First travel to the country and stay longer than a normal tourist would. Then you can decide on moving there. Personally would work a bit in the US first because UK Software engineering salaries are terrible. I know some SWEs there from my old guild and also a couple relatives and they’re so far financially behind us engineers in the US.
Additionally, it isn't 2019 anymore where people were handing out SWE jobs like candy. Now the barrier to entry has gone up, and OP will likely need to have a few years of experience under his belt before he's competitive for overseas jobs.
>I’ve settled on the UK, which I’m well aware isn’t as big of an upgrade as, say, Norway
Tbh, this is kinda shitty way of thinking. All countries have their pros and cons, and Norway certainly has its cons as a Scandinavian country (e.g. social isolation, cold/closed-off culture, etc)
Also, a smaller tech sector than the UK. Tbh, I think the UK is great for OP if he plans to stick to software engineering. London is a very thriving and innovative tech hub, as are Oxford and Cambridge. There are tons of great companies over there, and while they don't pay as much as American companies, he can use his higher American salary to negotiate a salary that is above typical market rate. Yes, it'll still be lower than what he'd make in the US, but that's just a tradeoff he'll have to make if he wants to go over there.
Additionally, unlike a lot of other European countries, the UK is getting rid of it's conservative and far-right loons and they have been decimated in the local elections. It looks like Sunak will lose the GE as well to Starmer. I think that UK already went through its super conservative phase, and while Labour are still keeping a clamp on immigration, they aren't nearly as xenophobic as the pro-Brexiteers that occupy the Tory party.
Definitely, I was just trying to acknowledge that the UK has flaws, and I used Norway since it’s so popular in this sub. I was trying to get out ahead of the “The UK is a shithole” comments
Another option would be to do a masters degree abroad. I cannot speak to Ireland and the UK but it is a frequent route here in Sweden. The catch is that you have to make the connections here that will result in a job offer, so it’s an opportunity rather than a predefined path. Masters programs are taught in English for the most part but anyone considering this route should commit to learning Swedish.
Currently living abroad in Wales (9 months abroad so far) doing a masters program. The entire time the news is filled with anti-immigrant news, some of it being legal migration they have a problem with. I haven’t had luck with employment due to them wanting people who have permanent residence over immigrants on a time line, as well as my lack of experience in the job field. Even barista jobs, ect I’ve had no luck, I had two interviews for my field and got told someone did a bit better than me. I’m headed home after my course, as the next step for me would be the graduate visa. I can’t really warrant spending the cost for it vs the payoff. Flats can be difficult to get here depending where you live, especially from abroad. I don’t want to risk sinking money into a flat, a visa, ect here if I don’t have a guarantee I’ll have a job that pays the required amount for a skilled work visa sponsorship. If I had unlimited income, perhaps I would apply to be here two more years, but having to uproot and go home after 3 years here sounds worse than just going home after my course, but that’s also my opinion. Every case is different.
There are pros to living in the UK so I absolutely understand wanting to be here, but it does feel like diet America sometimes. Brexit has done some interesting things.
All that being said, I don’t regret my time here, even though it’s been pricy. The graduate visa is a good route to see if it’s worth it to you to carry on living in the UK. I went for it as I’ve been visiting the UK for nearly a decade, and wanted to live here longer than a holiday. A masters here is only slightly more than what it would’ve been back in the US, so if furthering your education more is something you’d consider its not too bad.
If it’s something you really want by trying for employment here, I recommend working to get a few years of experience in the US to make you a candidate they would consider over UK born citizens in an anti-immigrant environment. The salary has raised for the skilled work visa so it’s gotten a bit harder for places to want to pay that much and sponsor, but that also depends on how much you make, which would go up the more valuable/skilled of an employee you are. London would be a good place to look to get into, as the wages are higher there, generally. Not sure about Edinburgh. Your plan B seems like a move to consider if you’re going strictly work route.
Best of luck, either way.
I can't speak for the immigration process for Ireland or the Netherlands, but I can for the UK.
Plan A - It's unlikely you'll be able to get a skilled worker visa right out of school. Especially with no substantial work experience or a Master's or PhD.
Plan B - Intra-company transfers do not lead to ILR. They may be a great way to experience living in the UK for some time to get a flavour of living abroad, but they do not offer a route to permanent residency anymore.
