Did you/your spouse move to Wales from the US for an executive position?

Personally, I don't care about the cheaper housing/cost of living/higher wage in the US because I have already spent two years of my life in America and don't wish to live there again in the near future. I'd much rather have a lower wage and be able to get 'free' universal healthcare and my guaranteed 5 weeks of paid vacation per year (plus eat UK food and watch UK TV ) than earn a high wage and have more disposable income in the US!

EXACTLY THIS (except in my case it was 18 years)!

Hiya!

Vicky - You and your mates sound like me and 'most' of my circle of friends i.e have been living below their means and are careful and sensible with money. The trouble is, 'we' people make up a small part of the UK populace. The vast majority of the UK populace IS the opposite to some extent, some alot more so than others - it's the reason why Personal credit card debt in the UK is more than the combined credit card debt of all the major European countries COMBINED! The reason is the UK consumer is very happy to buy now and pay later - which we've gone over in other threads. There is a strong link that the 'culture' of the UK in terms of Status symbols, keeping up with the jones' is directly attibutable to the levels of personal debt in the UK - of course that also includes mortgages. You're like myself and many others who realise you have simply GOT to be able to manage your money wisely - unfortunately, this hasn't happened in the overall scheme of things and the last 18 months or so is the fallout of the problem.

Ksand24 - Good luck in finding a job in your field, I've sorta seen your posts and know you're up in that graduate level looking for that doorway into your career that you've studied for. You already know the pay desparity in comparison to the UK, and are happy to have the lower pay level in return for 'free' healthcare and holidays. The future is where it's at and 'many' people in a similar scenario will settle down some years down the line and other elements such as family will become the major consideration and thats where the 'limitations' of pay will really show itself. Granted, everyone gets by and hopefully you'll have a dual income with a partner/husband which will definitley help. Even before all that, you may encounter the 'Brain drain' where sometime down the road a job opening abroad may present itself - possibly even the US again and I daresay you'll be sorely tempted!


Jim - I know you tend to disagree, which is your opinion - no worries there. However, quickly scan the statistics and you may decide to investigate a little more to formulate your opinions. As an example the UK population is 61 million, of which I seem to remember reading theres a workforce of around 30-35 million. Of that just 4 million are higher rate tax payers - which means approx 10% of the workforce earns over the approximate £40,000 per year salary level. This excludes however, most private business 'owners' of the small/medium sector - as many 'owners' and entrprenuers etc earn way more money etc. Another statistic is around half the UK wealth is owned by the over 50's and geographically south of an imaginary line cutting the UK at approx the level of Hertfordshire. The US from memory has around 30-40% of its workforce in the higher tax brackets in a similar comparison to the UK, factor in the 'comparitively' affordibility of property there (excluding the super hot spots)

Chadwyckp - Yes, across most high paying industries in the UK, there is a ceiling on advertised salaries that you'd see. Excluding the very rare high end Director / Chairman type jobs, you'd really struggle to see many salaries advertised at more than 60-70,000 per year. The sectors where you would see jobs at this level of pay advertised would be mainly in the Medical, legal, accounting,finance, scientific sectors. Usually, only the legal sector would show salaries of £150, 250K and above and was usually for very specialised legal people with many years experience etc. There is one of those charts which shows the level of salary spread Vs age in each industry sector somewhere!

So overall, the UK is on some seriously rickety legs in the current economic meltdown, the UK has been built on this 'borrowed' money - personal debt, business and governmental level too, it's widely reported that once the economic bailouts start to work, the US of course will have to be the first to show good economic growth before all the other countries follow - and the UK will probably be the last to recover due to this excessive 'borrowing' culture here. Of course, the excesses were in all the other G8 as well, just that the UK was the worst of the bunch.

There has got to be a reason for this over borrowing, and simply put, it's down to the culture of the UK population as a whole that we are the ones who borrowed the most in the ill founded belief it'd always just keep going up....

Not trying to be a doom monger - just pointing out elements!

Cheers!!  DtM! West London & Slough UK

That's fair enough, but UK wages can be much lower than US wages and so even if you are a fairly high-up manager in the UK and earn a higher wage than the employees below you, that doesn't necessarily mean you can afford a big house or an expensive car.

