IT Work Abroad - Where to go?

floyd333

I’m looking for information on IT roles outside Ireland.

I have 20 years IT experience in a number of roles. Obviously the IT Sector is thriving here. I have a comfortable permanent job. However, my wife is struggling to get a satisfactory permanent role(She’s in teaching.) We have no kids and are tempted to move abroad and try something different.

I’m wondering what other countries have strong IT Sectors with well paid jobs?

I had a look at the UAE but the roles don’t seem great there. The UK looks ok but the cost of living seems high and Brexit could be an issue..

jester77

If its about the money, then Switzerland is a great place.

Evil Phil

Dunno know about development work in Saudi, but they need teachers.

14ned

floyd333 wrote: »

I’m looking for information on IT roles outside Ireland.

I have 20 years IT experience in a number of roles. Obviously the IT Sector is thriving here. I have a comfortable permanent job. However, my wife is struggling to get a satisfactory permanent role(She’s in teaching.) We have no kids and are tempted to move abroad and try something different.

I’m wondering what other countries have strong IT Sectors with well paid jobs?

I had a look at the UAE but the roles don’t seem great there. The UK looks ok but the cost of living seems high and Brexit could be an issue..

Firstly, my commiserations to you and your wife. My wife was in the exact same situation except she invested most of our money in international fees (€12k!) for the HDip back in 2009 just as the teaching employment market severely worsened in Ireland especially as the Teaching Council now make the qualification effectively expire if not sufficiently used according to their rules.

So in 2012 after it became very clear that things weren't going to improve here for a long while, we emigrated to Canada, not expecting to return to Ireland.

I'd recommend Canada. Quality of life is good to great depending on where you live. Unlike in the US, it's not a rat race as much, and misfortune does not mean ruin. Winters are indeed very cold, but once it gets below -5C you don't really much notice it dropping to -30C once you're wearing the right clothes unless it's very windy. Summers are hot and humid, but nothing like as bad as in the US.

Tax system is a bit complex relative to Europe but not as bad as the US. Immigration is now hard, but not insane like in the US.

My wife ended up not finding teaching work in Canada either - as with every country, there are strong hidden unstated preferences for locally trained teachers. You can get your qualifications converted over and attend interviews, but no one will hire you. She ended up getting a job as an admin in a big university which she enjoyed more than she expected. The teaching qualification interestingly was a big help in getting hired as the academics felt she would much better understand their needs.

We ended up returning to Ireland due to visa changes in the Canada and we had a baby on the way. It was safer to return home than risk an uninsured birth in Canada. Ireland's gain, Canada's loss we think, but had I been employed just one more month before being downsized we wouldn't have had our visa revoked. Unfortunate timing in the end.

Regarding moving to Britain, there is a big teaching shortage there. She'll get a job anywhere in the south east very easily. But there are very good reasons nobody wants to teach there, it's pretty awful. The only reason I'd ever recommend teaching there is to keep your HDip valid with teaching experience before returning as soon as possible to an Irish teaching position.

Bear that in mind when deciding. Many teaching couples we know who graduated with my wife bit the bullet and the wife moved to England to teach during the weekdays, flying home every weekend for the two year contract, then getting a job here in order to preserve the husband's job. You may need to decide if that's as far as you also need to go.

Niall

floyd333

14ned wrote: »

Firstly, my commiserations to you and your wife. My wife was in the exact same situation except she invested most of our money in international fees (€12k!) for the HDip back in 2009 just as the teaching employment market severely worsened in Ireland especially as the Teaching Council now make the qualification effectively expire if not sufficiently used according to their rules.

So in 2012 after it became very clear that things weren't going to improve here for a long while, we emigrated to Canada, not expecting to return to Ireland.

I'd recommend Canada. Quality of life is good to great depending on where you live. Unlike in the US, it's not a rat race as much, and misfortune does not mean ruin. Winters are indeed very cold, but once it gets below -5C you don't really much notice it dropping to -30C once you're wearing the right clothes unless it's very windy. Summers are hot and humid, but nothing like as bad as in the US.

Tax system is a bit complex relative to Europe but not as bad as the US. Immigration is now hard, but not insane like in the US.

My wife ended up not finding teaching work in Canada either - as with every country, there are strong hidden unstated preferences for locally trained teachers. You can get your qualifications converted over and attend interviews, but no one will hire you. She ended up getting a job as an admin in a big university which she enjoyed more than she expected. The teaching qualification interestingly was a big help in getting hired as the academics felt she would much better understand their needs.

We ended up returning to Ireland due to visa changes in the Canada and we had a baby on the way. It was safer to return home than risk an uninsured birth in Canada. Ireland's gain, Canada's loss we think, but had I been employed just one more month before being downsized we wouldn't have had our visa revoked. Unfortunate timing in the end.

Regarding moving to Britain, there is a big teaching shortage there. She'll get a job anywhere in the south east very easily. But there are very good reasons nobody wants to teach there, it's pretty awful. The only reason I'd ever recommend teaching there is to keep your HDip valid with teaching experience before returning as soon as possible to an Irish teaching position.