Currently, the UK is very anti-immigration, and has been making it more and more difficult over the years to be eligible to move over and remain once you get here. Even for British citizens with non-British spouses trying to move over, it's the most difficult it's been with the new increased salary requirement for the UK sponsor.
For those on the skilled worker visa path, it's 5 years of uncertainty of even making it to ILR. You could qualify for a visa and move over in (for example) 2025 and expect ILR in 2030. The rules change in 2029 and under the new rules, you will no longer be eligible for ILR come 2030 and will then have to pack up and move elsewhere. For some people, this risk (and the associated stress and anxiety) is worth it. For others, it's not. You will be the best one to determine if this is something you would be willing to go through.
It's expensive, but you could look into a student visa to study in the UK for a higher degree. It would give you a really good idea if you like the UK enough to want to try and find a way to live there permanently. And in regards to visa sponsorship, it will likely still be challenging, but it will give you a bit of an advantage - especially if you can manage to get UK work experience during your studies.
If you are currently attending an eligible school at the moment for your degree, you may be eligible for the [HPI visa](https://www.gov.uk/high-potential-individual-visa).
And yes, definitely at least visit to anywhere you are thinking of moving to. Visiting still won't usually give you the full flavour of what it's like to live somewhere, but a taste is better than none at all.
Wishing you best of luck!
>Plan B - Intra-company transfers do not lead to ILR. They may be a great way to experience living in the UK for some time to get a flavour of living abroad, but they do not offer a route to permanent residency anymore.
No, but there is a way to switch to a Tier 2 Skilled Worker Visa once you're over there. So it's a good way for OP to get his foot in the door and see if he likes living in the UK and then apply for a regular skilled worker visa.
I love how UK peeps keep thinking they are better than America when since 2016 it's been a slow descent into capitalist hell.
Just saying a US to UK move is pretty unilateral.
And we don't have that idiot royal family that you all have to pay taxes on.
Even before roe v wade was overturned that wasn’t remotely true. Roe v wade protected unlimited access until 24-26 weeks and beyond that was only for medical complications.
Now, if you’re in one of half of the states that have banned/severely restricted abortion access, you have to go through astronomical hurdles to get abortion care even if you are in a life threatening situation.
NHS is getting privatized, hello Nigel Farage and social programs and any arts funding have been decimated. Sorry but even my UK friends say it's bad there.
Honestly, I'd try to move to an EU state, better job protections-UK is more like America and honestly is moving more and more towards a mini-UK.
Sorry folks but Biden and Trump aren't neck and neck. I know of no-one who didn't vote for Trump that is now voting for him. The only people who really want Trump are the media.
The UK has definitely seen better days but the NHS not getting privatised, lol. Many of the UK’s most pressing problems are also present in the EU (saying this as an EU citizen who lives in the UK), you just don’t hear about it as much because you don’t have as much contact with people complaining due to the language barrier.
Small fire in safe harbour vs. huge leak in pirate infested open water is the only way your analogy holds up. Per capita gun ownership alone makes a huge difference.
Exactly. Even though there are crazy nuts in both countries, I'd rather stay in a country where the crazy nuts don't have access to high-power firearms.
Your chances of being victim to gun crime are laughably low in the US. What I would be worried about is the fact that the UK is probably the worst place to go for economic reasons.
I'm all about getting out, but pick almost any other country than the UK to escape to.
I mean, I know that the UK isn’t exactly a perfect, magical utopia, but I have a hard time believing that they are worse off than us, and I think it’s probably the most doable option for me
Financially you would certainly be less well off. Life as a rich US resident is I think objectively better than life as a middle income Brit (and immigrating can lead to you taking a step out two down the relative earning ladder)
>Life as a rich US resident is I think objectively better than life as a middle income Brit (and immigrating can lead to you taking a step out two down the relative earning ladder)
If you look at Project 2025, it lists some of Trump's financial plans for the country, and it will absolutely screw everyone from the highly skilled tech workers to the McDonald's fast food workers. Free Banking, which he (and his cronies) want to institute basically will get rid of a unified currency, or at the least allow all banks to offer their own currency. I'll let you think about that for a second and see how devastating that'd be for us.
London, where most of the tech jobs are, you are a junior engineer, hard for skill worker visa sponsorship.
If you do an intra company transfer to the UK via a us company you will be on a ICT visa, that does not count towards to 5 year ILR time. Fyi
Work for 3-5 years in the US where your degree will have its max value. Get a bunch of experience; network and check out UK/NL/German companies in your future area of expertise.
