Perth IT Jobs Dilemna

[Guest arronludlam]

Hi I am a Prince2 Qualified Senior Project Manager with extensive experience managing major IT and business transformation programmes. Ive been advised that I am 5 points short on a 175 visa but that I would qualify for a Western Australia sponsored 176.

 

Does anyone have any good sources of IT job in Perth that I can view on line - I am a little concerned as most people I have spoken to have told me I need to go East Coast for IT jobs.

 

Alternatively a job sponsor for the East maybe?

[Guest]

Hi I am a Prince2 Qualified Senior Project Manager with extensive experience managing major IT and business transformation programmes. Ive been advised that I am 5 points short on a 175 visa but that I would qualify for a Western Australia sponsored 176.

 

Does anyone have any good sources of IT job in Perth that I can view on line - I am a little concerned as most people I have spoken to have told me I need to go East Coast for IT jobs.

 

Alternatively a job sponsor for the East maybe?

 

I work in IT in Perth but other than the usual job sites like seek.com I don't know of any good sources of info.

 

The company I work for are recruiting at the moment - HR have recently been to the UK and we are working our way through CV's right now. I did get another one sent through to me that had just come in separately so if you act quick you can probably be included. Take a look at:

 

International Recruitment - Insurance Commission of Western Australia

 

Other alternatives are Fujitsu or CSC who both have a big prescence in Perth. Fujitsu I know for sure sponsor people.

 

Being frank if your career is important don't move to Perth, very few companies have their head offices here and I am finding a lack of process maturity (I presented my strategic plan to the Steering Committee, absolutely nothing radical, not even the latest practice in the UK and the Auditor was asked whether other companies in Perth were taking this approach and the answer was 'no but they should be' - scary stuff.

 

There are far more opportunities over east but more me I had got to a point in my life where lifestyle was more important than work. I've got a job a love doing but I still get to finsih work early enough to go to the beach.

 

It really depends what your motivations for moving are.

 

Good luck!

[Guest]

Just to add a job sponsor over East is a risky proposition unless you are happy to leave after 4 years - 457 visa's have a lot of implications - do a search on here to find the horror stories.

 

Now I'm sponsored but have enough points for a 175 so it was just a case of wait it out in Australia rather than the UK.

[Guest arronludlam]

To be honest I am motivated by a different pace of life and a better work life balance - I just worry that by moving to Western Oz I might not find a job.

[Guest arronludlam]

What are IT project management roles paying out West typically?

[Guest]

To be honest I am motivated by a different pace of life and a better work life balance - I just worry that by moving to Western Oz I might not find a job.

 

Employer sponsorship in Perth might be the way to go then so long as it is for one of the big boys but progress SS 176 alongside it for peace of mind.

 

I don't know what the typical rates are for IT PM's, I don't even know for sure what the rates are for the roles at ICWA - it won't be high that's for sure - I now earn less in $'s than I used to earn in £'s

 

You have to look at the big picture though - all my relocation expenses were paid and I only have to stay two years. In fact I could leave sooner if my 175 comes through and I'm prepared to pay the relocation expenses back not that I have any intention of doing that - my work/life blance couldn't be better (I have opted for the full holiday allowance of 14 weeks for a start!)

[Guest arronludlam]

I like everything your saying in terms of life style but my research so far indicates that the cost of living is goign to be just as much in Perth as Im paying the UK - hence whilst earning less in principle isnt something Im bothered about I dont want to rough it accomodation wise or in general materially.

 

Whats your experience? Are you settling for less than you had materially in the UK for a better way of life or have you found the cost of living lower or maybe you have savings behind you?

[gpo1971]

Arron, I documented my experiences elsewhere, I'm an IT BA. The main points where;

1. Perth is small fry compared to East Coast when it comes to IT

2. Perth is 'who you know not what you know'

3. IT, despite still being on the WA skills in demand list, is not at all 'in demand'

4. The market is awash with good ex-contracting candidates who have had their contracts terminated due to budget cuts

5. Salaries are down

6. WA does not pay ludicrous salaries anyway. If you think about contracting rates in the UK, by and large, forget it over here

7. UK experience and references can get you nowhere with some Aus employers

8. The market, generally, is flat; I applied for 75 jobs and was shortlisted for interview 3 times one of which I was lucky enough to get (and probably partly because I was interviewed by poms)

 

My gf & I earn roughly the same over here as we did in the UK. The cost of living is higher but then the standard of living is higher. I'm not driven by my career, if I was, I would be looking for a move from Perth. Up to you how you interpret that.

Good luck.

[Guest arronludlam]

Cheers GPO - that makes really interesting reading.

 

Incidentally I dont think the job situation sounds too dissimiliar to the UK at the moment - Im being told by my friends in HR that they get around 1000 CVs per job advert in the current economic climate!

