Not worth it working in UK?

[HSMP3000]

I got my HSMP approved,but somehow in a dilemma about applying for EC. Seen some job sites for IT jobs in UK and the average somehow is in the range of £25k per annum which I think is on the low side.

I presently work in the IT field in my country and gets something close to £20k in my own curreny which is very ok here.Considering the cost of living in the UK,do you think its worthwhile going to the UK to seek for employment.Some of my friends that have been to UK see it as a difficult,expensive,unfriendly and boring place to work.

Please what you think .

[avjones]

I can't help specifically about pay for IT jobs.

The UK is definitely a very expensive place to live.

Unfriendly? Not in my experience.

[herts]

hello hsmp3000,
UK is definitely very expensive, I have tried it to compare many times with other countries,you shall end up paying too much rent and for transport mate. Your rent and expenses would take away min £1000 a month, and if you go out for some entertainment then you end up saving very less.
As per your salary in your country it would be worth £40K in UK, I think you are from India, not worth coming here for you.
You must have seen the contract jobs here for you as well getting paid £400 per day, pls calculate the tax on that as well and dont get carried away seeing that.
As per my opinion better work in your home country, coz ur salary is worth more than £40K as compared to UK.

[Obalende]

"Some of my friends that have been to UK see it as a difficult,expensive,unfriendly and boring place to work. "

IMHO, if you are well grounded in your home country, I see no point coming here - perhaps you could come here TEMPORARILY with an intention of going back after several years.

The UK is difficult and divided (at least as far as i know); expensive but if you are on >=25k you shouldnt really feel the expensiveness (if its not london); unfriendly - from my empirical observations, if you a minority, you have to be in a cosmopolitan city like Birmingham, London, Bristol but even then, because of strongly embedded stereotypes and because many UK people perceive their country as overcrowded with lots of foreigners who are "benefit theifs" (hope this doesnt get moderated out as its just my perception of reactions over years of living here), yes you can expect unfriendly behaviour from the natives (again not a generalisation as i do have a few british friends) - but in a city - u will most likely be fine.

As for boring, life is what you make of it! But people can be quite reserved and are generally unfriendly, rude and impolite (again not a generalisation at all).

Personally, I just applied to CitiGroup in Nigeria and once i get a descent job in Nigeria, Canada or US, IM OUT OF HERE!!!

[avjones]

If England were what England seems,
And not the England of our dreams,
But only putty, brass and paint,
'Ow quick we' d drop her....,
But she ain't.

Rudyard Kipling

[ashishashah]

Hmm.
In UK if u get 25 K GBP your work-life balance is maintained..In India , if you get paid 20KGBP (around 16 lakhs INR), most IT companies expect you to put 10-12 hours, and there is a lot of pressure (obvious as you are being paid highly)...
So if u r just comparing salary then there might not be a HUGE difference,but for the same amount,you can have peace of mind in UK..(since for same salary, u r over paid in India and are expected to deliver overly as per crazy deadlines, and in UK u r underpaid and are not expected to deliver as per crazy deadlines..)

[jd]

I agree with ashishashah 100%

Same is the case in Pakistan!

JD

Hmm.
In UK if u get 25 K GBP your work-life balance is maintained..In India , if you get paid 20KGBP (around 16 lakhs INR), most IT companies expect you to put 10-12 hours, and there is a lot of pressure (obvious as you are being paid highly)...
So if u r just comparing salary then there might not be a HUGE difference,but for the same amount,you can have peace of mind in UK..(since for same salary, u r over paid in India and are expected to deliver overly as per crazy deadlines, and in UK u r underpaid and are not expected to deliver as per crazy deadlines..)

[prem12]

hello hsmp3000,
UK is definitely very expensive, I have tried it to compare many times with other countries,you shall end up paying too much rent and for transport mate. Your rent and expenses would take away min ??1000 a month, and if you go out for some entertainment then you end up saving very less.
As per your salary in your country it would be worth ??40K in UK, I think you are from India, not worth coming here for you.
You must have seen the contract jobs here for you as well getting paid ??400 per day, pls calculate the tax on that as well and dont get carried away seeing that.
As per my opinion better work in your home country, coz ur salary is worth more than ??40K as compared to UK.

