Need advice from Brits and foreigners who have lived in the UK

In My Humble Opinion
1

Summary for mouseover previews: I’m trying to figure out if I can realistically pursue a move to the UK for at least a few years.

OK, so, despite being an American I’ve been a massive Anglophile for most of my life now. I consume more media and culture from Britain than I do from the US. I’ve visited twice, and both times, returning home felt more like leaving home. I’ve long felt like I will be really disappointed if I die without having lived there - at least for a while. My wife is of the same opinion, luckily.

Right now, I’m in the home stretch of a biology PhD, and the time has come to think seriously about the next step. This seems like the ideal time to consider a move overseas. We have two small children - girls 4 and 2. I’m trying to, first, get a sense as to whether this is in any way a realistic thing to consider going after, or if I should drop it as a nice dream, and go after something here at home instead, and plan on lots of vacations over there. I’m hoping to pick some brains about some specific concerns and questions I have. Most of these are probably pretty specific, and I’ll be lucky to find anyone who can give me even an opinion, but, hey I gotta start somewhere.

Feel free to answer as many or as few as you can contribute to. Pointers to other resources and people to talk to would be useful as well.

First area: financial. I know that getting a work permit in the UK as a foreigner is a pretty hefty obstacle. But putting that aside, I’d be looking for a job as a newly minted biology PhD. Probably not in academia; I’d be happy to look at industry or other options. But I’d need a job that pays well enough to support me, my wife, and two kids and give us a place to live.

Inner city life is out. We’re not big city people. We don’t need a stately manor house or anything, but niceish suburbia is fine.

In addition, I’ve got a significant amount of student loan debt. Figure loan payments of $700 or so a month. I know that taxes are much higher in the UK than here; would those payments be tax-deductable?

Is it in any way realistic to imagine that with my degree, I could get a job that would allow me to support and house my family while not defaulting on my loans? I don’t think we could count on my wife working, at least not immediately.

Which brings me to my other major area of concern: health. I know that foreign workers in the UK get access to the NHS. How long does that take? In essence, I’m diabetic - how many weeks’ or months’ worth of supplies would I need to bring along before I can count on getting my medication over there?

And probably the biggest issue: my 4-year-old daughter is autistic. What level of services are available in the UK for autistic kids? Right now, she’s getting several in-home visits every week from speech therapists and others, plus an in-class helper when she’s in preschool, all paid for by the school district. And our state is sort of middle of the road for autism services. What would she get over there? How does it compare? Does it vary from area to area within the country?

Those are the main things on my mind right now. Thanks in advance for your help.

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You indicated that a postdoc was not on the agenda, but that would probably be the easiest way to sample UK life. Work permit for PDRAs is not a big deal - as you prob appreciate, universities handle 1000s of them, are A-rated sponsors etc. Plus, you’re peripherally networked into UK labs already, as your existing work and lab will carry weight with related groups here.

Industry position is harder - a smaller company won’t want to get involved with the work permit bureaucracy, won’t be a rated sponsor etc. A larger one could handle it, though - goes without saying you’d need to be bringing some skills / awesome-ness to the table to justify the hiring and work permit app, as the UK company is unlikely to have any particular relationship with your lab (unless you’re in a real elite place that will resonate with everyone).

I currently have a Canadian guy in my lab for example, married with two kids (one born here in the UK). Given he wears a different Manchester band T-shirt each day, I suspect he is like you, an Anglophile who wanted to come over and see what it was all about. Think I’m paying him around 30K pa (a standard PDRA stipend) - tax-free allowance is currently 10K I believe, then he would pay the basic rate of 20% on the rest. So that’s 26K net - we also have national insurance contributions which would knock another grand or so off ( I think foreign nationals have to pay this ). Tax deductible US student loans on a UK salary sounds wildly optimistic, but I guess stranger things have happened.

Don’t have much to add to the NHS questions - I have no relevant experience with autism support (my brother is autistic - but his (lack of) support experience was in the 1980s, when things were completely different). I think for sure the support is out there and provided for now, but as to its quality I couldn’t say. Anecdotally, my 6 yo son goes to a state primary school, and has a classmate with some profound speech, hearing and physical impairments. She has a full time teaching assistant for sign language, along with a panel of therapists on hand.

I can see how this is the biggest issue, so hopefully someone can post with more details.

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Probably not for UK taxes. They will be for your US taxes, which you will be obligated to file annually forever, but in all likelihood your higher UK taxes will completely offset your US taxes even without the student loans. In other words, you’ll have to file but will owe $0. Managing loan payments from overleas is also a pain, as US student loan people refuse to admit the existence of foreign countries. You’ll find a lot of banking is really difficult when you don’t have a ZIP code or US phone number. Yes, it’s 2014, but software designers and customer service representatives don’t seem to know this. Nothing unsolvable, but be prepared for the occasional minor hassle, and have an American relative you trust receive and open your forwarded US mail.