 

Pretty scarey huh?

[Guest]

I like everything your saying in terms of life style but my research so far indicates that the cost of living is goign to be just as much in Perth as Im paying the UK - hence whilst earning less in principle isnt something Im bothered about I dont want to rough it accomodation wise or in general materially.

 

Whats your experience? Are you settling for less than you had materially in the UK for a better way of life or have you found the cost of living lower or maybe you have savings behind you?

 

We are settling for a lot less than we had materially in the UK but that is mostly by choice.

 

In the UK I was a contractor, we had a big house (& a big mortgage to go with it), a fancy car, winter and summer holidays, every material whim fulfiled and I was bloody miserable. In reality we were poor because what we earnt we spent!

 

I now work in thre public sector about 35 hours a week in a job I love, we can take our son to school every morning and pick him up 3 times a week, and I don't work any school holidays.

 

 

 

I was brought up in a relatively poor family and I'm actually happier having less - and no-one can take away what you haven't got.

 

Our house will be smaller - 3 beds instead of 4, 2 living areas instead of 3, 2 bathrooms instead of 3 but gee, only three of us live in it!

 

My OH car is now a 1992 Nissan instead of a almost new BMW M-Sport but it still starts every morning and gets him to the station.

 

I'm looking for furniture on Freecycke at the moment!

 

I did post elsewhere that people shouldn't under-estimate how down-shifting feels once the adventure wears off and I do have some little moans but for me this is a much happier and healthier way to live.

 

Housing in Perth is expensive unless you don't mind a fairly long commute and living in a 'masterplanned' community (suburban hell to me but each to there own, some people love them)

 

Food is probably about the same IF you don't buy everything at the supermarket

 

We do find entertainment a lot cheaper - last weekend for example we went to watch the Avon Descent river race - parking was free, all the kids rides/bouncy castle etc. were free, we took a picnic (whcih you can do a lot because the weather is mostly warm and dry) and all in all we spent $11 all day (a snow cone, a milkshake and a cup of tea!).

 

Days at the beach cost nothing and a lot of entertaining is done at home - again the good weather helps.

 

Only you can decide what's right for you and remember I could be earning a lot more if I worked in the private sector and took 4 weeks holiday! But then whast would have been the point in leaving all my friends and family behind and moving here.

[Guest]

1. Perth is small fry compared to East Coast when it comes to IT

 

Agree

 

2. Perth is 'who you know not what you know'

 

No experience to support this but I found the same was true in London and Edinburgh - I rarely had to apply for contracts.

 

3. IT, despite still being on the WA skills in demand list, is not at all 'in demand'

 

Agree

 

4. The market is awash with good ex-contracting candidates who have had their contracts terminated due to budget cuts

 

Not all that relevant if you are looking for a permanent role, I know as a manager I would look far less favourably on a contractor believeing that once the market heats up they'd be off.

 

5. Salaries are down

 

Don't know but the law of supply/demand would suggest that probably is true

 

6. WA does not pay ludicrous salaries anyway. If you think about contracting rates in the UK, by and large, forget it over here

 

I pay $80-120 per hour for testers - comparable to the UK - although the whole set up is quite different and there are not the same tax advantages.

 

7. UK experience and references can get you nowhere with some Aus employers

 

The reality of this has really struck home recently faced with piles of CV's to go through and the comapnies the Aussie candidates have worked for mean nothing to me.

 

8. The market, generally, is flat; I applied for 75 jobs and was shortlisted for interview 3 times one of which I was lucky enough to get (and probably partly because I was interviewed by poms)

 

Glad to hear you did get something :wubclub:

 

My gf & I earn roughly the same over here as we did in the UK. The cost of living is higher but then the standard of living is higher. I'm not driven by my career, if I was, I would be looking for a move from Perth. Up to you how you interpret that.

 

Totally agree no-one should move to Perth (or Australia for that matter) expecting career advancement in IT

[Guest arronludlam]

Cheers guys and thanks for your openess, your views are invaluable to helping people like me looking to follow in your footsteps.

[Guest Powys Reiki]