Dear Herts,

Can you please explain me what is the wrong with ??400 per day contract job. Even with 50% tax, you get ??200 per day, for five days a week. Which makes it nearly 50k per annum.

Is there anything that I have missed. Please enlighten.
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[ksand24]

hello hsmp3000,
UK is definitely very expensive, I have tried it to compare many times with other countries,you shall end up paying too much rent and for transport mate. Your rent and expenses would take away min £1000 a month, and if you go out for some entertainment then you end up saving very less.
As per your salary in your country it would be worth £40K in UK, I think you are from India, not worth coming here for you.
You must have seen the contract jobs here for you as well getting paid £400 per day, pls calculate the tax on that as well and dont get carried away seeing that.
As per my opinion better work in your home country, coz ur salary is worth more than £40K as compared to UK.

Dear Herts,

Can you please explain me what is the wrong with £400 per day contract job. Even with 50% tax, you get £200 per day, for five days a week. Which makes it nearly 50k per annum.

Is there anything that I have missed. Please enlighten.

I think what Herts meant is that your current salary of £20K in your home country would be the equivalent of living on £40K in the UK. However, if you came to the UK, you would only be able to earn about £25K and so would not be able to live as well as you currently do. By that comparison, living off £25K in the UK would be like living off £12.5K in your home country.

Contracting jobs (i.e. the £400 per day ones) are not the same as getting a job with a UK company, contractors are usually self-employed - and so you could not expect to be able to earn this much.

[prem12]

Would you please let Herts explain what he meant?

Thanks.
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[herts]

Hi Prem,
You are right on earning part in contarct job.
I was just being more precatious regarding contarct type of jobs. looking at the job cuts going in USA nowadays and consultant told to leave and more outsourcing is going on. I know some guys who are in USA and are facing problems. So same may not be here, am sorry if I was wrong mate.

[Kaff]

Well, I am also in IT domain and Citizen of New Zealand, my current earning power is well over 35K GBP.
But still I want to move to UK, only reason for my self is to be close to my family in London, I know I have to face too many challanges, but still I am ready to take this risks.
Remeber one thing once you are out of your home town, it is all struggle to settle. So don't get disappointed and think and think again before move on.

Now regarding your IT field, I would say if you are confident on your current experience and expertise then you will definately get a good salary. Try to get into one specialized field and then see your worth.
Don't be a mixture of everything which all indians and pakistanis are used to be, bit of this and that and master of nothing, that's why they get evaluted very low.

Anyway...It will be a long talk, I leave it here.

My suggeastion is if you have some skill to stand out then come abord, otherwise nothing like home town. Leaving your families/Friend for some extra $$$ not worth it........

Good luck.

[prem12]

I do not know what makes you think like that about Indians. They have such a strong grip on IT market, and as far as I know they are much qualified in thier area. All the investment banks in US look towards Indian outsourcing giants like Infosys and TCS.

Excuse me they are not a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Whatever they are , they are solicited ones, and not for the low salary. Even the lowest salary possible in IT in US is 60k is considered much better than the other jobs available, which is left for the non indians. The investment banks are not fool to handover thier system which process of millions of trades and deal in millions of pounds everyday to someone who has just a little bit of this and a little bit of that. The indians are known very well for being skilled. It is a different matter that the supply is so much thay the salary goes for a toss and not becuase they lack skill, as you said.

I think you have meager general knowledge. The Indian can be anything but not less skilled.
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[Kaff]

Don't take it personal, I seen hundereds of examples where both indian and Pakistanis are working and all of them have got Masters degrees and they don't know how to write a professional programs, that's why they are on low salary and for their survival on those countries they are agreed to work on low salaries.
I am sure there are lots of Kiwi/Aussie and English people who has same kind of experience.