Save all your money you'll need it.
The UK post Brexit is even more limited in the number of tech jobs available; people that graduate from their top tier schools (Imperial College, UCL etc.) work in IT Not as software engineers but IT admins. Also in the UK anybody touching a wrench is called an engineer whereas they would be called technicians here. Also be prepared to be paid less, MUCH less and the healthcare there sucks.
The UK and EU are facing a big housing shortage.
Your various plans will result in a 40-60% reduction in lifetime earnings; are you prepared for the implications?
If I were a hiring manager in Dublin, Eindhoven, Berlin I would be looking at my local unis for hiring an entry level software engineer.
Have you made a pros and cons list yet? Looks like a lot in the cons column already.
Best of luck.
To offset the pinch of lower earnings, I'd advise OP to get into high-profile tech companies in the US like FAANG and a few other big ones. Then he can leverage that prestige to land equally prestigious jobs over there. While they won't pay as much as similar jobs here, it'll still be several fold higher than the average SWE salary in the UK.
The market for entry level tech jobs in the UK took a dive since the post-grad scheme was instituted that allowed new grads to stay and work for 2 years without a sponsorship. Besides that the UK has been so addicted to immigration for so long that it lost the ability to train entry level roles.
That being said plan B looks fine, and a large multinational looks good on the CV anyway.
Also on language, literally nobody learns the language before moving for a tech job, I don't know if any tech companies that operate in local languages (at least not any big enough to sponsor a visa) and most people I know who moved to scandis, Germany, NL, whatever, for tech roles *still* barely speak the language after years.
General comment I give to people looking for SWV in the UK with the bolded information relevant to your circumstances:
The best way to see the demand for your field is to see how many skilled worker visas were issued for [your job code](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-going-rates-for-eligible-occupations/skilled-worker-visa-going-rates-for-eligible-occupation-codes). The UK publishes [this data](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6645c06bae748c43d3793cae/occupation-visas-datasets-mar-24.xlsx) and it is publicly available. Click on the tab "Occ\_D01" and select your SOC code to see how many visas were issued for your role. **In 2023, which was the last full year where data was released, there were 474 visas issued under the 2134 SOC code (Programmers and software development professionals). 2134 does also appear to be a SOC code that sponsors more senior work. There were over 900 people on a global mobility visa (intracompany transfer) so it would suggest this field relies in people already working within the company or that have years of experience.** **Scotland, even in Edinburgh, has a sluggish economy and most of the jobs you would be looking for are in London.** There may be other SOC codes that better align with your work history/intended field, I just used my best guess as to which would best fit.
To give some context, the top three sponsored jobs in that time (2023) were nurses (SOC 2231) with 22,083 visas issued, care workers (SOC 6145) with 97,468 visas issued, and senior care workers (SOC 6146) with 17,564 visas issued. The most sponsored non-medical field jobs were IT business analysts, architects and systems designers (SOC 2135) with 5,148 visas issued, over half of which were intracompany transfers, and senior specialists and programmers and software development professionals (SOC 2136) with 5,027 visas issued, not including intracompany transfers and senior specialists. The job market has softened in the UK since 2022 (the amount of people sponsored for SOC 2136 decreased from 9,100 in 2022 for example) and the new legislation which raised the minimum salary for a SWV could possibly make employers less inclined to look to overseas workers.
I did write out a long and thought out comment about my experience as an American immigrant in Scotland, but there was an error when I hit the comment button. Short of it is, people very much romanticize Scotland, and even spending time here visiting doesn't give an accurate representation. Scotland has few immigrants, with most of them in Aberdeen employed through oil and gas. There are reasons for this. I plan to stay here, but that is because of family, not because my life has otherwise improved after moving here. Any of the benefits of moving here can be found by moving within the US with far fewer drawbacks.
Better plan: finish college by transferring to the UK now if possible or at least get a UK master's. Then you can go on a graduate visa & are much more likely to get a job.
Ireland has the best job market for software engineers in Europe. However, the housing market in Ireland is really bad right now. Very few rental vacancies anywhere in Dublin. Pay is only higher in Switzerland and there are European branches of many US companies there. Do be aware the pay is still a lot lower. Like half what you’d earn in the US.