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I can’t help you with regard to NHS services, some Googling might turn up the relevant info but I can give you an idea of living costs. Obviously this can vary a lot but based on where I live (Southampton) you would need to consider the following:

A two bedroom house in a decent suburban area will set you back £6-700 per month, perhaps a little more if you want it fully furnished, so 7-8 grand gone right there. On top of that will be local taxes (council tax), in the region of £1500 a year. You will almost certainly need a car as public transport outside of the city is patchy so add in the cost of buying a car, road tax, insurance etc.

Clothes, electronics, DVDs and the like are much more expensive here. When I was travelling to the US regularly I found these things were pretty much Dollar to Pound equivalent.

Assuming you manage to find a job paying a £30k salary (which is above the UK average BTW) you could live comfortably but not extravagantly.

If you can make the numbers work then go for it. I lived in Amsterdam for two years when I was younger and it was the most amazing experience.

Oh, and gas prices. I drive a mid size saloon and if I run the tank down close to empty it costs me £80 to fill it!

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Understood, but (and I hope I don’t sound patronizing) “big city” is a very different concept in the UK. In many cases you can drive from the inner city to the green belt / countryside in, say, 15 minutes. It’s only really London, Manchester and Birmingham where this isn’t true.
Obviously the claustrophobia of inner-city life isn’t the only negative, I’m just throwing this out there as something to bear in mind.

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A quick note on medical services.

In order to receive treatment on the NHS, you need to register with a GP in your local area and provide evidence that you are a UK resident. Provided that you intend to be in the UK for 6 months or more (which as someone with a work permit you would be able to demonstrate that you would be) you can register straight away, and receive treatment straight away. Prescriptions related to long term conditions such as diabetes are free, even if you are employed, so that’s your good news.

Access to free services for autism services I believe are generally under the remit of your local government authority rather than the NHS, and will vary from region to region. Best thing would be to contact the National Autism Society. They have an ‘Education Rights Service’ which provides information on your entitlements.

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There’s currently a brouhaha over here about foreigners leeching off the NHS and the combination of your diabetes and your autistic daughter might be enough for an official to delay issuing a work permit pending investigation of the extent of support required. How autistic is your daughter?

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I think this only proves that visiting an area and actually living there are 2 different things.

Hawaii is the same. Who hasnt fallen in love with Hawaii on a vacation but I know several people who’ve tried to live there and didnt make it.

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I second Busy Scissors’ suggestion that pursuing a postdoc is the easiest way to move to the UK in your position. American postdocs are pretty common in the UK and the pay and working conditions are pretty good (I’m a current STEM postdoc).

Further, my wife has a PhD in biological sciences and it took her a long time to get her first position in industry in the UK, despite us being located in one of the hotspots for the biotech industry. Several closures of large biotech firms in recent years have flooded the market with vast numbers of highly experienced researchers, meaning there’s a large pool of homegrown talent for companies to choose from without having to go through the hassle to trying to bring in a non-EU national. Her company recently advertised a position and had ~80 people apply for it, whittling it down to just 3 with the exact skills that they needed for interview.

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I moved to the UK on a spousal visa and am now in the process of getting my indefinate leave to remain visa, so my experiences would be different from someone coming over either on a post-doc or a Tier 1 or Tier 4 visa.

But something to keep in mind is that the immigration/visa requirements have changed quite a bit just in the past two years. I was able to get my visa under the old laws that stated I would have to live here for at least two years with my spouse before I could apply for ILR. Now it’s five years, and there are other changes as well.

You can apply for visas on your own, but I’d recommend that you go through a service or an immigration lawyer. Again, the caveats there are many services that you find online are rip-offs and scam artists. I was lucky to have a reputable law firm in London who have been helping me (first with the original visa and now with the next step of the process). It’s not inexpensive.

I’m about half-way between Portsmouth and Southampton, and I teach at a university; I started out with what would be an adjunct job when I first came over and am now a permanent senior lecturer (roughly translated: associate professor with tenure). However, I was able to do that because I was here on the spousal visa; the school HR couldn’t/wouldn’t sponsor someone for a work visa who was teaching only one module and some bits (marking, the occasional lecture for other modules).

Where I live, as the poster above from Soton mentioned, you do need a car to get around – you can drive on your US licence for one year, but it’ll be an expensive year: insurance for foreign drivers is through the roof unless you go with some dodgy company, and fuel prices are quite high. My commute up the M27 and M3 can be ‘interesting’ at times, as well. Unless you have cash, you might find it difficult to buy a car without a British bank account/credit card, as I did initially. If you’re here for more than a year, you will need to get a UK driving licence. I’d been driving for 25+ years in the US prior to moving here, and I took lessons for about two months otherwise there is no way I would have passed the practical test – even after a year of daily motorway commuting, because I was still inexperienced driving in town traffic.

