Hi myself and the family are looking into emigrating to aus . I have a 4 year old boy and a 1 year old girl , i am 32 and the wife is 29 . Is rockingham a good place to settle with regards to life style , schools , house prices and job opportunities , i am a welder and there seems to be plenty of jobs in the welshpool area . Have obvious concerns about employment , wages and making sure we get it right for the kids sake , any advice would be appreciated , thanks .
We live in Safety Bay in Rockingham. We like it, we have a 12 yr old boy who goes to a private school which he absolutely loves and has settled in well. We live 5 minutes from the beach and 40 minutes from the city.
Kwinana is about 15 -20 minutes away and there are plenty of welding companies there. A little bit further on is cockburn and henderson again welding companies out there because its where a lot of the shipbuilding companies are. I actually work for a small welding company. The pay is dependant on your quals and whether you want a casual rate usually slightly higher rate because you dont get holiday & sick pay etc
If you want any more info or company names please let me know,
Thanks sorry to be picking your brains .
I am a fully qualified welder and fabricator to level 3 city and guilds , i mainly know mig and tig welding but have not done stick welding for 12 years or so , but would like to think i could pick it up again .
I have been involved in sign making in the uk , ,so working off basic drawings , but for the past 7 years have been on the railways welding , but really want to get off it . Any ideas on what i would be good for and what wage comes with that . Thanks for the feedback .
The welding co I work for is a small company employing about 40 people. The guys earn anything between 30 -55 dollars per hour depending on welding techniques, speed experience etc The majority of them tend to take a higher hourly rate of pay but dont get paid holidays or sick etc Apparantely, welders (as with a lot of other trades) get good money in the mines however that does involve working away for so many weeks at a time. Companies (bigger ones) to look at would be austal ships, weldtronics, press construct, if I can think of any more will let you know. The cost of living here is a lot less than the uk having said that the petrol prices and interest rate rises have increased dramatically over the past few months. House prices in the Rockingham area vary dependant on where you want to live but for an average 4 bed hse you looking around the $400-450 mark. Nice areas to look at are Secret Harbour, Port Kennedy and Baldivis all which are newer estates. Safety Bay is an older area although we love it because its 5 min from the beach and we could get a bigger block within our budget. I pay for a private school (primary ) which is about $1,000 per year and high school i will be looking at $3,500 per year.
Thanks we are beach people now as we live 5 mins from it in the uk . Schools seem very cheap as this would cost you the same per term in uk , if not more . Is it something you felt like you had to do or are the regular schools not up to much . Back to the welding i have never been coded in the uk is this something i can get in aus , i am a little concerned that i will be classed as a 2nd class welder and be stuck with a lower wage ( what is the average wage for 2nd class welders ) , thanks again .
The reason I chose a private school was because back in the Uk my son was set to go to a grammar school so I did a little research and panicked about the mainstream schools and just made the decision to go private. I have met a lot of english people whos children are in state school and they say there is no or very little homework given and the discipline is not good. I have to be honest I have been really pleased with my sons school and glad I chose private, he gets plenty of homework, discipline and he has settled really well his confidence has grown enormously (too much if anything) It may well be a fluke and the state schools may not all be bad.
Now for the welding, as I said before I work for a very small welding company who dont tend too look at your qualifications. They tend to look at your resume and if that said 1st class welder they would believe it. A 1st class welder works on coded work such as pressure vessels, a 2nd class welder tends to do construction work. As a coded welder you could have a cert to say you are a coded welder. However you have to be coded at the place you work, you do this by welding test pieces which are sent away for examination. The test piece is examined and has to conform for you to become coded only in that particular weld procedure. These welder quals also have to be resubmitted every 6 months and as I said are ony valid for that place that you are working at. Most companys at interview will ask you to do a test piece, checking your speed technique and quality. The 1st class welders get the best rates of pay as I said previously we pay up to $55 per hour. There are courses on coded welding I think dependant on you quals its up to a two week course. If you want more details I can get them or you.
Hope this helps not sure if I am explaining it very well,
Thanks again , its sounds like to me the best thing to do is come over find a job and then look to become coded etc .The main concern was not being able to progress , but that sounds like thats not an issue .Can you do the welding courses through the company or is this a college course for 2 weeks approx ?
Thanks again , its sounds like to me the best thing to do is come over find a job and then look to become coded etc .The main concern was not being able to progress , but that sounds like thats not an issue .Can you do the welding courses through the company or is this a college course for 2 weeks approx ?
