Greetings from Scotland

Hi everyone, grettings from the cold, wet and windy Paisley in Scotland.

Like most people on here I assume I'm one of the many who's looking to move down under.

I spent 20 days earlier this year visiting Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane (4 days each) and I must say I was quite impressed with the pace of life. I'm originally from Greece (raised there till 16) so the weather, the people, the food and the set up was very familiar to me, very much like Athens felt when I was growing up there back in the 90's and early 00's.

I'm hoping to move to Oz with my partner and I'm on here to get as much advice as I can regarding the type of Visa we should each apply for.

Looking forward to get to know people on here and hear/read about their respective experiences.

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Oh, and hello from Scotland as well - I am writing from an office in Coatbridge, though live near Strathaven. We are ex Oz after living there for 8 years and now in Bonny Scotland

Hiya. 8 years is a good length of time to get a proper feel of the place in terms of work and life-style. Where in Oz did you live?

We started in Sydney, for 6 months, then spent the rest in Mandurah near Perth.

Didn't visit Perth whilst we were over, couldn't get enough time off work to stay longer. I would have ideally liked another 10 days to see both Perth and Darwin.

Hi everyone, grettings from the cold, wet and windy Paisley in Scotland.

 

Like most people on here I assume I'm one of the many who's looking to move down under.

 

I spent 20 days earlier this year visiting Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane (4 days each) and I must say I was quite impressed with the pace of life. I'm originally from Greece (raised there till 16) so the weather, the people, the food and the set up was very familiar to me, very much like Athens felt when I was growing up there back in the 90's and early 00's.

 

I'm hoping to move to Oz with my partner and I'm on here to get as much advice as I can regarding the type of Visa we should each apply for.

 

Looking forward to get to know people on here and hear/read about their respective experiences.

I would tend to ignore any impression you get on a 4 day visit, the pace of life certainly in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth is on a par with major cities in the UK (can't comment on Adelaide and Brisbane as I don't know them well enough).

It depends what you do of course but working in business/finance working hours tended to be longer in Perth than Scotland (& Perth is probably more laid back than Sydney) and annual leave was significantly less.

We moved back to Scotland after 5 years in Perth - from England originally, moved to Scotland in my 30's and lived there for 7 years before migrating but even after 5 years in Australia Scotland felt more like 'home'.

of course for you coming from Greece the experience is likely to be very different so in terms of visas, the common visas are Independent Skilled Visas which requirement you to have a skill on the SOL and pass a skills assessment or a 457 visa which requires you to have a skill on the CSOL and an employer willing to sponsor you - the later can be rather precarious though as it is not permanent migration and if your job was to end for any reason you have 90 days to find another sponsor or move back.

There are many other visas - state sponsored, regional visas, employer-nominate visas (for PR) but all require a skill on the SOL or CSOL so that's the place to start. If you do not have a skill on the SOL then I would consult a migrattion agent about the best visas that might be available to you. It can be surprising, I had worked in IT for 10 years but my degree is in psychology and I had previously worked as an unqualified Social Worker and my skill for migration was 'Social Professional - NEC' - I honestly thought the agent was wrong but got my visa!

In terms of your partner a lot depends on the relationship, if you are effectively married in all but name then only one of you will need a visa, the other can migrate as a dependent.

If you are under 30 it may be worth considering a WHV - it has a lot of restrictions but you will get a much better idea if the lifestyle and weather in Australia suits you - it certainly isn't for everyone.

Just seen your other post about Solicitors/Barristers - I think you should be well placed to read & research the visas available to you and seem to already be on the right track.