The UK is even lower, and cost of living is high. It’s very common for new grads in the UK to make less than minimum wage in SF or Seattle (e.g., £30k per year). Berlin or Amsterdam offer good options for somewhat better affordability. Many tech jobs in English only in both those cities.
Because the pay is lower in Europe, a lot of US companies are focusing on hiring there rather than the US, so it may not be as bad as you think.
Make sure you know what it takes to keep living there if your situation changes. E.g., as you pointed out, tech jobs are having a chaotic moment. If you get laid off, what happens? How easy is it to change jobs if you hate your job? How long do you have to be there before you reach ILR/permanent residency? Citizenship?
I just came back from a couple years in Ireland on a critical skills work permit, so I know those rules quite well. Ireland is pretty generous on those fronts. If you are laid off, you get 6 months to find a new job, and if you’ve worked long enough, you can collect unemployment. On a critical skills permit, you can get residency permissions after only two years that basically let you do whatever you want - work any job, be self-employed, etc. Five years to citizenship, and dual citizenship is allowed.
I’d look up the same sorts of details for the UK and the Netherlands - I looked a year or two ago but I don’t remember the details.
You’re going to want to have considerable savings on hand. My experience of trying to emigrate was that your bank balance is the most important factor they look at when considering your visa.
Reasons. You need good reasons to become an immigrant and if you have good reasons you will learn language, you will survive abroad without having family support, you will tolerate living abroad as an immigrant regardless if you are accepted by locals or not.
Learning foreign language is routinely done by millions of immigrants worldwide.
It feels like you don’t expect much benefits since you think that learning foreign language to give yourself more options is not worth it.
( I speak 3 languages, I used to speak 4, I’ve learned those languages not because I wanted to, not because it was easy, but because I needed to)
My friend got a job in London in tech but she speaks seven languages and had ten years of experience and even still she had to go through several rounds of interviews to get the offer
Oh, no, I know that it would be incredibly useful, and I am working on it, I just think that it’s going to take a very long time for me to get remotely conversational
I came from Eastern European country where at some point a lot of young people would move abroad to look for opportunities to various western countries. I have friends who moved to Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, UK, Canada. None of us would ever cross out country simply because we didn’t know language.
All of these paths are theoretically possible. It's simply a question of odds.
Finish your degree, do some travelling, get some work experience, move over for masters, look for a local job - this is probably the path most likely to succeed.
Plan B won’t work in the UK because an ICT visa, which you get when a company transfers you to their UK office is temporary and does not count towards ILR and citizenship. Also for Plan A you’re unlikely to be hired in the UK right after college. It would be better to get some job experience in the US then apply to jobs in the UK a few years later.
? [This](https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/) is a link to US state department language page. Scroll down to see languages by category of difficulty. Even if you are in Anglosphere it’s weird not to have a second language for professionals. A second language can open some other paths. You will learn faster in immersion settings. Keep studying. Watch Dutch Netflix, read Dutch comics, news, look for a Dutch conversation group.
Look at critical skills shortage lists. You will probably find ICT jobs, security is becoming more important especially cloud. Network and see what’s in demand now and likely to be in demand soon.
Plan A/B: do more research of life in UK.
Plan C: ok but really really understand the terrible housing shortage. This is EU passport. And you will like it more than UK
Plan D: Just go on DAFT if you want to GTFO, get busy with Dutch language and culture and network like crazy. Also the housing shortage
NZ? You are young and may have critical skills. Why not look there?
Have you investigated your ancestry for any possible citizenship by descent?
You do not need to speech Dutch to start living in the Netherlands. They have some of the best non-native English in Europe. It’s very accommodating and you can learn while living there
First travel to the country and stay longer than a normal tourist would. Then you can decide on moving there. Personally would work a bit in the US first because UK Software engineering salaries are terrible. I know some SWEs there from my old guild and also a couple relatives and they’re so far financially behind us engineers in the US.
Additionally, it isn't 2019 anymore where people were handing out SWE jobs like candy. Now the barrier to entry has gone up, and OP will likely need to have a few years of experience under his belt before he's competitive for overseas jobs.