I am trying to get into the Geophysics field, and according to the UK graduate careers websites, the highest wage I could earn at top level after several years in the field is £40,000-£45,000. However, the same job in the US could pay around $150,000, maybe several thousand more! On a £45,000 salary (which is similar to my parents' combined income) I could just about afford to get a nice 3 or 4-bed family home in the suburbs (albeit with a large mortgage) and maybe a nice family car, but I doubt I could afford a big house or an expensive car.

Yeah to put ksand's info in some kind of perspective (from another scientist, but in a field with no applications to anything else unless you were to sell your soul to the department/ministry of defense):

My husband was offered a tenured faculty position at a major-ish university in the UK and was offered a salary of 38,000 pounds a year (the reason I came over here to learn all about the move etc).

The standard entry faculty position at the university I'm a grad student at (state school, not overly well funded) in our field starts at $117,000 plus startup funds which you don't get in the UK.

Now we live in Los Angeles so we're used to high costs of living, but the high cost of living plus the drop in salary relative to what he earns now (not even as faculty) would have made life very difficult if I didn't get a postdoc somewhere. And as Dennis mentioned the Brain Drain, we brought up both the salary and the two body problem as an issue and the academic culture at least doesn't seem to have caught up with the US in that regard (plus there was the flaming sexism from all the male profs in the dept about how I should just give up my career after my PhD to follow the husband around).


That said,  we're now not moving to the UK as we got a better offer in rural Virginia in a major university town where we could afford a 6 bedroom house on 10 acres of land and still have me drive to DC on a regular basis without my own income. That is unless the department in the UK can offer me a multi-year job which isn't bloody likely.

Wow! I certainly wasn't intending to start such a heated discussion!

Thanks for the helpful input.

For the record, I just want to add that we are NOT status seekers. I don't care what others drive, and honestly, a car is just a mode of transportation from point "A" to point "B".  I'm not about to live my life according to others' expectations. As it was correctly put, though, I was merely curious about what the "expectations" were - if any - as there are generalizations about us Americans that aren't altogether flattering.

Its always tough being the new people. I'm a researcher by nature, and I wanted to know the "boundaries" of expectations, so we weren't feeding into the stereotype!!

Thanks so much, again, for the input.

My husband was offered a tenured faculty position at a major-ish university in the UK and was offered a salary of 38,000 pounds a year (the reason I came over here to learn all about the move etc).

The standard entry faculty position at the university I'm a grad student at (state school, not overly well funded) in our field starts at $117,000 plus startup funds which you don't get in the UK.

this kind of discrepancy really varies by field and school.  i work for a very highly regarded/well-funded private university in an expensive US city and most of our assistant professors who are just starting out make somewhere in the range of $45,000-$65,000 on average. 

on the flip side, my boyfriend is a scientist who recently gave up a position with the most prestigious medical school in the US to take the exact same position with a university in the UK and is now making a good deal more money than the US school paid him.  he's also paying A LOT less in rent! 

now, if he were to leave academia altogether and work for a private company...i have no doubt the salary in the US would be much higher than the UK.  but that's another discussion altogether! 

Wow! I certainly wasn't intending to start such a heated discussion!

Thanks for the helpful input.

For the record, I just want to add that we are NOT status seekers. I don't care what others drive, and honestly, a car is just a mode of transportation from point "A" to point "B".  I'm not about to live my life according to others' expectations. As it was correctly put, though, I was merely curious about what the "expectations" were - if any - as there are generalizations about us Americans that aren't altogether flattering.

Its always tough being the new people. I'm a researcher by nature, and I wanted to know the "boundaries" of expectations, so we weren't feeding into the stereotype!!

Thanks so much, again, for the input.

Good luck with your move 

Wow! I certainly wasn't intending to start such a heated discussion!

Thanks for the helpful input.

For the record, I just want to add that we are NOT status seekers. I don't care what others drive, and honestly, a car is just a mode of transportation from point "A" to point "B".  I'm not about to live my life according to others' expectations. As it was correctly put, though, I was merely curious about what the "expectations" were - if any - as there are generalizations about us Americans that aren't altogether flattering.