Bear that in mind when deciding. Many teaching couples we know who graduated with my wife bit the bullet and the wife moved to England to teach during the weekdays, flying home every weekend for the two year contract, then getting a job here in order to preserve the husband's job. You may need to decide if that's as far as you also need to go.

Niall

Cheers Niall. Good Info. The teaching situation is pretty messed up here. My Wife is way over qualified but still struggles to get permanent. It's all year to year contracts. It's very hard for us to plan for the future with this.

If we move away, we'd like to move somewhere hot if possible. That's why we were thinking about the UAE.

Tom Dunne

The IT industry in the Middle East is dominated by very poorly paid Asian immigrants. There is little or no development done in the region, it is predominantly IT services. There may be the occasional IT manager roles going, but competition is fierce.

BrokenArrows

floyd333 wrote: »

Cheers Niall. Good Info. The teaching situation is pretty messed up here. My Wife is way over qualified but still struggles to get permanent. It's all year to year contracts. It's very hard for us to plan for the future with this.

If we move away, we'd like to move somewhere hot if possible. That's why we were thinking about the UAE.

I know a few teachers in and around London. Both English and Irish and its pretty much the same. Very difficult to get a permanent role but easy to get yearly contracts or very well paid short term gigs as a substitute teacher.

If coming to the UK, specifically London the area you apply to is going to mean your teaching job will be enjoyable or a horrible experience.

Apply in wealthy areas only or private schools. Don't waste your time getting a job in a poorer area because honestly your going to have a terrible time trying to teach a classroom full of scumbags (a bit harsh but its true). If you're teaching young primary kids in poorer areas then English will likely be a 3rd language at best (based on what ive been told).

14ned

floyd333 wrote: »

Cheers Niall. Good Info. The teaching situation is pretty messed up here. My Wife is way over qualified but still struggles to get permanent. It's all year to year contracts. It's very hard for us to plan for the future with this.

It's actually not bad here compared to the rest of the OECD. We are definitely in the top quintile of least messed up. Teachers get paid well here relatively speaking, their status in society is still relatively high, and work conditions are amongst the easiest with still good job security. That's why it's so hard to get your foot in the door relative to other OECD countries, it's very very competitive and supply vastly exceeds positions available. That hands huge power to headmasters and hiring committees who tend, unsurprisingly, to favour their relatives because teaching is one of the best family friendly jobs in the country with a still relatively excellent pension. If teachers think they have it hard, try summer sessional teaching at a university or teaching English as a foreign language at one of the big TEFL schools. Plenty of hours definitely, but you'll make less than minimum wage once you include the class prep.

As a comparator to your situation, my wife has two Masters degrees in addition to her HDip, one is a Masters in Education. She is consistently rated as a superb teacher by both students and staff in evaluations and she has taught at Leaving Cert level, at UCC to undergrads and at FE level to TEFL students. Does this mean she gets anything more than maternity cover? No, because getting your CID is a political process. You need to lick ass, tick all the boxes, flatter all the right people and wait the requisite years of being a slave to the headmaster's whims and making doing with insufficient teaching hours to cover your living costs until you get your chance at a CID.

Out of my wife's class of 2009, only just now are people getting their CIDs. They waited about seven years on average, relying on husbands and boyfriends to financially support them. About half of her friends have given up and moved into other professions or other countries like Luxembourg. It's a waiting and political game to get your CID, and the average age of getting it is constantly rising.

Her friends have also noticed that headmasters now demand a promise they won't get pregnant for three years if they are given their CID. Illegal, but they have you over a barrel. By the time all that passes you'd be about 35 by the time you could start having children, with all the risk for congenital defects and miscarriage that late age has.

If your wife is getting regular teaching time I'd strongly urge not leaving. She's doing much better than most, and leaving will put her back to the bottom of the wait queue when you return. I'd only recommend leaving if she's not getting in the classroom hours to keep the Teaching Council happy.

floyd333 wrote: »

If we move away, we'd like to move somewhere hot if possible. That's why we were thinking about the UAE.

UAE isn't a great location for tech workers unless you're contracting remotely. Some of the startups are okay, but most of the big companies are pretty awful, even the multinational banks.

I've also noticed a majority of people who head for the UAE return to Europe before having children. It seems to be okay when you're young and free or old and building up your pension, not so sure for having a family.

Niall

grahamor

jester77 wrote: »

If its about the money, then Switzerland is a great place.

+1 on this. Spent 4 years doing dev there and managed to live well and build up some good savings.

hooplah

14ned wrote: »

Her friends have also noticed that headmasters now demand a promise they won't get pregnant for three years if they are given their CID. Illegal, but they have you over a barrel.

Once you get the CID you're not obliged to stick to this - since it's illegal. If I was asked this, and I didn't get the CID I think I would take a case about it.

14ned

BrokenArrows wrote: »

If coming to the UK, specifically London the area you apply to is going to mean your teaching job will be enjoyable or a horrible experience.