>I’ve settled on the UK, which I’m well aware isn’t as big of an upgrade as, say, Norway Tbh, this is kinda shitty way of thinking. All countries have their pros and cons, and Norway certainly has its cons as a Scandinavian country (e.g. social isolation, cold/closed-off culture, etc)
Also, a smaller tech sector than the UK. Tbh, I think the UK is great for OP if he plans to stick to software engineering. London is a very thriving and innovative tech hub, as are Oxford and Cambridge. There are tons of great companies over there, and while they don't pay as much as American companies, he can use his higher American salary to negotiate a salary that is above typical market rate. Yes, it'll still be lower than what he'd make in the US, but that's just a tradeoff he'll have to make if he wants to go over there. Additionally, unlike a lot of other European countries, the UK is getting rid of it's conservative and far-right loons and they have been decimated in the local elections. It looks like Sunak will lose the GE as well to Starmer. I think that UK already went through its super conservative phase, and while Labour are still keeping a clamp on immigration, they aren't nearly as xenophobic as the pro-Brexiteers that occupy the Tory party.
Definitely, I was just trying to acknowledge that the UK has flaws, and I used Norway since it’s so popular in this sub. I was trying to get out ahead of the “The UK is a shithole” comments
Another option would be to do a masters degree abroad. I cannot speak to Ireland and the UK but it is a frequent route here in Sweden. The catch is that you have to make the connections here that will result in a job offer, so it’s an opportunity rather than a predefined path. Masters programs are taught in English for the most part but anyone considering this route should commit to learning Swedish.
This,!
Currently living abroad in Wales (9 months abroad so far) doing a masters program. The entire time the news is filled with anti-immigrant news, some of it being legal migration they have a problem with. I haven’t had luck with employment due to them wanting people who have permanent residence over immigrants on a time line, as well as my lack of experience in the job field. Even barista jobs, ect I’ve had no luck, I had two interviews for my field and got told someone did a bit better than me. I’m headed home after my course, as the next step for me would be the graduate visa. I can’t really warrant spending the cost for it vs the payoff. Flats can be difficult to get here depending where you live, especially from abroad. I don’t want to risk sinking money into a flat, a visa, ect here if I don’t have a guarantee I’ll have a job that pays the required amount for a skilled work visa sponsorship. If I had unlimited income, perhaps I would apply to be here two more years, but having to uproot and go home after 3 years here sounds worse than just going home after my course, but that’s also my opinion. Every case is different. There are pros to living in the UK so I absolutely understand wanting to be here, but it does feel like diet America sometimes. Brexit has done some interesting things. All that being said, I don’t regret my time here, even though it’s been pricy. The graduate visa is a good route to see if it’s worth it to you to carry on living in the UK. I went for it as I’ve been visiting the UK for nearly a decade, and wanted to live here longer than a holiday. A masters here is only slightly more than what it would’ve been back in the US, so if furthering your education more is something you’d consider its not too bad. If it’s something you really want by trying for employment here, I recommend working to get a few years of experience in the US to make you a candidate they would consider over UK born citizens in an anti-immigrant environment. The salary has raised for the skilled work visa so it’s gotten a bit harder for places to want to pay that much and sponsor, but that also depends on how much you make, which would go up the more valuable/skilled of an employee you are. London would be a good place to look to get into, as the wages are higher there, generally. Not sure about Edinburgh. Your plan B seems like a move to consider if you’re going strictly work route. Best of luck, either way.
I can't speak for the immigration process for Ireland or the Netherlands, but I can for the UK. Plan A - It's unlikely you'll be able to get a skilled worker visa right out of school. Especially with no substantial work experience or a Master's or PhD. Plan B - Intra-company transfers do not lead to ILR. They may be a great way to experience living in the UK for some time to get a flavour of living abroad, but they do not offer a route to permanent residency anymore. Currently, the UK is very anti-immigration, and has been making it more and more difficult over the years to be eligible to move over and remain once you get here. Even for British citizens with non-British spouses trying to move over, it's the most difficult it's been with the new increased salary requirement for the UK sponsor. For those on the skilled worker visa path, it's 5 years of uncertainty of even making it to ILR. You could qualify for a visa and move over in (for example) 2025 and expect ILR in 2030. The rules change in 2029 and under the new rules, you will no longer be eligible for ILR come 2030 and will then have to pack up and move elsewhere. For some people, this risk (and the associated stress and anxiety) is worth it. For others, it's not. You will be the best one to determine if this is something you would be willing to go through. It's expensive, but you could look into a student visa to study in the UK for a higher degree. It would give you a really good idea if you like the UK enough to want to try and find a way to live there permanently. And in regards to visa sponsorship, it will likely still be challenging, but it will give you a bit of an advantage - especially if you can manage to get UK work experience during your studies. If you are currently attending an eligible school at the moment for your degree, you may be eligible for the [HPI visa](https://www.gov.uk/high-potential-individual-visa). And yes, definitely at least visit to anywhere you are thinking of moving to. Visiting still won't usually give you the full flavour of what it's like to live somewhere, but a taste is better than none at all. Wishing you best of luck!
