Working in England

[engineer]

obsolete

[TykeMerc]

I'm sure that there's work in the UK that you would be interested in, however there are a few things you should bear in mind.

1. Britain has almost no manufacturing left, in my professional career of 20 years I have worked for 1 manufacturing company and that was my last gig.
2. Engineers aren't valued like they are in Germany, here they're treated more as a grease monkey rather than a highly skilled professional which as an engineer is sickening.
3. Depending where you are in the UK the cost of hotels is likely to be in the region of 60 euro for somewhere ordinary and twice that in London. The cost of living in the UK is high.
4. Payment is very likely to be in Pounds Sterling so you will lose some with the exchange rate even though the Euro is very strong versus the Pound.
5. Agencies pay reasonably promptly, many clients pay very much slower, if you contract directly to a client odds are 30-90 days will be typical for payment, that's one reason I don't contract direct to clients much.
6. Rates are likely to be a bit lower than you're used to unless your skills are in high demand (see point 1), that's why you find so many skilled British engineers in every other country.

[Magic]

It is called

I am interested to work in england (for at least some time in a project) to improve my english and see something of the country. So far, there had been very rarely offers for engineers from agencies I know.

Are english companies also offering projects mostly over agencies or is there also a good chance to have direct contracts?

What can be said about payment?

Among other things, i am skilled in embedded Programming for Microcontrollers (with and without OS) and can provide full PCB designs containg analog and digital devices.

Has anybody some typical per rates for such projects ?

I'd like to do a kind of comparison, if there is a simiilar profit regarding also the costs like housing an such.

In germany, a typical job like this ranges from €50,- per hour for easy programming jobs up to 75,- for projects with certain knowledge. The typical offer for me is between €60,- and €65,-.

Living in a hotel in germany is €40,- to €60,- per day, in regions like Stuttgart and specially munich €10,- to even €20,- higher.

England by the way with a capital 'E', there you go, first English lesson.

[tim123]

England by the way with a capital 'E', there you go, first English lesson.

And Stuttgart is a "city", Baden-Wurttemberg (or Swabia) would be the appropriate region.

But to answer the real question:

The market for Embedded engineers with generic skills in the UK is virtually dead.

Companies almost exclusively recruit through agencies, but most jobs now come with a requirement for a specialist skill (or four) that if you haven't got, you don't even get an interview, let alone a job offer. The situation seems to be that the company will pay for a contractor to fill an immediate need, but if they can't find someone and have to pay to re-train, they will re-train one of the staff that they already have.

In the last three years I have had two offers of work in the UK and (about) monthly offers of work in Europe.

If you're not getting offers it's almost certainly because you haven't (like me) got the special skills that the client wants. How good you are at generic stuff counts for nothing.

tim

[engineer]

And Stuttgart is a "city", Baden-Wurttemberg (or Swabia) would be the appropriate region.

With the word "region" I really mean the area in beneath these cities, since it is a big difference if one works in Stuttgart or e.g. Karlsruhe which also belongs to BW but differs in costs significantly: Karlsruhe is much cheaper, but also rated lower.

[skills]
Okay then, but I have significantly more than basic skills in embedded :-)
I am able to define, scale and produce complete platforms containing MCU, PLD and such devices, program and validate them. And theoretically, there should be also enough companies in the U.K. which require these skills.

And yes, I have to work on my english language skills, that is, why I want to work there. Without a necessarity to regularly speak english every day, also the best language skills disappear after leaving the school. (I once had an english, beeing enough for mark 2 in german "Abitur" in the 80tees ... )

Unfortunately it is no help to read english documentation from collegues or speak english in the department, because if it is the case, that english is spoken or written, it is because there are foreign engineer from china, sweden or elsewhere and theire english is a bad as the average german engineer's. The same is with most forums in the internet: Most people in there are non english and using BSE.

The only chance is to have contact to native speakers, which is nearly zero at this point of time!

Rates are likely to be a bit lower than you're used to unless your skills are in high demand (see point 1), that's why you find so many skilled British engineers in every other country.

