I have a double training, creative and technical, acquired in Product Design Master (Design degree in 5 years) and BTS MAI (technical degree in 2 years) both after “BAC” (A-level in French) .
My experience includes three years of experience in product design agencies, corporate design studio and as a freelance.
And now I’m looking for international experience in an English-speaking countries (UK, U.S., Canada) to improve my English (sorry if i make some mistakes) and be more open to other cultures.
Here’s the problem, I have a chance to go work in England. The position is located within 30 km of north-west London. I have no more information about the company.
And before applying for this job I have some questions for those who live in England.
Do I need a visa to work in England? (I think UK is not part of the european space schengen)
What is the standard of living in England? (Insurance, health care, Telephone, internet, food, taxes,…)
How much does a home cost? In France we are talking about square meter and total number of rooms, what about England?
What is the average salary for a designer like me?
I saw on the Coroflot survey that the average salary is about £ 30,000 per year.Do you think it is credible to request a wage like this ?
Do you think I can negotiate something for relocation ?
Here it is! If some of you can enlighten me a little… I am open to any feedback. And if by chance some of you have some similar information on Canada or US I am also very interested.
I am a French citizen and work in England. You don’t need any special visa… just a copy of your passport
Standard of living is nice compared to the US where I grew up, but certain things cost differently from the continent. Beer is cheap and wine is expensive for example… Vacations and employee rights are about the same I think. People have a lot of national pride here (like everywhere), so they can get a bit prickly about rivalries, but mostly people are easy to get along with and I’ve made some great friends.
Renting is about 400-600 pounds a month for one person. Decent houses in the SW seem to go from about 100-150k and up. 250k is probably the max you’d ever pay, there’s an extra tax for houses over that so they usually plateau there
30k seems like a salary designers would make after about 3-5 years if they’ve done good work (but my experience here is a just one part of England, and just for a couple years - it might be higher in other parts closer to London). With your extra degree, you might be able to get more.
Who knows about relocation, depends on the company… you should definitely ask though
Hope this helps and good luck on your decision…
Tavisimo will be better at Visa queries than me, but as he has stated you don’t need a Visa as we’re both in the EU.
I think I’m right in thinking you’ll have full access to our free health service, although collecting medicines after seeing a doctor cost about £8, and a visit to the dentist about £25. Phone line and Internet can be had for around £25 a month. I generally spend around £30 a week on food, not including alcohol and other luxuries! I’ll pm you regarding tax levels, but around 30k salary is about right.
Accommodation in that area could cost from 100k to the sky’s the limit. Renting a one bedroomed place would be in the region of £800-£1000 a month, but could be a lot less if you’re happy to join a shared house, which is very common with a good turn-over of available properties. That said, this is all very location specific, so hard to answer accurately.