What you are saying that is right, I agreed with you, indians are not lack in expertise and neither Pakistanis.

I am sure that you are aware of the fact that why US market is going to India? Yes they have FOUND expertices there (ON LOW RATES) that's why. US native Professionals realized their worth and always maintain their status and that's why they are TOP positions in most of companies.

Most companies evaluated that outsourcing skilled from India or Pakistan is best way because they can save lot and lot of money by hiring professional from insia and pakistan and that's what they are doing.
It doesn't mean that US hasn't got good skilled people!!

I don't wish to continue this conversation.

Back to my point, if you are expert then you shouldn't have any issue moving anwhere around the world.
Forget about Indian or Pakistani point. I do apology if I hurt anybody feelings, but I did pointed out what I saw...

Thanks

[prem12]

While I have no intention of arguing either, you would admit that the US companies are moving to India because the currency conversion factor makes thier cost low.

For that matter I have seen hundred of English and US guys who would be grappling with even simple mathematical problem.

And I really wonder how many top positions are there that you are talking about. They will be occupued by the native citizens. Thats becuase those positions are still not open to outsourcing. The day IB decide to open those position, the natives will find themselves in tough times.

And no matter however loud you say, no one would believe that Indians not being capable of writtng professional programs. You might have seen a few hundreds but the perception of the world has been made by the hundreds of thousands who are much more capable than average native citizens.

And it looks more like you have tried to delude yourslef that Kiwi/Aussie and English are better off by observing those Indians who were below your capacity but surely you did not dare to see those who indians who are more capanble than Kiwi/Aussie and English , for the fear of breaking thier neck when raise your head to see the number of indians who are smarter than you.
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[UKbound]

As someone that's been involved in leading outsourcing in both the UK and US now, you're both right. Usually it's driven first and foremost by cost savings. In the UK and in the US, IT sourcing from India (or China, Ghana, Eastern Europe, Ireland, etc) can be as low as 20% of the cost of handling it at home. The availability of resources in India is especially appealing with many companies that do that kind of work.

Resource availability is an issue with India though. There is high turnover at many of the companies since there is so much competition for qualified labor. In IT outsourcing, some of the schools in India are amongst the best in the world, so there are some very highly skilled people there, one of the reasons why HSMP attracts so many from there.

Having said that, there are qualified staff in the UK and the US as well. The demand for them is still high, and and moving the work offshore doesn't mean that the people doing it before are any less capable or unskilled. In fact, they are generally able to find other employment in the same field. There are also still IT jobs in both countries, if there were not, than IT professionals wouldn't be welcomed into the UK on HSMP, since there would be nothing here for them to do.

[gordon]

There are any number of reasons why senior positions are not outsourced, but it's primarily because those positions require institutional, local-infrastructural, and legal knowledge that cannot be acquired (let alone outsourced) abroad. And it's that strategic network and managerial expertise that keeps the very well educated natives in those positions safe.

I'm sure there are plenty of clever Indians, just as there are plenty of clever Brits, Americans, &c. You will want to consider, however, how tasteless (to put it nicely) it is for you to characterise your own people as being categorically 'much more capable than average native citizens', leaving entirely aside your sloppy argument comparing a small fraction of the Indian population (the brain drain) to the average in the developed countries that host you.

While I have no intention of arguing either, you would admit that the US companies are moving to India because the currency conversion factor makes thier cost low.

For that matter I have seen hundred of English and US guys who would be grappling with even simple mathematical problem.

And I really wonder how many top positions are there that you are talking about. They will be occupued by the native citizens. Thats becuase those positions are still not open to outsourcing. The day IB decide to open those position, the natives will find themselves in tough times.

And no matter however loud you say, no one would believe that Indians not being capable of writtng professional programs. You might have seen a few hundreds but the perception of the world has been made by the hundreds of thousands who are much more capable than average native citizens.

