concerns about my location move from india to UK

[nandral]

I have some conerns about my career move , which are explained below, I am looking out for suggestions

I will explain a bit about my self ,Iam a mechanical engineering graduate & i have done my masters in CS from bits pilani india .
Iam into software development . I have nearly 8 years of experience in Banking domain of which 6yrs in InvestmentBank & 2 yrs in retail .At present iam working in I Bank software development Bangalore, india as Technical Lead from past 4 years .
Iam working on development & maintainence of RISK &PROFIT LOSS(POST TRADE SYSTEM ) application under fixed income products group ( Technology multi threaded java swing applicaton db:oracle ).I have good domain knowledge on fixed income products & derivatives.
I will be in UK in dec 2010 on tier 1 visa, by that time i will be having pretty good domain knowledge in fixed income products.In future
(after landing in uk )i want to work on development of middle office /front office applications(trading systems) in IB

Techincally iam good in architecting,designing,developing java/j2ee,swing ,multithreading applications .How difficult or easy to get into IBank software development, considering that most of myexperience is IB software developement.
considering the present market scenario in uk

[sachin_4646]

There are good number of openings in IB. They pay very well. If you are really as good as you have mentioned, you'll have no trouble getting a job. Wish you all the best.

[kenfrapin]

Techincally iam good in architecting,designing,developing java/j2ee,swing ,multithreading applications .How difficult or easy to get into IBank software development, considering that most of myexperience is IB software developement.
considering the present market scenario in uk

You will have a decent chance of securing some good jobs here. Of course, with your current profile you must be earning mega bucks back home itself as Bits Pilani is well known back home and you can get into the top companies. In UK, IB is a happening space but from what I have seen, the top paying roles are more for Business Analysts with IB domain knowledge or actual advisors and investment agents. I havent seen much in terms of core development specific to top Investment banks - but then I may be wrong as I have no info in that sector.

On word of advice - If you get Rs 12 lakhs and above, thats close to £20000 in UK. Again, a profile such a yours has no scope in plain vanilla coding and development but only in roles such as IT Architect, Solution Designer, Lead Analyst etc and if you work in London, you can earn upto £80000 but such jobs are highly contested. If you come here and target development jobs then its best to stay back home as they wont pay more than £40k tops. As you have time, prep yourself on senior level roles as mentioned above and you will have a great chance of success.

You competition will be Masters students from the UK and especially from colleges like LSE, City Uni London, Kings College, Warwick, Oxford and Cambridge - most IBs prefer picking up IT Masters students from such colleges and pay mega bucks - this is just FYI so you know your competition and not to scare you

All the best
KP

[Jk2007]

... competition will be Masters students from the UK and especially from colleges like LSE, City Uni London, Kings College, Warwick, Oxford and Cambridge - most IBs prefer picking up IT Masters students from such colleges and pay mega bucks - this is just FYI so you know your competition and not to scare you

All the best
KP

Do they take Master students fresh from the college (LSE, City Uni London, Kings College, Warwick, Oxford and Cambridge) in campus recruitment or they recruit students of such Universities with experience?

[kenfrapin]

Most MSc students in the UK are inexperienced and those who get into the top 5 Unis are typically top scoring under grads from well known colleges so in general Masters students have little or no experience. Specific to IT, there are really well known courses offered by top Unis specializing in Information Systems, Security & Risk, SAP, ERP and what not so competition is quite difficult. Its also a myth to blindly take MSc students from such Unis than a well experienced non-MSc person.

Colleges welcome students with solid experience but such students tend to go in for their MBA rather than Masters.
Even then, MBA grads are also taken for a number of IB jobs and given the current market scenario, there are MBA students from top colleges ready to do Investment Analyst roles. Not very sure how this works in the IT Domain.

Edit - There is no open concept of Campus recruitment. It's more around Open Career fairs visited by a lot of companies and most, if not all, secure a few offers before they pass out. Sounds crazy but its still happening which is why there is so much competition to get into these Unis.