Really interesting to read these replies - moved out here tail end of last year and am working as a PM and Account Manager for an consultancy at a large account where most companies are represented. Agree with all the points below and have just been mulling these points over myself recently. It is pretty small scale projects over here, but when you consider WA has only 2 million people and most big stuff is over east that's to be expected. There is a definite old boys network so who you know is important - many roles are not filled on merit, but it's also not hard to get accepted if you make a positive impact. Ideas, processes and methods definitely not as mature as back home and people not so prepared to change. Compared to when I came out in mid Nov last year the market has really changed - we have people on the bench now and are not hiring apart from selected skills that clients need whereas back then we were doing risk hires. The client where I work is taking less consultants and more independent contractors - it's a recruiters market and as you'd expect rates are coming down. Main clients here that are spending right now are Mining and Resources so if you have any experience in this area you may be lucky. Other than that you may need specific technical or implementation experience a client needs like ERP, but as mentioned below there are plenty of local candidates now. My family and I chose Perth for the lifestyle and weather and we've not been disappointed, people are great too. Don't underestimate the cost of things though and also pounds don't go far. House prices and rents are as high as Sydney and most likely you won't be better off - we certainly don't feel that way. We are lucky enough to have an independent visa, so I think we may end up heading over East in a years time - I just can't see me wanting to settle here from a career perspective in the medium term. What I also miss a bit in Perth is having things up and down the coast to visit. Down south is lovely but up north there is not so much compared to the East coast, so think we may have done Perth in another 12 months. Having said that, no regrets about leaving the UK and I still love the place! Hope this does not sound negative but I think it may be a tough time to come out right now ...Main place for jobs by the way is seek.

[lc2007]

I'm moving to Perth in 3 weeks (arrive 3rd September) and things sound a little bleak from this thread regards IT. I'm in support (server/network) and was hoping it might be better than UK. Was wondering if anyone had any idea if Virtualisation (VMWARE) was very big out there. Just VCP qualified this year but from the sounds of your posts it appears Oz is behind on the technology front. Maybe the east coast would be better to move to

[Guest livejazz]

I face giving up my nice well paid uk IT role for perth. here is my reasoning, i share a lot in common with jules.

 

* i might decide not to go to oz..and following week get sacked, i have seen plenty others get sacked. get another local job?? mmh. not a lot around

* being well paid in uk means..you have a nice house, good for when it rains all the time or is cold, ..and then spend moeny trying to get away all the time, life isnt that good folks. if you like pubs and footy, england is the best!

* the day job is painful. basically each day in an paper pushing job where managers who know sod all "plan" and you are a resource. maybe there are jobs to be done that require people to know who you are! IT has no status. it is miserable. plus lets face it, how many IT people survive to be over 45 these days, none that i know. people need to face up the the fact there is a shelf life.

* i saw a magazine that listed the top 50 IT companies in australia, NONE were in perth, i mean none. I double checked. Frankly, that makes me happier since i dont want a to be another "resource". perth may not have many jobs, but wont lose many either.

* but bottom line if you believe the world has passed the worst and will get better, financials are strong, dont go to perth, get a job in a big centre!

 

one thing i am hoping perth has, lots of smaller localised IT service companies, handfuls of people, or more research and dev type companies. the idea of working for a big multinational is not appealing. CSC etc are body shops. i reckon longer term companies need to be a LOT smarter than hire from CSC and pay 1000 AUD day rates or whatever.

 

enviornments dominated by financials means multinational IT companies survive.

 

so i guess my end conclusion, if you have a skill like..veritas, something only seriously big companies would need, perth is probably not the place. if however you are a self starter and like a challenge, maybe it is. I suspect 90% of people reading this however should not go to perth for IT.

[Guest]

I'm moving to Perth in 3 weeks (arrive 3rd September) and things sound a little bleak from this thread regards IT. I'm in support (server/network) and was hoping it might be better than UK. Was wondering if anyone had any idea if Virtualisation (VMWARE) was very big out there. Just VCP qualified this year but from the sounds of your posts it appears Oz is behind on the technology front. Maybe the east coast would be better to move to

 

Not my field but VMWARE is certainly in use where I work. But overall I'd say Australia would fit into the 'late adopter' category :laugh:

 

There are more opportunities over East no doubt about it - it depends what you're trying to achieve with the move.

 

The company I work for is also looking for Network Analysts - the link is in my first response.

[Guest]

I face giving up my nice well paid uk IT role for perth. here is my reasoning, i share a lot in common with jules.

 

* i might decide not to go to oz..and following week get sacked, i have seen plenty others get sacked. get another local job?? mmh. not a lot around

* being well paid in uk means..you have a nice house, good for when it rains all the time or is cold, ..and then spend moeny trying to get away all the time, life isnt that good folks. if you like pubs and footy, england is the best!

* the day job is painful. basically each day in an paper pushing job where managers who know sod all "plan" and you are a resource. maybe there are jobs to be done that require people to know who you are! IT has no status. it is miserable. plus lets face it, how many IT people survive to be over 45 these days, none that i know. people need to face up the the fact there is a shelf life.

* i saw a magazine that listed the top 50 IT companies in australia, NONE were in perth, i mean none. I double checked. Frankly, that makes me happier since i dont want a to be another "resource". perth may not have many jobs, but wont lose many either.

* but bottom line if you believe the world has passed the worst and will get better, financials are strong, dont go to perth, get a job in a big centre!

