New Swiss guy here - thinking of moving to England

Welcome and Introductions
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Hi all,

I'm new to this forum and wanted to drop a quick Hello.

I found this forum because I'm really interested in other cultures, like meeting people from foreign countries and thinking about moving to England myself.

So I'm really looking forward to talking to you all.

Andy from Lucerne/Luzern

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Welcome, Andy.

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Hi Andy- I went to London for 6 months to learn English in 1970...

loved it, and it was a VERY long 6 months (40 years)...

Where would you like to move to- have you visited already? And what sort of job are you looking for. Enjoy

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In 1970, you still could profit from Britain then still being an EFTA member and being a fairly affluent European Country. Already in 1972, Britain had left EFTA. And so, some of my plannings in those days CRASHED down.

We now have the Bilaterals, BUT Britain no longer is the rich country it was in those days

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Not doing too badly.

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I sincerely hope you're joking

Good luck Andy. There are plenty of Brits on EF so tap into their tips and advice

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Welcome Andy.

Are you really saying that England can no longer be described as "fairly affluent" in modern economic terms?

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I'm an American with Swiss citizenship, and I left Switzerland for the UK 4.5 years ago.

Where in the UK are you thinking of moving to? What kind of work do you do? How old are you? The answers to your questions will depend on your answers to these, really.

Right now the UK is having a bit of a surge of SVP-like feelings, with talk of referendums to leave the EU, limit EU migration, and a general misguided sentiment that immigrants (including EU migrants) being the root cause of all that is evil in this world.

It is certainly an interesting place to live, and makes a definite change to Switzerland!

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Yes it some respects the UK is "fairly affluent", but we do have the small matter of our 1.3 trillion pound debt ( http://www.debtbombshell.com/ ). Fortunately our old pal China is helping us out by buying many of our failing businesses and, in an extraordinary demonstration of good will, has offered to pay for our fancy new high speed rail system. Plus the government has assured us that we are decreasing the amount by which we are furthering our debt almost every year (I think we only added 96 billion to it last year! ) So there is really nothing to worry about!

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Depends how you define "failrly affluent".

Is the mean affluent, or the medain or the 90 percentile?

Depending on your job and salary and where you are, there are parts of England where you can have a high standard of living. Higher than Switzerland maybe if you compare like for like in terms of the ratio of opportunities to education and skills. But there are also vaste swathes of England where living standards are low, housing is decrepit, schools and hospitals are underfunded and mismanaged and people struggle to make ends meet. I think compared to Switzerland, the spread in England is much larger.

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What a strange discussion ?

The lifestyle you have in UK is like anywhere dependent on your disposable income , where and whether you work , and what you want to have

London and Norwich are completely different but the ability to access any product/ service is almost same : but the cost could be different

Scotland and Wales even have their own languages but very few people or locations use them exclusively

NI is linked by a land border to a Euro spending country and has a different historical background from Corwall ( both have a separatist faction )

I just spent a weekend in Edinburgh and despite being English and like to discuss the referendum result : felt limited similarity to the SVP ( disgraceful racially driven poster campaigns ) in the factions

It is less regulated than Swizerland ( eg no registration , taxation is certainly simpler but heavier ), but has imported the awful practice of ambulance chasing lawyers which Switzerland so beautifully avoids

So go and celebrate the differences : worst case you don't like it and you try elsewhere .

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Watch out for dogshit and pinch-faced scrotes at bus stops.

Other than that, you might enjoy it!

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As said, if you gave us an indication of where you might want to go and live, we could give specific comments and advice. Living in London is totally different to living in Devon, Norfolk, Yorkshire- and living in the Yorkshire Dales totally different to being in Leeds. So....

Still have a huge part of my heart in the UK, including daughters, grandchildren, family and friends- and for me it will never be a question of either, or- but both.

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Hi all, thanks for the welcome messages

To tell you a little more, I'm 31 y old and working in an IT dept.