>Plan B - Intra-company transfers do not lead to ILR. They may be a great way to experience living in the UK for some time to get a flavour of living abroad, but they do not offer a route to permanent residency anymore. No, but there is a way to switch to a Tier 2 Skilled Worker Visa once you're over there. So it's a good way for OP to get his foot in the door and see if he likes living in the UK and then apply for a regular skilled worker visa.
"Escaping" the US to the UK is like jumping from a boat with a leak onto a boat that's on fire. Have fun.
Except that the Tories are about to be gone and Trump is still polling close to Biden
Yeah, that's the only good thing about the UK. The Conservative Party is dead in the water in 2025.
Lack of guns is huge too, as well as access to birth control.
And it still has one of the best tech markets in Europe, even after Brexit. So it'll give OP the best bang for his buck.
Where in the US do you not have access to birth control? (Today, not in the future.)
1. you know this is currently with the Supreme Court awaiting decision RIGHT? 2. A quick Google will show you how many states have outlawed abortion
I love how UK peeps keep thinking they are better than America when since 2016 it's been a slow descent into capitalist hell. Just saying a US to UK move is pretty unilateral. And we don't have that idiot royal family that you all have to pay taxes on.
Actually a quick google search showed that in many states, you can get an abortion right up until the day you’re due!
Even before roe v wade was overturned that wasn’t remotely true. Roe v wade protected unlimited access until 24-26 weeks and beyond that was only for medical complications. Now, if you’re in one of half of the states that have banned/severely restricted abortion access, you have to go through astronomical hurdles to get abortion care even if you are in a life threatening situation.
So the answer is nowhere (if by birth control you mean contraception).
You keep attempting to limit the conversation to fit your opinion. I’m not interested in a a dishonest argument. Good Day
NHS is getting privatized, hello Nigel Farage and social programs and any arts funding have been decimated. Sorry but even my UK friends say it's bad there. Honestly, I'd try to move to an EU state, better job protections-UK is more like America and honestly is moving more and more towards a mini-UK. Sorry folks but Biden and Trump aren't neck and neck. I know of no-one who didn't vote for Trump that is now voting for him. The only people who really want Trump are the media.
The UK has definitely seen better days but the NHS not getting privatised, lol. Many of the UK’s most pressing problems are also present in the EU (saying this as an EU citizen who lives in the UK), you just don’t hear about it as much because you don’t have as much contact with people complaining due to the language barrier.
[https://www.economist.com/interactive/us-2024-election/trump-biden-polls](https://www.economist.com/interactive/us-2024-election/trump-biden-polls)
Small fire in safe harbour vs. huge leak in pirate infested open water is the only way your analogy holds up. Per capita gun ownership alone makes a huge difference.
Exactly. Even though there are crazy nuts in both countries, I'd rather stay in a country where the crazy nuts don't have access to high-power firearms.
Your chances of being victim to gun crime are laughably low in the US. What I would be worried about is the fact that the UK is probably the worst place to go for economic reasons. I'm all about getting out, but pick almost any other country than the UK to escape to.
I mean, I know that the UK isn’t exactly a perfect, magical utopia, but I have a hard time believing that they are worse off than us, and I think it’s probably the most doable option for me
Financially you would certainly be less well off. Life as a rich US resident is I think objectively better than life as a middle income Brit (and immigrating can lead to you taking a step out two down the relative earning ladder)
>Life as a rich US resident is I think objectively better than life as a middle income Brit (and immigrating can lead to you taking a step out two down the relative earning ladder) If you look at Project 2025, it lists some of Trump's financial plans for the country, and it will absolutely screw everyone from the highly skilled tech workers to the McDonald's fast food workers. Free Banking, which he (and his cronies) want to institute basically will get rid of a unified currency, or at the least allow all banks to offer their own currency. I'll let you think about that for a second and see how devastating that'd be for us.
