Want to move to London...but how?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hubby & I visited London and Amsterdam on a vacation a few months ago. Amsterdam was great…beautiful city, very friendly people. But I absolutely fell in love with London–something about that city’s “vibe” just called to me. I felt very at home there.

Mr. Oreo and I have decided we want to move away from Oklahoma, at least for a little bit. We’re young, been married for just a year, and want to try something different just for a while before we decide to settle down and start a family. (We’ll probably end up in Oklahoma simply because that’s where our families are, and we’re both very family-oriented.)

I want to live in London! I loved that city, and I want to have the experience of actually living outside the U.S.–get some perspective. London would be nice since we speak the language, but it’s also just a hop, skip & a jump from the rest of Europe, which I’m also very eager to visit.

Only problem is I have no idea how to go about getting us there. I tried looking online a bit, but it’s confusing. Do we have to have a work permit before we enter the country? Do we have to get a job, first? If so, how do we do that? (Why would any company hire someone from across the pond when they could just hire locally?) Could we just go there on a “visit,” find jobs, and then get them to let us stay?

I’m an administrative assistant, Hubby’s a computer programmer/network engineer. We both have bachelor’s degrees. Also, we have two cats–would we be able to bring them along? Our time overseas would probably be only for about a year or so…like I said, we don’t want to be away from our families forever.

Anybody ever made a move like this? How did you go about it?

2

Have a look here:

http://www.britain-info.org/

Last time I checked it out it had tons of information about moving to the UK and working here.

And yes, you can bring your cats now!

3

The key is the working visa, without that there’s no point in thinking about the practical stuff – although, when you do get round to that, I’m sure we can help.

Ding! ding! ding!

You have just passed go, collect a curious mid-Atlantic accent.

No expert, but Hubby looks promising. Go here:

http://www.workpermit.com/ - and work your way through the ‘Highly Skilled Migrant Programme’ page.

See how that pans out. We also have a Yank on the board who just took UK nationality as he’s been here for five years ('puter programmer) by the name of kferr.

You should also know that entire industries centre on the kind of malarkey you’re considering. The Americans are behind a lot of other countries (Aussies, Kiwi’s, S. Africans, etc) who’ve been doing this for decades, but there’s still a lot of guidance and networks. All that just means you’re not alone and it’s being done all the time

I’ll bookmark this thread and pop back to see if you need any help.

Good luck.