 

one thing i am hoping perth has, lots of smaller localised IT service companies, handfuls of people, or more research and dev type companies. the idea of working for a big multinational is not appealing. CSC etc are body shops. i reckon longer term companies need to be a LOT smarter than hire from CSC and pay 1000 AUD day rates or whatever.

 

enviornments dominated by financials means multinational IT companies survive.

 

so i guess my end conclusion, if you have a skill like..veritas, something only seriously big companies would need, perth is probably not the place. if however you are a self starter and like a challenge, maybe it is. I suspect 90% of people reading this however should not go to perth for IT.

 

Ha ha, I started my IT career at CSC - after a while I began to question the contribution I was making and I was told it mattered not one little bit whether I was productive or not I was charged out to the client at £50 an hour.

 

Is Perth any different? Not that I can see - it's no Seattle, I'm not aware of any innovative software houses based here. There are small companies offering IT services to other small companies and you may find a niche there depending on what you do.

 

What is you're skill set, I am definitely looking for self-starters who like a challenge!

[Guest livejazz]

Yes, it is no seattle for sure. But then again it rains a lot in seattle! What I mean by innovative in many respects are companies not tied to using old technologies, innovation comes with flexibility, innovation is taking clients on a better path than maybe some other company would offer, maybe they use ruby on rails rather than J2EE, or python rather than c++. AJAX of course plays a big role in most apps these days but still here in the UK there are very few companies adopting, so there is plenty of innovation left to do. Of course not all clients are open to new technologies, they fear the fact they'll be test beds.

 

Innovation is easier to demonstrate in front end type apps with a user since it can be clearly compared. But innovation could also take the form of adapting say, just an example i know of, an old power station related piece of software to be more fault tolerant or configurable. The innovation comes in small packages and all adds up to a nice end product. I guess it comes with some freedom to solve problems. I don't really believe in big "innovations", its all small bits made into a whole.

 

The other thing about big innovations is often the marketing view of the innovation is bigger than the innovation itself. ;-)

 

Jules, are you on linked in? Feel free to send me a PM.

[Bibbs]

Interesting reading this thread, as it's specifically geared towards what I'll be looking at in the next year.

 

My other half pointed me in this direction (as I'm on two other Oz forums too).

 

I'm an Aussie currently in the UK and will be heading "home" to Perth, and then looking for an IT job once out there.

 

I've looked at the links provided (thanks Jules).

 

It's always good to know what the current situation is like. Would really like to have something lined up before we head out, but it looks like that is hard to get.

 

Will watch with interest.

 

Cheers,

Ben.

[Guest livejazz]

bibbs, how did you find the uk for work? i would say that the contract market here is hard also, and you need to be flexible with location to survive, i know plenty of good contractors out of work.

 

i wonder how many IT people are retraining for other jobs, is there a route from IT into engineering for example? not that i was thinking of doing this, i wonder though if engineering today has a lot to do with IT. It probably does since so much of it could be related to modelling.

[Bibbs]

bibbs, how did you find the uk for work? i would say that the contract market here is hard also, and you need to be flexible with location to survive, i know plenty of good contractors out of work.

 

To be perfectly honest, I'm probably not the average person to speak to about the UK IT industry.

 

I live in the Thames Valley area and since graduating in 1999, I've had 2 jobs. Both Permi.

 

Was in the first company for over 6 years, and have now been in the new for 4 in November. I only left the first after progressing about as far as I could (dead man's shoes).

 

I've never had the inclination to do the "big bucks contracting in London" thing. I've found a good job, comfortable pay, and nice people to work with. For me that's more important than 12 hour days, 2 hour commutes and a life of stress.

 

Most of my friends in IT are similar. None are out of work, and the current economic climate doesn't seem to have stopped any from easily swapping jobs.

[Guest D4nnyB0y]

FYI there is little diff between east and west coast salaries here in Australia any more.

 

If anyone wants to know what the latest average salaries look like, Hayes provide an annual update onmost industries

 

Hays Salary Survey

 

Hope thats of some use to everyone

[Bibbs]

Great link Danny.

 

Thanks for that, really helps get a feel for what I should be after.

[Mr Jamland]

Ha ha, I started my IT career at CSC - after a while I began to question the contribution I was making and I was told it mattered not one little bit whether I was productive or not I was charged out to the client at £50 an hour.

 

Is Perth any different? Not that I can see - it's no Seattle, I'm not aware of any innovative software houses based here. There are small companies offering IT services to other small companies and you may find a niche there depending on what you do.

 

What is you're skill set, I am definitely looking for self-starters who like a challenge!

 

Hi Jules, what skill set are you looking for? Perth is where Liz and I would eventually like to be. I'm in IT support, mainly desktop with a little Cisco and a little server. I am looking for more of a challenge now with servers and or networks.

[Mr Jamland]

If it's not too rude to ask, what's the pay like for some of those IT jobs? Network Team Lead looks appealing.