Kirsten Zammit Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 Hi, I'm brand new to this forum, so please forgive me if I'm not doing things correctly. I'm married to an Aussie, who lived with me for 2 and half years in Scotland. We have been in WA for 13 years now (where did the time go?!!) and have 2 kids together, but I'm really ready to move back to Scotland. I love Australia, but I just miss my home too much now. I have a Software Engineering degree, but I haven't worked in IT since I left Scotland, so I don't think there's much chance of a job there. I've been mainly working in Accounting firms recently and have a Graduate Diploma in Accounting. My hubby is a postie. I just don't know where to start with the whole thing. Do I look for a job (is it even possible to get a job when living on the other side of the world?!?), do we sell the house and look for jobs when we get there? Where's the best place to find out about visas? My hubby has 2 English grandparents, so does that mean we can get some kind of ancestry visa? Thank you for any help you can offer. Regards, K Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirsten Zammit Posted October 13, 2014 Author Share Posted October 13, 2014 And how do I get my name off here! I thought it had an alias!!! :eek: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 To change your user name send a 'Private Message' to 'The Pom Queen' - she is admin, she may see your post anyway put probably doesn't read every one. In terms of where to start, I would say first of all you need to know whether your husband has residency rights for the UK. You mentioned that he lived with you for 2.5 years previously which suggests he does but that mat have elapsed. If he does not have British Citizenship or some other visa to live in the UK (sorry I don't know a lot about the different UK visas) then it may be quite difficult. My understanding from this forum is that you would need to have a job paying over £18k or over £62k in the bank to get a spouse visa for the UK. If he already has rights to live there then I would suggest you need to have money to live at least 6 months without working - even though you are a British citizen you need to prove you are 'habitually resident' before you can claim any kind of benefits and that can take up to 6 months. The good news is the economy is good in Central Scotland at least - I had been looking for work for about a month and got two job offers and had to turn down three other interviews last week. I work in IT but most work is in the Financial Services sector and I would think you would find work relatively easily. Not so sure about a postie, the Royal Mail has been privatised now and there is only one delivery a day, not guaranteed to be in the morning anymore and I suspect the work force is leaner than it used to be. The probability of you getting a job before being in the country is relatively slim, absolutely no harm in applying - if you can use a UK address (relatives maybe?) and get a UK SIM all the better. Obviously at interview stage you'd need to be honest but don't get yourself rejected at the CV stage! We moved back in 2013 and the first thing we did was sell our house, once the date for that was known we arranged shipping, booked flights, gave notice at work etc. We had a house to move back to but if we hadn't I would have booked a furnished rental for a month at that point. We stayed at a friends for two weeks and then a hotel for a week before our container arrived (we had spent a month in a furnished rental in Australia, as it made more sense to spend some of the shipping time there whilst I was working/earning) Once our container arrived and we had moved in and settled I started looking for a job, it took a couple of weeks to get one. We had applied for a place for our son at a private school before leaving Australia - getting your children in school can be tricky, it is based on catchment area but if the school is full you are not guaranteed a place. Others on the forum can advise you better on the process if that is relevant for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3FatCats Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 As Lady R said, you need to get a visa or UK passport sorted for you OH first. He will need citizenship or a visa to live in the UK permanently. As for the rest, try and get enough money in the bank to cater for at least 6 months and then it is a case of just making the move. We returned in July with no jobs but were both working within 2 months. It would be good to start making contacts with agencies, and get a pro to do up a CV and covering letter for you also. As to selling the house, or not, that depends on if you need the equity. You could keep it and rent it out but is there someone in Aus to help keep an eye on things? Good luck, it is exciting and stressful at the same time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NicF Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 As your OH has an English grandparent he should be able to apply for the ancestry visa which allows him to live and work in the UK for four years. This is a lot easier to get than a spouse visa that requires you to be earning a certain amount a year or have something like £65k in savings (can't remember the exact details sorry). Once he has been in the UK for most of the four years there should be options around staying longer, although things have changed a lot since my OH did it around 11 years ago so not quite sure how it would work these days. The first thing is to look at getting a visa for your OH and then start on things like selling up and actually moving. Oh, and if you haven't already get yourself Australian citizenship first so you can come back easier if you want to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 oops missed the English grandparents bit - that is definitely the best route for a visa! https://www.gov.uk/ancestry-visa/overview Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peterc1983 Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 I'm based in Glasgow (but will be moving to Perth in the Spring). I'm currently recruiting for IT and the market is very much in the candidates favour just now. I think it might be difficult for you to get back into development unless you've been keeping up on recent tech and the like. Your skill-set might mean breaking back into IT is fine -- but developers tend not to be so great if they take long breaks from it, in my experience. According to the recruiters we had in today and on Friday, it's not only IT where there is a labour shortage just now so you may not find it as difficult as you suppose to get a job. Saying that; being offshore just now might make it very difficult for you to get offers: we certainly have great difficulty with offshore applicants when it comes to any kind of meaningful checking/validation. Also, depending on visa status, it can be quite a financial risk for us if the future visa status is uncertain. (in your case though, I'm presuming this won't hold true). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quoll Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 Im somewhat of a spur of the moment go for it kinda gal - get your husband's visa sorted first (three cheers for UK born grandparents, he can get an Ancestry visa!). Make sure you and the kids have current UK and Aus passports, apply for jobs (some people have got them from a distance), put the house up for rent (hang on to it if you can, just in case!), Declutter and be prepared to hop on a plane any moment. Good Luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aunt Agatha Posted October 14, 2014 Share Posted October 14, 2014 We're moving back after 11 years and DH has started applying for jobs from here. However we have also set a return date of Feb when we will just move back without a job and then apply like crazy once we are there. That sort of plan does mean you need enough money to support yourselves for a few months and hopefully a family member or friend you can stay with as renting somewhere with no job would be very difficult (unless you can pay a lot of money upfront). The steps we took/are taking included: - getting our Australian passports (already had citizenship but hadn't got around to passports) - deciding what to ship and then de-cluttering and selling/donating accordingly - getting quotes on transporting our pets - getting quotes on shipping our belongings - looking at rentals in the places we'd like to live - checking out OFSTED reports, catchment areas etc. on the schools we may be living near - opened a Citibank Plus account as we'd like to keep a bank account in Australia and Citibank don't charge monthly fees or international transfer fees - working out how much we'd need to support ourselves for a few months without pay and making sure we had that amount saved! As Quoll said you want to have your ducks in a row in case a job comes up and you have to be there in 4 weeks but even with a four month timeline (in our case) all the decluttering and researching is helping us to feel like we have some control over the situation. We sold up and rented here a couple of years back as we knew we'd be moving back at some point but I'm not sure what I'd do if we still owned that house - maybe rent it out for a while until I knew how DH and I felt about being back in the UK... Lots of luck, it's a busy and admin-filled time but exciting too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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