And it looks more like you have tried to delude yourslef that Kiwi/Aussie and English are better off by observing those Indians who were below your capacity but surely you did not dare to see those who indians who are more capanble than Kiwi/Aussie and English , for the fear of breaking thier neck when raise your head to see the number of indians who are smarter than you.

[Kaff]

spot on gordon!

[prem12]

I am not trying to compare the brain drain with the average in developed countries. I am comparing the averge with average.

Among those who get due educational opportunity and exposure , Indians fare much better in the global arena, which is obvious from the numbers of huge diaspora of Indian IT professionals which represent the average, not the best.

Let us not talk of the top and the extremes, nothing conclusive can be had out of that statistics.

Talk of what happens to the average. If you compare the average, the Indians are lot better. It is commonly known that Indian have better mathematical prowess. There is nothing sloppy or tasteless about it. This is a fact the world admits. As I said, such perception are not built overnight.

And speaking of the top positions, the number of Indians is no less.
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[gordon]

Does your Indian 'average' include only those who can read? The adult literacy rate is less than 67%, which means you've selected out a third of the adult population, introducing bias into your assessment of the 'average'. Does the brain drain include the illiterate?

Does your Indian 'average' only include those who have had secondary education? The national average for secondary schooling is less than 60%, and that's heavily biased toward those in the top income quintile (those more likely to migrate). So again, boosting your 'average' by selecting out those excluded from education. Does the brain drain include those without seondary (let alone primary) education?

But leaving aside the vagaries of indicators of human (under)development in low-income countries like India, perhaps we might just compare Indian migrants with other migrants into the UK. Work and money: where the rubber meets the road. For this, the IPPR's recent report 'Britain's migrants' (Sept 2007) makes for interesting reading:

1. Only 78% of Indian-born migrants (non-students) were employed in 2005-06; the nationals from the UK and sixteen other countries outperformed Indians in this respect.
2. If self-employment is considered a proxy for entrepreneurial spirit, then nationals of the UK and fifteen other countries were more entrepreneurial than Indians in the UK (only 11% self-employed). Compare that with the Pakistanis at 33%, by the way.
3. Of migrants into the UK, nationals of France, USA, Nigeria, Canada, Iran, Poland, the Philippines, and Ghana on average have more years of schooling than Indian migrants.
4. Average gross hourly pay among those economically active: £11.50 for Indians; the Americans, Canadians, Australians, South Africans, Ugandans, Irish, Kenyans, French, Italians, Cypriots, and Jamaicans all did better in 2005-06.
5. In 2005-06, the Americans, Poles, South Africans, Australians, French, Zimbabweans, Filipinos, Canadians, and Ugandans all worked more hours per week on average than the Indian migrant workers.
6. Average gross annual income for Indians in the UK was £23,200, lower than estimated average annual income of the Americans (£37,250), Canadians (£32,000), Australians (£31,850), South Africans, Ugandans, French, Irish, Kenyans, and Italians.

So you can certainly go on saying that 'if you compare the average, the Indians are lot better [sic]'; but if what India is sending to the UK is 'average' (in the colloquial sense), then I'm inclined to call that generous, because a number of non-Indian groups are doing rather better, not least those Americans you're so keen to deride. The alleged perception of Indians' superiority may not have been 'built overnight' -- but the IPPR report suggests to me that the reality will take far longer.

AG

I am not trying to compare the brain drain with the average in developed countries. I am comparing the averge with average.

Among those who get due educational opportunity and exposure , Indians fare much better in the global arena, which is obvious from the numbers of huge diaspora of Indian IT professionals which represent the average, not the best.

Let us not talk of the top and the extremes, nothing conclusive can be had out of that statistics.

Talk of what happens to the average. If you compare the average, the Indians are lot better. It is commonly known that Indian have better mathematical prowess. There is nothing sloppy or tasteless about it. This is a fact the world admits. As I said, such perception are not built overnight.

