Where in Ireland for IT employees?

BarraOG

I've been living outside of Ireland for 10 years and would like to move back in the next few years with my family. I've friends and relations in Ennis and Tullamore and would like live as close to either of these towns as possible.

I work as a Senior IT consultant and develop mainly in C++ and Python and have worked in a whole range of different sectors. My wife is a Project Manager involved in the development of iPhone apps. We wish to prioritise family life as we have young children and are therefore not interested in long commutes. Salary is not a high priority either. We would prefer to live in the country.

What towns and cities in the Midwest and Midlands would you recommend to us?

Thanks!

Barry

fatboypee

BarraOG wrote: »

I've been living outside of Ireland for 10 years and would like to move back in the next few years with my family. I've friends and relations in Ennis and Tullamore and would like live as close to either of these towns as possible.

I work as a Senior IT consultant and develop mainly in C++ and Python and have worked in a whole range of different sectors. My wife is a Project Manager involved in the development of iPhone apps. We wish to prioritise family life as we have young children and are therefore not interested in long commutes. Salary is not a high priority either. We would prefer to live in the country.

What towns and cities in the Midwest and Midlands would you recommend to us?

Thanks!

Barry

Hi Barry,

Your point about salary is key, as is continuity of work. I live in North Tipperary (Ballina/Killaloe) and love it, overlooking Lough Derg, 12 miles to Limerick , 12 miles to Nenagh. I was working in Nenagh for 8 years, before that worked in North Cork & Limerick. I'm currently working in the UK 2 weeks and 1 week from home specifically because of lack of jobs in my locality that pay very well.

Constantly on the look out for reasonable jobs around home but they are few (IT Software Dev Mgr / Architect).

My experience is that continuity of work / variety of roles you need to consider the big cities, Dublin (obviously), or Cork (growing all the time, not sure on C++), however there are often jobs that come up round Shannon, two in Ennis this month for developer (.Net) and a couple in Kerry, so there are clearly improvements.

If it were me, relocating, I'd consider the mid-west as a base (obviously as I live there ) but infrastructure, opportunity of work base (Limerick, Shannon, Cork, Galway all have a steady, if not small list of jobs) and the pace of life beats the big cities. ON the plus side, right now, house prices are still pretty low so you'd get quite a good deal..

You do have to compromise on salary however, but if this is a lesser issue then all the better..

Alternatively you could base yourself in the midlands and commute into Dublin, though with the best will in the world that's an hour each way even by train from Tullamore..

Hope that helps.

BarraOG

Thanks very much for your reply! What employers do you know of in the Mid West that I should keep an eye on? The jobs I have seen in Shannon have been for Intel.

Stheno

BarraOG wrote: »

Thanks very much for your reply! What employers do you know of in the Mid West that I should keep an eye on? The jobs I have seen in Shannon have been for Intel.

There's a few companies in Shannon who've a biggish IT Dept, Element Six is one, then there is a financial services company whose name escapes me.

Ericcson have a massive operation in Athlone also, while Avaya are in Galway.

Most of the roles in project management are in Dublin tbh, I know someone who moved to Roscommon and is struggling to find roles outside of Dublin

fatboypee

One poster on here in reply to one of my posts made mention of Galway as a graveyard of careers :eek: I guess it depends what you're looking for career-wise but there is certainly an element of any job outside a major city is still precious by comparison and finding another, often harder should you want or need to change. However, for me at least, the compromise is and was worth it.

WRT to the jobs in Mid West I've often found along with job boards, a good relationship with local recruiters to be fruitful, there are two in limerick that I've found extremely helpful and who have an ear to the ground. I'm not sure I should name them here but PM me and I'll send on the contact details for both (bear in mind they'd be competing for the same roles on many occasion (such is the dept h of the market ). Additionally, Dell in Limerick are still going strong, UPC, Vodafone, occasional movement from GE Capital in Shannon but there are a lot of SMEs here too and a lot of software companies in and around UL campus, again, the recruitment agents would have a finger on the pulse there.

FBP.