racism against Blacks which I would have never have seen twenty years ago.

    • infrastructure seems to be on the decline quite badly. I was surprised at how bad things were even in London with public transport and the like. It seems that the police are very overstretched but the Labour governments don’t want to enforce the law (because many of the criminals are either poor or ethnic minority) and the Tory governments are unwilling to look politically incorrect and/or are corrupt.

    I wouldn’t move to the UK for career growth as that’s only really feasible these days in the US. Australia tends to have the philosophy of “work to live” and many people don’t chase jobs as they do in the US.