Reply to: Working in England

[ABB]

my english should be good enough, whereby it might be improved, of course.

Hm, embedded programming had been a subject with decreasing meaning in recent years in my CV.

Hint on improving your English cheaply -
Listen to English radio first thing in the morning whilst you are still half asleep.
Get English TV (satellite) and you have the words and pictures together.

I did both of these whilst working in France - after a couple of months
you suddenly find you can speak and even think in your target language.

P.S. Don't blame me for the poor quality of English TV shows
ABB

[Fred Bloggs]

Me too. I thought things were bad when the weekly total of matches for "embedded" was around 100 per week. And now it's down to 30.

And unlike you, I am finishing before Xmas, just like 80 other people (only about half of which are enginers) at my current client. Ouch!

I'm planning a holiday (fortunately I do have the equity in my house to spend, as some numpty bought it off me at the top of the market!)

tim

Good luck, I'd be really worried if I was benched right now. The only jobs around in my area seem to be in the Nuclear sector and rates have dropped probably £10/hour in the last 6 months for those. I have a survival fund that could last maybe 12 months but I'd hate to have to draw on it

[tim123]

Nothing has changed here except it has got much worse than when I last posted. There are virtually no jobs being offered in my area of excpertise right now. Luckily for me, I "think" I may be OK for a few months more to about July 09. If I was coming to the end of a contract I'd be very worried right now.

Me too. I thought things were bad when the weekly total of matches for "embedded" was around 100 per week. And now it's down to 30.

And unlike you, I am finishing before Xmas, just like 80 other people (only about half of which are enginers) at my current client. Ouch!

I'm planning a holiday (fortunately I do have the equity in my house to spend, as some numpty bought it off me at the top of the market!)

tim

[Fred Bloggs]

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.

Nothing has changed here except it has got much worse than when I last posted. There are virtually no jobs being offered in my area of excpertise right now. Luckily for me, I "think" I may be OK for a few months more to about July 09. If I was coming to the end of a contract I'd be very worried right now.

[chef]

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

that's a localism on this particular message board, if you stick around long enough and grow a thick enough skin to ignore some of the sharper comments you'll get along well with the locals.. and pick up some useful bits of advice on how to deal with english job agents as well.. welcome

while i cant give you much advise on your specific area of expertise I would say a good start in finding work would be to look on the 2 larger IT jobs boards in the uk there must be others but for my line of work these seem to be the main ones, alternatively try and find recruitment agencies specifc to your niche market or market sector (i.e engineering), unfortunately i can't help in that aspect..

finally, dont get put off by some of the neanderthals on here and be prepared for a hard fight and a along wait for work, as others have said things are looking bleak in the uk job market right now and most people are preparing for a long cold winter lasting a year or so..

Chef

[engineer]

my english should be good enough, whereby it might be improved, of course.

Hm, embedded programming had been a subject with decreasing meaning in recent years in my CV.

[topgun]

In the U.K. STB/TV and Mobile phone are major embedded job market. If your English can pass job agents' phone interview, they would put forward your CV.

[Moscow Mule]

It's English humour...

I don't have much to say other than good luck - as you are in a different sector to me and not competing ;-)

[engineer]

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

[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...

[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.

[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]

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%.

[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]

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?