Moving abroad as a UX Designer
One of my lifelong dreams has been to work abroad, as I’ve wanted a sense of change of culture and lifestyle. Lucky for myself, choosing my career as a UX Designers means I don’t need to re-train and is one of many professions that is currently high in demand worldwide.
However, with the abundance of tech hub locations worldwide, I was amazed at the selection of where I could move to. When starting think about relocation, my selection of cities were:
· Amsterdam, Netherlands
· Berlin, Germany
· San Francisco, USA
· Barcelona, Spain
· Prague, Czechia
· Zurich, Switzerland
· Stockholm, Sweden
Although a Google search helped with factfinding, I decided to visit some of these cities in order to figure out where I wanted to move to. The criteria was the following:
· Having a great work life balance, whereby hobbies and interests are encouraged after work.
· Great working culture. Again I want to work in an environment whereby my input matters, but am not forced to do out of work hours, which feels like the norm in more westernised countries.
· How mature UX is within the country. Looking at companies best practices and how many meetups are happening.
· Looking at what industries are based there.
· Looking at tech and innovation and how its promoted within that area, particulary within environmental and social causes.
· Being safe for a single person to move to. When looking up where to move to as a single person, there are lots of articles that focus on the dating environment and using how many users on dating apps. This actually infuriates me as a single, this is not what we want to hear. Besides not every user who is on dating apps is single-a poor metric to use! Rather, I want to hear how safe a place is and what I can do after work to meet new people.
A personal one for me: being close enough that I could return to see my parents and brother in Bournemouth. Due to family health concerns, it’s important to me to be able to come back and see them on a regular basis.
To be honest, as much as the hype around the city being the best for UX and tech, I found San Francisco to be quite a disappointment to move to. This being down to the wealth discrepancy and lack of work life balance that I could see. Although the salary seems great, I believe you can get a better work life balance within Zurich with the same salary range. Besides, Switzerland has been ranked one of the most innovative countries in the world for a 12th year in the world ;)
One of the barriers I found when assessing my move was language. Although I learnt French for around 12 years, I’ve forgotten most of it as I was not practicing it on a regular basis. Therefore, I needed area whereby English is widely spoken, and can get away with learning the basics of the language.
Another barrier is visas. Since the UK left the European Union, its much harder now to move abroad without a visa, but not impossible.
From my research, visiting the cities and reviewing my barriers to moving abroad, the city I have decided I want to move to is Amsterdam. The reason why I have decided Amsterdam is the following:
· One of the most innovative countries in the world.
· English is widely spoken, both in leisure and employment
· Great transport links within the city, as well as easy air links via KLM to back home
· Great rates of pay that seem more than what most other European cities are offering. They also have the 30% tax ruling allowance, where employees who are hired abroad to work in the Netherlands get 30% back within their pay cheque.
· Opportunity to develop hobbies outside of work.
If you’re in a similar situation to myself, here are a few pointers to discover where you would like to move to:
· Understand what your top 5 criteria is for moving abroad and key priorities.
· Don’t let the visa situation (particularly in the UK). If you can present yourself well both online and making connections, a visa can be easily sorted.
· Contact recruiters within those areas. I found the Orange Quarter a great recruitment company to contact based in Amsterdam and Berlin. They have some great articles as well for moving to these areas and can help with finding a role there.
· Give yourself time to research and visit the areas you want to visit. I initially thought I wanted to move to San Francisco as on paper it was what I was looking for. However, this was soon dismissed when seeing it in person.
If you’re interested in receiving mentorship from me, whether it’s for a one-off call or for short-term or long-term membership in UX Design, feel free to book a 30-minute consultation with me through my Calendly link. I look forward to helping you grow in your UX Design career!
