Taking short term (less than 1 year) job in London?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hi y’all.

A company owned by a colleague of my fathers, based in London, is offering a short term (paid) position in a field that I would very interested in. They are thinking 3-6 months.

Several questions:

  1. Moving to London means pulling up a lot of stakes. My brother’s offered to take my cats, my uncle to store my car, and my best friend will keep my horse for me. So that’s covered, but its no small undertaking to move overseas. Is it worth it for such a short-term opportunity?

  2. The way English work permits work is, the permit is for a specific job. So, if I wanted to get a second job and stay a year or more, I would have to seek and find one when I’m there. (Only one permit is issued at a time). How overwhelmingly difficult would this be?

  3. They want to know how much money I want. …uh? What are pay scales in the London area? (I wouldn’t mind living outside London and commuting) I have 3 years experience in the general line of work (Marketing) but minimal experience in their actual field (Market Research). I don’t want to be greedy but I also don’t want to eat British Ramen 3 meals a day.

Some more back details: my family has close friends (who are almost like family) who live in Oxford so I would not be completely on my own in terms of adjusting/friendly faces/practical details/etc. The job would begin in late 2004 so I have quite a while to sort the details.

My initial inclination is to throw caution to the winds, box up my books, and head across the pond. Any thoughts?

2

Your initial inclination is correct.

3

  1. Yes. Absolutely worth it. No question.

  2. When I lived in London I had an American friend who extended her six-month visa with a letter of permission from her employer, so I would guess that it wouldn’t be too hard to change employers and get a new permit if you need to.

  3. Pay scale: I started at 6.50 pound/hour which wasn’t quite Pot Noodle (a.k.a. British Ramen, you knew there had to be such a thing!) but still not much. I couldn’t guess as to how much would be appropriate: I found London to be both very cheap (19p for a can of beans! 5 quid for an all-you-can-eat buffet!) and very expensive (7 pounds to take the tube from the airport? 5 pounds for ten cigarettes?) depending what you like.

Check the Loot, the place to look for housing, for clues on how much you’ll pay in rent. (Hint: housing in London is a pain in the arse, it’s quite hard work to find a place to live so you may find youself settling for a less-than-perfect place.)

Also, if you’re only there for six months, it will be particularly difficult as most landlords want 12-month leases. However, there are lots of other Americans in your position (with 6-month visas) so maybe you can find some of them to live with, or at least to offer suggestions. The ones I knew generally stayed in a hostel in the city centre (the BUNAC hostel on Goodge Street) to remain central and save themselves the trouble of commuting and house-hunting.

Although I’m certain you’re not greedy, you would probably appreciate a higher salary since it’s so easy and cheap (when travelling on the pound sterling) to hop across to Europe for the weekend, you’ll kick yourself for missing the chance. Spend all your extra quid on Eurorail passes and other fun things since it’s probably the best chance you’ll ever get.

4

go!!!

The worst thing that can happen is that you won’t like it and will come home early.

Barring that, you’ll have a wonderful experience. Don’t pass up opportunities.

5

  1. Absolutely worth it. In some ways it’s the best of both worlds - if it turns out you don’t enjoy it as much as you thought, you’re only stuck with it for a small amount of time.

  2. Pass

  3. There’s no escaping from the fact that living in London simply ain’t cheap. As a rule of thumb, the further away you live, the cheaper accomodation will be, but the cost of the commute pretty much cancels it out. And it’s a HUGE place - there’s no way you’ll actually be living ‘outside’ London. For an idea of salaries for various jobs, take a look at the following:
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,8159,00.html
    http://jobs.guardian.co.uk/
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk
    http://jobs.independent.co.uk/careers/
    http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/

The latter also has accomodation.

6

Thanks all. FYI, I grew up in NYC so I’m not worried about “dealing” with London. I’m also willing to undertake a significant commute (up to an hour) IF I don’t have to drive it. I might prefer to live in a more rural setting as I ride horses for a hobby.

Since the job is a professional one, I don’t think living in the hostel will really work out (I’m going to need to be professionally dressed every day). That suggestion DID remind me though that I have friends in London from my days working at a summer camp affiliated with BUNAC. I should drop them an email.

I’d love to hear any other advice from Londopers or American ex-pats living in Britain.

7

Do it. I daydream about this scenario.