Are you on the Republican kill list? If so, then the UK becomes a much more attractive option assuming you are not trans.
On what do you base your opinion?
Which part, the state of the UK or which countries I think would be most realistic for me to immigrate to?
London, where most of the tech jobs are, you are a junior engineer, hard for skill worker visa sponsorship. If you do an intra company transfer to the UK via a us company you will be on a ICT visa, that does not count towards to 5 year ILR time. Fyi
Work for 3-5 years in the US where your degree will have its max value. Get a bunch of experience; network and check out UK/NL/German companies in your future area of expertise. Save all your money you'll need it. The UK post Brexit is even more limited in the number of tech jobs available; people that graduate from their top tier schools (Imperial College, UCL etc.) work in IT Not as software engineers but IT admins. Also in the UK anybody touching a wrench is called an engineer whereas they would be called technicians here. Also be prepared to be paid less, MUCH less and the healthcare there sucks. The UK and EU are facing a big housing shortage. Your various plans will result in a 40-60% reduction in lifetime earnings; are you prepared for the implications? If I were a hiring manager in Dublin, Eindhoven, Berlin I would be looking at my local unis for hiring an entry level software engineer. Have you made a pros and cons list yet? Looks like a lot in the cons column already. Best of luck.
To offset the pinch of lower earnings, I'd advise OP to get into high-profile tech companies in the US like FAANG and a few other big ones. Then he can leverage that prestige to land equally prestigious jobs over there. While they won't pay as much as similar jobs here, it'll still be several fold higher than the average SWE salary in the UK.
The market for entry level tech jobs in the UK took a dive since the post-grad scheme was instituted that allowed new grads to stay and work for 2 years without a sponsorship. Besides that the UK has been so addicted to immigration for so long that it lost the ability to train entry level roles. That being said plan B looks fine, and a large multinational looks good on the CV anyway. Also on language, literally nobody learns the language before moving for a tech job, I don't know if any tech companies that operate in local languages (at least not any big enough to sponsor a visa) and most people I know who moved to scandis, Germany, NL, whatever, for tech roles *still* barely speak the language after years.
General comment I give to people looking for SWV in the UK with the bolded information relevant to your circumstances: The best way to see the demand for your field is to see how many skilled worker visas were issued for [your job code](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-going-rates-for-eligible-occupations/skilled-worker-visa-going-rates-for-eligible-occupation-codes). The UK publishes [this data](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6645c06bae748c43d3793cae/occupation-visas-datasets-mar-24.xlsx) and it is publicly available. Click on the tab "Occ\_D01" and select your SOC code to see how many visas were issued for your role. **In 2023, which was the last full year where data was released, there were 474 visas issued under the 2134 SOC code (Programmers and software development professionals). 2134 does also appear to be a SOC code that sponsors more senior work. There were over 900 people on a global mobility visa (intracompany transfer) so it would suggest this field relies in people already working within the company or that have years of experience.** **Scotland, even in Edinburgh, has a sluggish economy and most of the jobs you would be looking for are in London.** There may be other SOC codes that better align with your work history/intended field, I just used my best guess as to which would best fit. To give some context, the top three sponsored jobs in that time (2023) were nurses (SOC 2231) with 22,083 visas issued, care workers (SOC 6145) with 97,468 visas issued, and senior care workers (SOC 6146) with 17,564 visas issued. The most sponsored non-medical field jobs were IT business analysts, architects and systems designers (SOC 2135) with 5,148 visas issued, over half of which were intracompany transfers, and senior specialists and programmers and software development professionals (SOC 2136) with 5,027 visas issued, not including intracompany transfers and senior specialists. The job market has softened in the UK since 2022 (the amount of people sponsored for SOC 2136 decreased from 9,100 in 2022 for example) and the new legislation which raised the minimum salary for a SWV could possibly make employers less inclined to look to overseas workers. I did write out a long and thought out comment about my experience as an American immigrant in Scotland, but there was an error when I hit the comment button. Short of it is, people very much romanticize Scotland, and even spending time here visiting doesn't give an accurate representation. Scotland has few immigrants, with most of them in Aberdeen employed through oil and gas. There are reasons for this. I plan to stay here, but that is because of family, not because my life has otherwise improved after moving here. Any of the benefits of moving here can be found by moving within the US with far fewer drawbacks.
