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Discussion
Just got back to the UK after 3 weeks of fun kiwi style. Liked the place so much were looking to come over permanantly.
Not sure why you peeps moan about the roads? no speed cameras, very few police, great twisty roads a plenty and not much traffic, passing in my 1.5 auto pulsar wasnt a problem most times so something with acceleration should make it easy...
Loved Taupo tho work may be thin on the ground, so I guess Aukland 1st stop. About a year to sort a work visa?
Not sure why you peeps moan about the roads? no speed cameras, very few police, great twisty roads a plenty and not much traffic, passing in my 1.5 auto pulsar wasnt a problem most times so something with acceleration should make it easy...
Loved Taupo tho work may be thin on the ground, so I guess Aukland 1st stop. About a year to sort a work visa?
No speed cameras? You've got to be joking? You didn't see any small white/red/blue vans or station wagons parked at the side of the road did you?
Either you've been very lucky, spent 98% of your time in the south island or you're going to get some unexpected mail from the car hire company!
Remember that the roads are all very quaint for a holiday, but there is no three-lane motorway running the length of the country when you want to get from A to B in a hurry. After your fifth front-end respray and new windscreen the loose chippings lose their charm too!
Don't get too carried away with a two-week holiday being the basis for a permanent move. Check out the other posts in this forum for the same topic and maybe plan on coming out for a longer stint, ideally with some work thrown in!
Remember it's not all fluffy sheep, BBQs and rugby here, NZ has the same annoying political nonsense as the UK (more so in certain quarters). If you lived here you'd also be earning dollars instead of pounds which means that the petrol is starting to get expensive, your salary is small, housing in Auckland is chuffin' expensive and most decent cars are now beyond your reach!
It's not all bad but it's certainly not perfect! Good luck!
Either you've been very lucky, spent 98% of your time in the south island or you're going to get some unexpected mail from the car hire company!
Remember that the roads are all very quaint for a holiday, but there is no three-lane motorway running the length of the country when you want to get from A to B in a hurry. After your fifth front-end respray and new windscreen the loose chippings lose their charm too!
Don't get too carried away with a two-week holiday being the basis for a permanent move. Check out the other posts in this forum for the same topic and maybe plan on coming out for a longer stint, ideally with some work thrown in!
Remember it's not all fluffy sheep, BBQs and rugby here, NZ has the same annoying political nonsense as the UK (more so in certain quarters). If you lived here you'd also be earning dollars instead of pounds which means that the petrol is starting to get expensive, your salary is small, housing in Auckland is chuffin' expensive and most decent cars are now beyond your reach!
It's not all bad but it's certainly not perfect! Good luck!
jamieheasman -
I'm talking abut fixed speed camera/gatso/truvelo stuff, some places here they grow like trees. Long stretches I can cope with 110km/hr or so anyhow. And a constant 100k/hr on a single lane is far better than 5mph crawl most motorways turn into, can honestly say I covered ground almost as quickly as I could in the Uk unles I got lucky with roads, which does happen.
Tho Stonechips will be a problem I guess, picked up a bird stuck just under the front numberplate too eew...
I know its not all sweetness and light but having lived here for quite some time I'm due for a change.
Petrol will seem cheaper even so, its 85p a liter here and my car drinks like mad, house prices - we've been lucky enough to have bought our house 8 years ago so will have some equity with which to buya place in NZ hopefully. And as for jobs/salary I'm currently a software development team leader specialising in delphi rad apps and oracle, my wifes a specialist pharmacist, so if we both get jobs we should be fine.
I realise that spening NZ$ outside of NZ gets expensive, and politicaly I'd take any democracy over UK/Us right now.
And if we dont like it we can always come back eh?
Kiwi XTR2 - anything IT/software development, probably delphi or .net/c# etc.
>> Edited by Robdickinson on Tuesday 5th April 09:21
>> Edited by Robdickinson on Tuesday 5th April 10:58
I'm talking abut fixed speed camera/gatso/truvelo stuff, some places here they grow like trees. Long stretches I can cope with 110km/hr or so anyhow. And a constant 100k/hr on a single lane is far better than 5mph crawl most motorways turn into, can honestly say I covered ground almost as quickly as I could in the Uk unles I got lucky with roads, which does happen.
Tho Stonechips will be a problem I guess, picked up a bird stuck just under the front numberplate too eew...
I know its not all sweetness and light but having lived here for quite some time I'm due for a change.
Petrol will seem cheaper even so, its 85p a liter here and my car drinks like mad, house prices - we've been lucky enough to have bought our house 8 years ago so will have some equity with which to buya place in NZ hopefully. And as for jobs/salary I'm currently a software development team leader specialising in delphi rad apps and oracle, my wifes a specialist pharmacist, so if we both get jobs we should be fine.
I realise that spening NZ$ outside of NZ gets expensive, and politicaly I'd take any democracy over UK/Us right now.