Heh. One of my wife's graduating class is a bit ditsy and constantly makes amazingly lucky bad decisions. She was struggling to get teaching hours here not long after graduation in 2009, so applied in the UK. I remember her turning up to a party at our house over the moon at getting a two year contract at some place in London. I think it was Nicola McEvoy (yes, the Rose of Tralee 2012, she was in my wife's graduating teaching class and part of the same friendship group) who said she'd heard of that school somehow ...

A quick google search on the phone later and it turned out she'd landed a contract at the worst school in Britain! It had metal detectors and some amazing rate of student on student stabbings and a fair few student on teacher stabbings over the years. But she was locked into a contract now, and it was real teaching hours, so she had to go.

Anyway turned out to be the best move she could have made. Firstly, because the school was famous, it got real resources thrown at it, whole new management and academics swarming all over it. Discipline there was amazing. Secondly, because she was so ditsy and all over the place, she naturally is a tension diffusing type of teacher, and actually had a very enjoyable time teaching there, the students are very deprived but very keen to learn to get out of their tower blocks once you get past the anger and control problems. Thirdly because it got such a bad name it looked really great on a CV. First school she applied to in Ireland the principal hired her immediately and she got her CID two years later.

So I'd counter the above point. Sometimes going for the worst possible school in the UK can pay off big time. Just make sure you have the temperament and stamina and you're a very lucky type of person first.

Niall

14ned

hooplah wrote: »

Once you get the CID you're not obliged to stick to this - since it's illegal. If I was asked this, and I didn't get the CID I think I would take a case about it.

In reality you have "an unexpected accident" of course and you don't cause a fuss. Deliberately crossing the principal is a bad move even for a CID teacher, they can make your life quite unpleasant for years to come. Also the principal has in their power to gift out various sinecures which pay extra for either a lot of extra work or very little extra work. My next door teacher neighbour gets paid several grand extra a year for putting the incoming school mail into pigeon holes every morning for example.

Niall

BrokenArrows

14ned wrote: »

Heh. One of my wife's graduating class is a bit ditsy and constantly makes amazingly lucky bad decisions. She was struggling to get teaching hours here not long after graduation in 2009, so applied in the UK. I remember her turning up to a party at our house over the moon at getting a two year contract at some place in London. I think it was Nicola McEvoy (yes, the Rose of Tralee 2012, she was in my wife's graduating teaching class and part of the same friendship group) who said she'd heard of that school somehow ...

A quick google search on the phone later and it turned out she'd landed a contract at the worst school in Britain! It had metal detectors and some amazing rate of student on student stabbings and a fair few student on teacher stabbings over the years. But she was locked into a contract now, and it was real teaching hours, so she had to go.

Anyway turned out to be the best move she could have made. Firstly, because the school was famous, it got real resources thrown at it, whole new management and academics swarming all over it. Discipline there was amazing. Secondly, because she was so ditsy and all over the place, she naturally is a tension diffusing type of teacher, and actually had a very enjoyable time teaching there, the students are very deprived but very keen to learn to get out of their tower blocks once you get past the anger and control problems. Thirdly because it got such a bad name it looked really great on a CV. First school she applied to in Ireland the principal hired her immediately and she got her CID two years later.

So I'd counter the above point. Sometimes going for the worst possible school in the UK can pay off big time. Just make sure you have the temperament and stamina and you're a very lucky type of person first.

Niall

Well thats probably a very rare situation where a bad school has resources thrown at it. It would be more common that the school is under resourced.

14ned

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Well thats probably a very rare situation where a bad school has resources thrown at it. It would be more common that the school is under resourced.

I had to do a bit of searching to find the programme that teacher I mentioned was under (sorry, my memory is not what it was). It was called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Challenge and it led to dramatic improvements in London schools basically by throwing resources at them. As I mentioned, said teacher has a real gift for making lucky terrible decisions. And I really can't remember which London school she taught at, too long ago sorry.

Elessar

Getting back to IT for a minute, what area specifically? If it's dev what sort of technologies? We've had contractors move to the UK because the daily rates are much better, and there seems to be plenty of work if you're willing to move around.

cowboyBuilder

Barcelona is pretty good, and there is a big demand for developers that is hard to fill.

Someone with 20 years should have no problem getting work - pay would be good again for someone with experience.

14ned

cowboyBuilder wrote: »

Barcelona is pretty good, and there is a big demand for developers that is hard to fill.

Someone with 20 years should have no problem getting work - pay would be good again for someone with experience.

Last time I looked day rates in Madrid were a good chunk lower than Dublin for a senior dev, €250/day or so. That was a few years ago I suppose. Like all Continental European countries, IT salaries top out around €40-45k and taxes are much higher as there is a much lower gap between rich and poor than here.

You have absolutely zero chance of getting into the teaching system in Spain as an outsider. It's a closed to outsiders system. You have plenty of work available as a TEFL teacher though, but hourly rates are lower than in Ireland and there is no job security plus no sick nor maternity leave (same as Ireland).

That said I very much enjoyed working there 2000-2002. It's not the same fun country today however, it's pretty gloomy there now. All the young-ish people are quite angry and increasingly bitter.

Niall