Its always tough being the new people. I'm a researcher by nature, and I wanted to know the "boundaries" of expectations, so we weren't feeding into the stereotype!!

Thanks so much, again, for the input.

FYI--I didn't think at all that you were a status seeker.  This is just one of those threads that took a whole life of its own.  I think you will enjoy it here if you decide to take the post.  It's a lovely country.  The people in Wales are wonderful, and as to the American thing, I think that as long as you aren't pushy and obnoxious, they tend to be curious and enjoy finding out about what would bring us here.  I found that once people get to know us, the novelty wears off and we are just coworkers.  Sure, there are cultural differences to adjust to, but you'll adapt if you just listen to those around you.

My husband was offered a tenured faculty position at a major-ish university in the UK and was offered a salary of 38,000 pounds a year (the reason I came over here to learn all about the move etc).

The standard entry faculty position at the university I'm a grad student at (state school, not overly well funded) in our field starts at $117,000 plus startup funds which you don't get in the UK.

Listing startup funds in a discussion of salary is misleading to people not in academics who do not realize that startup funds are to be used to setup a lab (i.e., but computers and research equipment, pay research staff salaries, etc).

Comparing starting salaries in academics is really hard. First, academic positions in the US and UK are not really the same. The number of contact (classroom) hours and administrative burdens are much less in the UK. In the UK, they are willing to let you have a life. There is also the job security issue. In the UK the Lecturer position is permenant, while the Assistant Prof. position in the States is essentially a 5 year contract at the end of which you will likely have to move (and might even end up unemployed). Finally, there is the issue of raises. In the US if you are lucky you get a cost of living increase. You only get a raise if you get another job offer and are willing to move to a new unviersity (often in a new state). In the UK you get cost of living adjustments and raises every year, gaurenteed.

As a 1st year lecturer in the UK, I am making less (both in actual dollars and purchasing power) then I would in the States. In 3-5 years time, I will be making much more here than I would in the States due to the raises. The pension plan in the UK is far better.

Hi Jenn, I'm finding myself agreeing completely with what Cadenza has been saying.  Aside from the status symbol stuff or what car and house to drive, her opinion on Wales and getting on with people personally and in a job situation are spot on. 

But prices of just about everything are higher in Cardiff than Swansea lol. 

Like Cadenza I am really happy I made the choice to come here.  Particularly to Wales. 

Hope that helps too. 

No, I don't think this is semantics.

Lots of people in the UK don't get the big car and the flash suits because it is 'expected' of them.  I certainly didn't when I was earning proper money.  And setting up my own business has increased my status but lowered my salary, so I don't know where that leaves me. My friends who earn well into six figures also don't feel the need to be flash with the cash, and don't feel that there is peer pressure to get the same car/house/suit/rolex as others just because they can afford it.

Vicky 

Don't worry Vicky, lots of people in the US don't either.  Yes, the Senator I worked for drove a Jag, but it was old and always breaking down.  We used to watched it being towed, again, past our office building.   

In general, in the real world, no cares unless someone starts acting like an a@@, but if you are worried about it then you probably won't. 

Wow! I certainly wasn't intending to start such a heated discussion!

Thanks for the helpful input.

For the record, I just want to add that we are NOT status seekers. I don't care what others drive, and honestly, a car is just a mode of transportation from point "A" to point "B".  I'm not about to live my life according to others' expectations. As it was correctly put, though, I was merely curious about what the "expectations" were - if any - as there are generalizations about us Americans that aren't altogether flattering.

Its always tough being the new people. I'm a researcher by nature, and I wanted to know the "boundaries" of expectations, so we weren't feeding into the stereotype!!

Thanks so much, again, for the input.

No one thought you were, you came here to try to find a way to fit in and make your move and adjustment as easy as possible and to understand your surroundings.  It can be quite overwhelming when you don't know what to expect (or have anyone around you to talk to - thankfully people do speak English in the UK).   

Like Cadenza said, this one's just taken a life of its own. 

Good luck with the move!