KP

[nandral]

[/quote]You will have a decent chance of securing some good jobs here. Of course, with your current profile you must be earning mega bucks back home itself as Bits Pilani is well known back home and you can get into the top companies. In UK, IB is a happening space but from what I have seen, the top paying roles are more for Business Analysts with IB domain knowledge or actual advisors and investment agents. I havent seen much in terms of core development specific to top Investment banks - but then I may be wrong as I have no info in that sector.

On word of advice - If you get Rs 12 lakhs and above, thats close to £20000 in UK. Again, a profile such a yours has no scope in plain vanilla coding and development but only in roles such as IT Architect, Solution Designer, Lead Analyst etc and if you work in London, you can earn upto £80000 but such jobs are highly contested. If you come here and target development jobs then its best to stay back home as they wont pay more than £40k tops. As you have time, prep yourself on senior level roles as mentioned above and you will have a great chance of success.

You competition will be Masters students from the UK and especially from colleges like LSE, City Uni London, Kings College, Warwick, Oxford and Cambridge - most IBs prefer picking up IT Masters students from such colleges and pay mega bucks - this is just FYI so you know your competition and not to scare you

All the best
KP[/quote]


Your prediction is bit correct , iam actually getting 15 Lacs/annum in india .The reason i want to come is a bit different.
First things first i want ask about the things as you have mentioned ,about the roles . I believe in IB it wil not be plain development
roles ,because if your are in front office (trading system) development/support you have to do every thing from requirement gathering to testing & UAT ,that's how working in IB is (what i heard from sources , if any body is woking in IB software development pls comment
),I heard IB /hedge fund pays high 75-100K £.

Even if you search in jobserver.uk you can fine front office developer roles in IB /hedge fund companies are paying high 75 to >100K .Does any body have any idea about them ?Please put some light on that. if you see below mentioned link , you can get more info
https://aniscartujo.com/webproxy/defaul ... BC981A8C80
My only doubt is ,are these salaries are true , or just a way to attract talent. After going to interview again they quote 40-50K£
My profile suits to what they mention in the job description.

I have one more doubt does Sun Certified Enterprise Architect Certification has any value in UK . I heard it has good value in US i dont know about UK. Iam asking this because , i have cleared one level ,iam just thinking to take the last level are not. If it is having some significance i can put effort &clear the level2 & level3 exam
Please provide ur honest opinion on the above queries

[kenfrapin]

This is the reason I said you have direct competition from Masters students that graduate from top Unis in the UK.
And yes, IB does pay almost £100k but that is so very subjective and based purely on experience. Dont fall for those salary rates. I do know that starting salaries for post grads from colleges like Imperial, City and LSE is above £40k for Front Office as well as for Investment Analysis but I cannot say for sure as my knowledge is only through forum members.

6yrs Exp is quite good so there is Edit - no /Edit reason why you cannot get a high salary but then there are many other factors. Even then, its usually the MBAs and MSc s with atleast 5 yrs exp that command £100k packages so its not very common. Just dont believe the job adverts - they will mention upto £100k and then haggle with you to get the cheapest salary at which you will work for them.

And for Certifications, its all a smoke mirror here. Most UK companies send their employees for certifications so they can progress further which makes me think they dont pay as much weight to certifications as they do for quality experience. Its best if someone else helps you out here.

Finally, from my very recent post, Rs15lakhs is way better than getting £40k here - unless you are coming to live in the UK and probably settle down here itself. If just for money, you may realize you end up saving pretty much the same as taxes are high and tax savings scheme non-existent

All the best
KP

[nasirraza_31]

My Experience about haggling.

I went for a senior role. Did 3 Rounds.

Agent promised 45-50K. After every rounds she said she will get me the offer next day with the upper limit of the salary.

Once they got my reference and all done, she said the company is going to make an offer of 38K max. I was already on a similar pakage, hence I said No.

This is a very common thing here in UK. Most of the salaries quoted on websites are not true.

All the best!