You can get a NIN (as many employers will require it) so that you can get on the NHS while on a visa, but keep in mind that you would not be eligible for benefits (job seekers allowance, housing benefit, etc) until you were approved for settlement.

Anyway, it’s not impossible, but it will be challenging for you – as others have suggested, a post-doc is a good avenue; visiting a place is not the same thing as living in it. I’m not homesick in any way for the US really, but there are times when I find myself agreeing with Doug Stanhope that the key difference between the UK and the US is that in the US, everything works! :slight_smile:

And now back to studying for my citizenship test…

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Thanks, all. This is good advice - exactly what I was needing.

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I first moved here nearly 20 years ago so my experiences will be different to the more recent arrivals.

The route I took into the UK was by working for a US company with offices around the world. Getting the work permit that way was pretty painless. After 5 years of work permits I got a permanent resident visa which would have made changing jobs easy. After a year on the permanent visa I got dual citizenship which opens the rest of the EU to me.

My company REALLY wanted me here so agreed some silly things, like paying to have my car an motorcycle shipped over. My insurance broker in the US wrote a letter confirming my no-claims status so I was able to get cheap insurance right away. I was surprised how cheap it was compared to Texas. There are enough Brits with things for American cars so I thought I’d be able to sell mine to an enthusiast, but it wasn’t special enough (Chevy Lumina Z34). I did turn a profit on the bike, a Harley 883 Sportster.

After driving my LHD car on the left side of the road for about a year I took the test and passed first time.

Once you’re employed, or maybe as part of becoming employed you’ll get a National Insurance Number (similar to SSN) that is your link to the NHS. I think the NHS is great. I’ve developed a heart condition since coming here and getting access to cardiologists and having scans is quick and easy. I’ve always worked for companies that offered private insurance but never needed to use it. Contrary to popular belief, there ARE dentists here and the quality is on par with what I’ve had done in the US.

I’m a bit closer to London that Ms Boods and codgerone but still considered suburban commuter belt. Here is a list of rental properties within a mile of where I live.

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Living costs vary by such a huge amount from area to area that there really is now way to tell you if you could manage on an average salary. Renting near London or Cambridge (I mention that one because it has lots of biotech) is much more (as in at least ten times more) expensive than living almost anywhere in the North of England. On the plus side, if you lived in a London suburb you wouldn’t need a car.

You’d have to find a position first and then work out the living costs.

Autism services are pretty good, but I’m not sure sure how long it would take you to access them and exactly what she’d be entitled to.

I would say that there is an extremely good chance that she would have a helper in school from the day she started because autism services within schools are pretty good and kids with ASD are fairly common in mainstream schools. Basically, they have helpers available already and they’re not going to leave a kid with extra needs completely without access to them because that would make their lives harder as well as hers.

However, to have it guaranteed, and to access extra help like speech therapy, you need a Statement of Special Educational Needs; I expect they would take your US doctors’ evidence into account if you bring it all with you, but it wouldn’t be instant. Moving before the school year starts (September), or near the end of the prior school year (July), would make everything a little easier.

The National Autistic Society is a good place to contact, but they mainly give advice over the phone by calling you back at a set appt time; I doubt they’d call you back in the US. However, they would be a good starting point to ask for general leaflets, etc.

I don’t actually see this as a big obstacle - you would need to fill in a hell of a lot of forms, and it helps that your wife wouldn’t be working so can attend appts with your daughter, but the provision is there.

In-home visits are much less likely. They’d be more likely to have the sessions at your daughter’s school (since she will be of UK school age; we start at 4 - which at least mean free childcare) or ask you to take her to a child guidance centre.

14

Smeghead, I don’t think it will work.
One wage, two kids, no family and friends to fall back on: trouble.

I suggest

Become a brilliant biologist and then later move to a uk company that really wants you.

Move somewhere in the US that Brits would like to visit and have a uk house swap holiday every year.

Read the Daily Mail until it cured your anglophilia

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Heh heh. Thanks for your opinion. That’s why I started the thread.

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If you’re not quite planning on moving there forever, it may be a good idea to look into long-term rentals from local companies. When I worked in Scotland, my team rented two cars from Arnold Clark and the cost was similar to what we would have paid in car installments, insurance, etc. but the biggest hassle was having to bring them in periodically to exchange for another (whenever they figured it would need servicing, based on expected mileage); any issues, just bring the car to any of their garages. When we left, we didn’t have to worry about selling them.

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It’s different for you - you’re an EU national. An American would pay a lot more for insurance, even on a lease.