And speaking of the top positions, the number of Indians is no less.

[prem12]

You have written a lengthy dessert tangent to the main topic.

I already said that I am talking about the areas which is OPEN to global competetion, IT in perticular, where one can foray by the sheer dint of mental capacity.

To prove my point, I have a very simple reasoning as below:

There is no sector other than IT which provides job in such bulk and pay high. The maximum occupancy in IT is by the Indians. So the bulk of the best jobs ( excuding topmost, which are very few ) is hogged by Indians.

I will admit that when a native executes the same role he/she gets paid more. The organisations need them for higher role which, as you yourself said, is not open to everyone.

Bottomline is that the Indians take away the cream of the cake. The cherry ( a few topmost jobs ) remains with the natives. I am least bothered about the dough left over.
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[chicku]

This was interesting thread.

Gordon, no respons? Any other statistics.

[gordon]

I've written a 'dessert' -- that's funny !

Given that the average income for Indian migrant workers falls in much the same range as average earnings in the UK, I am unconvinced that they are taking away 'the cream of the cake'. There seem to be quite a lot of cherries and dough on the top side, which means the 'dessert' metaphor is one of a sponge cake (yum !). Migrant workers, by definition, work in sectors that are open to global competition, and migrant workers from a number of other countries appear to outperform Indians. Which then refutes the following:

Among those who get due educational opportunity and exposure , Indians fare much better in the global arena, which is obvious from the numbers of huge diaspora of Indian IT professionals which represent the average, not the best.

But leaving aside the shifting definition of 'average' evinced in the argument (sometimes implicitly defined narrowly, other times applied broadly), my post was principally addressed to the excerpt below, which I found deplorably arrogant and offensive (to say nothing of its being unsubstantiated).

You might have seen a few hundreds but the perception of the world has been made by the hundreds of thousands who are much more capable than average native citizens.

And it looks more like you have tried to delude yourslef that Kiwi/Aussie and English are better off by observing those Indians who were below your capacity but surely you did not dare to see those who indians who are more capanble than Kiwi/Aussie and English , for the fear of breaking thier neck when raise your head to see the number of indians who are smarter than you.

One would have to reconcile the assertions with the evidence base, and advance the argument in a tone commensurate with the strength (or, in this case, sponge-like porosity) of the argument: even the merest exercise of 'mental capacity' in this regard would have shown the disparity between the sweeping claims and the data. And that's scarcely tangential, as mode and tone have as much to do with an argument as the substance.

[HSMP3000]

I not an Indian, but at first I thought this site was an Indian site due to the number of Indian nationals wanting to come to the UK under HSMP.sincerely, I do admire the Indians when it comes to writing programs and software and honesty to me they are not doing badly in that area and stands out as one of the best in the world in that field (just my candid option).

I happen to work in a Bank’s IT dept,and honestly speaking most of the banking software being used in my country are all owned and written in India.

It still surprises me why Indians still want to leave Indian and go to places like the UK, instead of some third world countries where they would be appreciated, well paid and treated like Kings.

I have happened to visit the UK, and to me not that fantastic as the natives and others view it, except the place is well organized. Houses are all red brick houses that are more or less like huts, imagine some jobs paying as low as 18K gross per annum with all the high tax cuts.

I’m still giving it a second thought about coming to the UK, presently in Nigeria the economy is not that fantastic, but when you are on a good job, you are a king. You can afford to live in a mansion, have a personal driver, a cook, a good car….. Etc and still be able to save enough (ask the Indians here).
We have all made this UK look like Eldora do making the natives view migrats like craps.

[ThirdWorldTraveller]

Bad 'R*st' arguments come out of what was originally a harmless question on part of HSMP3000.

Basically we shall not use this forum or for that matter, any other shared forum for our personal generalized views on nationality. We shall only dicuss nationality in terms of approval and Visa and all. I'd blame the member who originally started this argument about In-Pak migrants getting low salary. We shall be more careful in a multi ethnic forum like this.