And if we dont like it we can always come back eh?
Kiwi XTR2 - anything IT/software development, probably delphi or .net/c# etc.
>> Edited by Robdickinson on Tuesday 5th April 09:21
>> Edited by Robdickinson on Tuesday 5th April 10:58
The IT market it pretty small in NZ. There's not a great deal of Delphi work but you should be OK with C# or anything .NET really.
My company are about to embark on a 3+ year Java rewrite of an Informix/4JS/SQL Server system. Got any Java skills?
I would much rather have fixed cameras over here than the mobile type because they are so much easier to spot and remember where they are. There are a lot of speed cameras per head in NZ, particularly around Auckland.
If you're not in one of the major cities I could see how you could be fooled into thinking the roads are ok, but believe me once you've been here a while and are having to commute (probably in Auckland as that's where more than half the IT jobs are unfortunately) you'll change your mind! I'm not speaking blindly on this as I'm an Englishman who has been here for over 7 years and when I go back home it's a blessing to drive on UK roads even with the traffic jams! Whilst driving standards have slipped a bit in the UK over the years they are still vastly superior to NZ. I'm not sure why, but your average, friendly, welcoming Kiwi (as they mostly are) turns into a selfish t
t behind the wheel!
There are plenty of positives to driving in NZ though - the scenery, very cheap track days, relatively cheap petrol and insurance etc etc. Check out some of the other discussions we've had on this subject.
If you've got plenty of equity in your house in the UK you could well be able to purchase yourself a nice place here. The average house price in Auckland is somewhere around the mid-300s (I could be wrong it changes all the time!) and the average salary is something like $40-50k. As a .NET developer you could expect to earn $60-80k up to $100k for a senior team-leader/project manager role in a large company although that would be a very, very good salary. You could also go contracting and those rates would probably range from $50.00p/hr up to $100p/hr although you are far more likely to be in the $50-70 bracket depending on the work/company/length of contract.
If you and your wife are both earning good money, you bring enough cash to buy a nice house in a good area outright (good house in a good area in Auckland is circa $700-800k) and you don't want to bring in a TVR, then you'll be happy as a pig in muck!
My company are about to embark on a 3+ year Java rewrite of an Informix/4JS/SQL Server system. Got any Java skills?
I would much rather have fixed cameras over here than the mobile type because they are so much easier to spot and remember where they are. There are a lot of speed cameras per head in NZ, particularly around Auckland.
If you're not in one of the major cities I could see how you could be fooled into thinking the roads are ok, but believe me once you've been here a while and are having to commute (probably in Auckland as that's where more than half the IT jobs are unfortunately) you'll change your mind! I'm not speaking blindly on this as I'm an Englishman who has been here for over 7 years and when I go back home it's a blessing to drive on UK roads even with the traffic jams! Whilst driving standards have slipped a bit in the UK over the years they are still vastly superior to NZ. I'm not sure why, but your average, friendly, welcoming Kiwi (as they mostly are) turns into a selfish t
t behind the wheel! There are plenty of positives to driving in NZ though - the scenery, very cheap track days, relatively cheap petrol and insurance etc etc. Check out some of the other discussions we've had on this subject.
If you've got plenty of equity in your house in the UK you could well be able to purchase yourself a nice place here. The average house price in Auckland is somewhere around the mid-300s (I could be wrong it changes all the time!) and the average salary is something like $40-50k. As a .NET developer you could expect to earn $60-80k up to $100k for a senior team-leader/project manager role in a large company although that would be a very, very good salary. You could also go contracting and those rates would probably range from $50.00p/hr up to $100p/hr although you are far more likely to be in the $50-70 bracket depending on the work/company/length of contract.
If you and your wife are both earning good money, you bring enough cash to buy a nice house in a good area outright (good house in a good area in Auckland is circa $700-800k) and you don't want to bring in a TVR, then you'll be happy as a pig in muck!
Sounds like your enjoying yourself over there anyhow! Cheap trackdays eh..
The Delphi market over here is relativly small also MS seems to kill all other majopr development platforms but the latest version of Delphi is looking excelent, hopefully we should be getting that soon.
As for Java I have practicaly zero commercial experience, tho have done a course on it and used it here and there for bits and pieces. Tis not that hard to pick up tho but atm I'm a bit green. I do know a great J2EE coder who's expressed intrest in working in NZ so if you want I can getcha hooked up?
Off to look at visas, jobs, housing ... aaak..
The Delphi market over here is relativly small also MS seems to kill all other majopr development platforms but the latest version of Delphi is looking excelent, hopefully we should be getting that soon.
As for Java I have practicaly zero commercial experience, tho have done a course on it and used it here and there for bits and pieces. Tis not that hard to pick up tho but atm I'm a bit green. I do know a great J2EE coder who's expressed intrest in working in NZ so if you want I can getcha hooked up?
Off to look at visas, jobs, housing ... aaak..
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