This is what I had expected too, after having learned about prices, cost and salery in England. But: During more than 10 years of work and also regarding the recent years of contrating, I never found one guy from England in the projects, neither in germany nor in austria or switzerland! Not even one!

The only english speaking persons came from New Zealand, Australia and once there was a guy from Dublin (an Expert from Xilinx) who was programming in the first place rather than communicating.

It is really strange, but according to my personal experience, englishmen are as rare here in germany as the computer experts from india. (only one so far).

I already thougth about to book one of these learning sessions for 3-4 weeks where you have 4-6 hours of studies. But second: They are expensive and First: The steal away too much time so I am loosing money! So again, my only chance is to work in england for some time, where there is a kind of every-day-talk in good english (pronounciation, gramma, spelling).

The financial component is much better than, even if payment is not that high: It is a project, I earn money and so can substract all the real consts including ship, taxi, extra car, housing and even for some part of the food! ... If I book such a mixture of learing and having vacancy, my local tax officer will ignore the bill because of considering to by a holliday trip (this happened to a frind of mine ).

Concerning costs: As metioned above, €60 for a day in a hotel was the same I have to pay here, and I do not see any reason why to work in a too expensive region like London. Having weekend trips to London might be enough to see the city.

Which agencies could be recommended to address to, in order to find appropriate jobs?

[tim123]

[skills]
Okay then, but I have significantly more than basic skills in embedded :-)
I am able to define, scale and produce complete platforms containing MCU, PLD and such devices, program and validate them. And theoretically, there should be also enough companies in the U.K. which require these skills.

But these are still generic skills. I don't doubt that they are senior skills, but that makes no difference.

Employers do not seem to want contract embedded engineers with just generic skills. That want someone who has done exactly what they are looking to do, which includes experience of their specific application and experience of the components that they have already chosen as their solution. Your chances of getting to be the person who specifies that solution, as a contract engineer are slim.

tim

[engineer]

Hm right - I see, what you mean. I commonly describe this as "platform knowledge" and "company's workflow" knowledge.

But in the current situation, companies (in germany) hardly get somebody who meets their requirements perfectly @100%.

[Fred Bloggs]

Hm right - I see, what you mean. I commonly describe this as "platform knowledge" and "company's workflow" knowledge.

But in the current situation, companies (in germany) hardly get somebody who meets their requirements perfectly @100%.

The real truth is that the UK economy is in VERY serious trouble right now. It is unlikely you will find anything interesting and well paying here in my opinion. Good luck though.

[engineer]

This is the global situation. For me as an individual, the local situation of a particular company is the main aspect. In germany it is nearly the same: A special company is under financial pressure, sold to somebody else and the new owners cut down the number of heads. So, the global situation in this company is "downward". But since in such companies, payment gets stuck, engineers jump out quickly. Often this is fatal for the department, since projects have to be completed to stay alive at all. Also, new projects are installed by the new owners to push it up again. This is the moment, when I appear on stage

ashes to ashes, and clay to clay, if your own folks dont get the project, the engineer may.

[daviejones]

I am interested to work in england (for at least some time in a project) to improve my english and see something of the country. So far, there had been very rarely offers for engineers from agencies I know.

Are english companies also offering projects mostly over agencies or is there also a good chance to have direct contracts?

What can be said about payment?

Among other things, i am skilled in embedded Programming for Microcontrollers (with and without OS) and can provide full PCB designs containg analog and digital devices.

Has anybody some typical per rates for such projects ?

I'd like to do a kind of comparison, if there is a simiilar profit regarding also the costs like housing an such.

In germany, a typical job like this ranges from €50,- per hour for easy programming jobs up to 75,- for projects with certain knowledge. The typical offer for me is between €60,- and €65,-.

Living in a hotel in germany is €40,- to €60,- per day, in regions like Stuttgart and specially munich €10,- to even €20,- higher.

You are AndyW and I claim my free % Bratwursts...