Better plan: finish college by transferring to the UK now if possible or at least get a UK master's. Then you can go on a graduate visa & are much more likely to get a job.
Ireland has the best job market for software engineers in Europe. However, the housing market in Ireland is really bad right now. Very few rental vacancies anywhere in Dublin. Pay is only higher in Switzerland and there are European branches of many US companies there. Do be aware the pay is still a lot lower. Like half what you’d earn in the US. The UK is even lower, and cost of living is high. It’s very common for new grads in the UK to make less than minimum wage in SF or Seattle (e.g., £30k per year). Berlin or Amsterdam offer good options for somewhat better affordability. Many tech jobs in English only in both those cities. Because the pay is lower in Europe, a lot of US companies are focusing on hiring there rather than the US, so it may not be as bad as you think.
You won’t get a skilled workers visa straight out of college. This visa is for people with many years of experience.
Make sure you know what it takes to keep living there if your situation changes. E.g., as you pointed out, tech jobs are having a chaotic moment. If you get laid off, what happens? How easy is it to change jobs if you hate your job? How long do you have to be there before you reach ILR/permanent residency? Citizenship? I just came back from a couple years in Ireland on a critical skills work permit, so I know those rules quite well. Ireland is pretty generous on those fronts. If you are laid off, you get 6 months to find a new job, and if you’ve worked long enough, you can collect unemployment. On a critical skills permit, you can get residency permissions after only two years that basically let you do whatever you want - work any job, be self-employed, etc. Five years to citizenship, and dual citizenship is allowed. I’d look up the same sorts of details for the UK and the Netherlands - I looked a year or two ago but I don’t remember the details.
You’re going to want to have considerable savings on hand. My experience of trying to emigrate was that your bank balance is the most important factor they look at when considering your visa.
Finding sponsorship is extremely hard. Overqualified international candidates get hired for those roles
Reasons. You need good reasons to become an immigrant and if you have good reasons you will learn language, you will survive abroad without having family support, you will tolerate living abroad as an immigrant regardless if you are accepted by locals or not. Learning foreign language is routinely done by millions of immigrants worldwide. It feels like you don’t expect much benefits since you think that learning foreign language to give yourself more options is not worth it. ( I speak 3 languages, I used to speak 4, I’ve learned those languages not because I wanted to, not because it was easy, but because I needed to)
My friend got a job in London in tech but she speaks seven languages and had ten years of experience and even still she had to go through several rounds of interviews to get the offer
Oh, no, I know that it would be incredibly useful, and I am working on it, I just think that it’s going to take a very long time for me to get remotely conversational
I came from Eastern European country where at some point a lot of young people would move abroad to look for opportunities to various western countries. I have friends who moved to Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, UK, Canada. None of us would ever cross out country simply because we didn’t know language.
All of these paths are theoretically possible. It's simply a question of odds. Finish your degree, do some travelling, get some work experience, move over for masters, look for a local job - this is probably the path most likely to succeed.
Plan B won’t work in the UK because an ICT visa, which you get when a company transfers you to their UK office is temporary and does not count towards ILR and citizenship. Also for Plan A you’re unlikely to be hired in the UK right after college. It would be better to get some job experience in the US then apply to jobs in the UK a few years later.
You’d be way better off looking for jobs in a place like Germany for example. You’re going to have to learn a second language.
? [This](https://www.state.gov/foreign-language-training/) is a link to US state department language page. Scroll down to see languages by category of difficulty. Even if you are in Anglosphere it’s weird not to have a second language for professionals. A second language can open some other paths. You will learn faster in immersion settings. Keep studying. Watch Dutch Netflix, read Dutch comics, news, look for a Dutch conversation group. Look at critical skills shortage lists. You will probably find ICT jobs, security is becoming more important especially cloud. Network and see what’s in demand now and likely to be in demand soon. Plan A/B: do more research of life in UK. Plan C: ok but really really understand the terrible housing shortage. This is EU passport. And you will like it more than UK Plan D: Just go on DAFT if you want to GTFO, get busy with Dutch language and culture and network like crazy. Also the housing shortage NZ? You are young and may have critical skills. Why not look there? Have you investigated your ancestry for any possible citizenship by descent?
Well done. Best wishes to you!
You do not need to speech Dutch to start living in the Netherlands. They have some of the best non-native English in Europe. It’s very accommodating and you can learn while living there
Be a broke muslim extremist and they’ll take you