My hope is with being an IT guy it could be a little easier to find a job, because IT guys speak the same language all over the planet ;o) Seriously... that will probably be the preferred domain to work in but I'm open to other jobs too.

And so far, my preferred destination to live in is Leicester. I was checking out the districts around London but the're (too) expensive and I'm not especially drawn to live near London.

I already visited London and Brighton and both are really cool places but Leicester did look quite nice to me as a place to live in. Can anyone tell me something about Leicester... I plan to visit it myself in a couple of weeks

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Good curry, hilarious accent.

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You will either love it... or hate it. I loved it- and it changed a lot, for the better, in the time I lived there. It is very multicultural- with a large Indian population from lots of different areas, and also lately many Eastern Europeans. But it has a large Polish contingent, many Italians too. Swiss are few and far between, lol- I knew one but she died about 15 years ago . Very few tensions between the ethnic groups in general- Leicester has always had a mixed economy so never suffered like town in the North East- and the great majority of the Indian population is very successful and well-integrated- although keeping with their own traditions. Many arrived in 1973 (ish) from Uganda, where they were very successful too, when they were thrown out by Idi Amin. Huge celebrations every year for Diwali, the largest outside India- and a fabulous atmosphere. many Mosques, Sikh and Hindu Temples- and even a Jain Temple (in a discarded Christian Church).

Which reminds me, Diwali celebrations in Leicester tonight - Happy Diwali all Leicester people. All celebrate in Leicester today, not 'just' the Hindu population- which is fabulous.

It's got great shopping facilities, and a huge variety of restaurants and bars- especially since the new Shires shopping centre opened a few years back.

Surrounded by beautiful countryside and village, including the granite village of Swithland to the North-West and the Jura like Peak District a bit further North, and the mellow stone and thatch or stone roofed villages of Rutland to the East.

Great train connections to London- good public transport- apart from the utter stupidity of having the bus station and the train station at other ends of the town and poorly connected. Easy access to East Midlands airport and Luton.

What else do you want to know. Any specific questions- and why Leicester? I lived there for almost 35 years, until recently, as a Swiss (Romande). We still visit often.

The accent is not half as weird as Lichfield's, that's for sure

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Do you have any reason for choosing Leicester? Family? Friends?

If I were you, I'd see where all the IT jobs are, go where the work is!

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IMO, move to Leicester first - it's a baptism of fire for Swiss people and you'll appreciate London much better afterwards.

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I lived in Leicester for 5 years after University and basically enjoyed it. With a population of c.500,000 it is large enough to be interesting but small enough to have an accessible town centre and accessible countryside wherever you are. It has a very large British Indian/Asian population (more so than most northern/midlands cities and towns) which is good for exotic foodstuffs and, for me, a nice feeling of Commonwealth. The city had it's good and bad areas of course, but I always had the feeling from the media that nearby Nottingham was worse, crime wise! And I don't recall any large scale race-related riots as there were, for example, further north in Bradford in 1995.

The "East-Midlands" area in general is, or was at least, not so prosperous meaning salaries were not so high, but also rents were not so high either. London is just doable in a long day trip on the train, and the beautiful Peak District national park (the countryside between Derby and Sheffield, roughly) is an hour away by car, with the M1 motorway conveniently brushing the western limits of the city.

I would certainly not mind living there again in the right circumstances.

I would just like to note that I showed admirable restraint in not mentioning the local accent in my first post above, but I see now that other posters have not been so discreet ;-)

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In general your move from CH to UK will be much much much easier than mine from UK to CH. We paused our move to CH as we now have 5 month old baby.

Here to rent an apartment you don't need visa and job contract.

Pay your 3 month rent in advance and off you go.

Opening bank account - easy.

Opening a LTD company - easy

Cannot say much about Leicester. I was Londoner for 12 years, moved to Lymington for 2 years now but miss London a lot and we are moving back to in a year. Cannot live in a small place. Good luck!