Is it unrealistic to expect to live in Adelaide on one teachers salary?

[Guest Rosie1979]

We're a family of four, we currently live in a 3 bed house with one car in the southwest of England. My husband earns approx £40,000 working as a science head of department/teacher. Due to health issues I'm unable to work. I would love to know your thoughts!

[Cherrypecker]

Hi Rosie,

 

I reckon you could live on one teacher salary, quite comfortably. However, be aware that teaching contracts are very hard to get, and I think you would need regular work to give you some security. Also, would your 'health issues' be problematic with the visa application?

 

If I were you, I would do a lot of research before making any firm plans. Good luck.

 

Paul

[Guest Rosie1979]

Hi Rosie,

 

I reckon you could live on one teacher salary, quite comfortably. However, be aware that teaching contracts are very hard to get, and I think you would need regular work to give you some security. Also, would your 'health issues' be problematic with the visa application?

 

If I were you, I would do a lot of research before making any firm plans. Good luck.

 

Paul

 

Thank you so much for replying Paul, would you mind explaining why permanent positions are so hard to come by? looking at the skilled migration list http://www.immigration.sa.gov.au/applyonline/skilled/planning_level_status.php it says there is high availablity for secondary school teachers, Science being on the list. Sorry to be thick about this, but I don't understand? Is it because Adelaide is such a popular place to migrate too? I'm worried it's not going to be possible for us to get out to Adelaide! About my health issues, I'm in remission from cancer so I'm a stay home mum to my two daughters while my husband goes out to work. I'm not claiming benefits here in the UK, it's just the choice we made for me to stay home with the children.

[jim and adel]

Hi Rosie, I'm not a teacher so can't comment on the likelihood of gaining a permanent position, but in terms of surviving on one wage, many migrants do. Obviously you'd have to 'cut your cloth' accordingly, but being willing to compromise on the size of house, type of car, how often you eat out etc means you'd get by.

 

Good luck, Jim

[Guest Rosie1979]

Hi Rosie, I'm not a teacher so can't comment on the likelihood of gaining a permanent position, but in terms of surviving on one wage, many migrants do. Obviously you'd have to 'cut your cloth' accordingly, but being willing to compromise on the size of house, type of car, how often you eat out etc means you'd get by.

 

Good luck, Jim

 

Thank you for your reply Jim! We live very simply at the moment, one car (would this be OK transport wise in Adelaide?!), cooking from scratch, hardly eat out, don't go to cinema etc We do 'free' things mostly with the children, walking, having picnics etc

We rent a three bed home right now at the cost of £850 per month, we're in the SW of England, rentals aren't particularly cheap here.

[jim and adel]

If you live simply then you've got a head start. Plenty of free things to do here, and when you first arrive in a place everything's a novelty so there seems even more! Transport depends on the location you choose and your requirements. If you decide on a suburb with a good public transport route to the CBD it certainly reduces the need for a second car, but then you might hardly ever need to visit the CBD!

 

£850 is roughly $1300 at current rates. Depending on the type of rental property and location you could well pay less but could easily pay more per month - when we were renting (nice estate, fairly nice suburb, very mediocre three bed house) we paid $350 per week.

[Guest aanitahir]

I would like to know which area is suitable for reasonable rental and easy access to transport in adelaide.

[keldaz]

Hi Rosie, yes you should be able to live on a teachers wages ok. I think the base starting wage for teachers is around $58k, so around £40k dep on exchange rate. I know this as my partner is a teacher at infant level. Jobs are usually on short term contracts here, or you have to relief teach, prove yourself and your likely to get contract once your known to school. Also worth keeping an eye on catholic private schools, as they advertise directly in the paper etc for staff. We've seen more jobs at secondary level than anything else in the 8 months we've been here.

To give you an idea of living cost, we rent a nice modern 3 bed unit (bungalow), which has a good size yard and double carport with auto door, and we pay $350.00 a week. Having said that, property owners pay the council rates here not tenants, so no nasty council tax, our landlords pay water bill, and theres no TV licence. We were renting at £800 per month in UK and have found it easier here. No way could we have lived on one wage in UK, which is our current situation here. Groceries are more expensive, but not if you cook fresh food. I think you could live on £100 equivient if you budget, and shop around, you soon learn where to go. One car will be fine here, we don't do anything like the mileage, we must be saving £30 a week.

Got too much time on my hands at mo lol, so here's a quick rough calc, but please don't base your entire move on it. Lets dream a bit and say hubby lands a job at $58k. I'll break it down monthly. Based on £350 a week rental.

 

$58000 gross - 11% tax = $51620 net per annum, = $4301.66 monthly

$4301.66 -

$1516.66 rent

$650.00 groceries

$200.00 gas & elec

$2366.66 Total $4301.66 - $2366.66 = £1935.00 left, as a very basic calc, on basics.

Hope this helps.

[sidestep]

Thank you so much for replying Paul, would you mind explaining why permanent positions are so hard to come by? looking at the skilled migration list http://www.immigration.sa.gov.au/applyonline/skilled/planning_level_status.php it says there is high availablity for secondary school teachers, Science being on the list. Sorry to be thick about this, but I don't understand? Is it because Adelaide is such a popular place to migrate too? I'm worried it's not going to be possible for us to get out to Adelaide! About my health issues, I'm in remission from cancer so I'm a stay home mum to my two daughters while my husband goes out to work. I'm not claiming benefits here in the UK, it's just the choice we made for me to stay home with the children.

To put it bluntly most migrants seem to think South Australia ends at the fringes of Adelaide and Adelaide is not necessarily where the skills shortage is. It is the regional towns that struggle to attract people and are more likely to have permanent vacancies rather than short term contracts. Downside for you is that I'd guess you'd want to be reasonably near good medical facilities which of course the regional towns probably won't be able to offer.

 

As to Adelaide being a popular place, it is however bear in mind that South Australia at one point had a lower benchmark for migrants to meet than some of the other states so a lot of people came here simply because they couldn't score highly enough to go elsewhere. Dunno if this is still the case though.

[Guest lyns0408]

Hi, I was wondering how you have gotten on with your application?

I am a science teacher and I have started my application for the skilled visa to Adelaide. How easy/hard have you found it to find a job there?

Thanks in advance

[zebedee]

To put it bluntly most migrants seem to think South Australia ends at the fringes of Adelaide and Adelaide is not necessarily where the skills shortage is. It is the regional towns that struggle to attract people and are more likely to have permanent vacancies rather than short term contracts. Downside for you is that I'd guess you'd want to be reasonably near good medical facilities which of course the regional towns probably won't be able to offer.

 

As to Adelaide being a popular place, it is however bear in mind that South Australia at one point had a lower benchmark for migrants to meet than some of the other states so a lot of people came here simply because they couldn't score highly enough to go elsewhere. Dunno if this is still the case though.

 

For me as an IT thingy, South Australia was the easiest state to apply for (I don't have an IT related degree) so I think it can still be the case (or at least it was when we applied 2 years ago). That made no matter as the climate, location and generally ambiance of South Australia is what we were looking for anyway.

 

Oh, and as a family of 5, we lived okay whilst renting on one salary - I earn about the equivalent of 36,000 UK pounds. Forget the exchange rate, go on a 2 - 2.2 ratio difference once you start earning Aussie dollars, so to match 40,000 UK pounds you need around 80,000 AUD income. Well, that's what I have found anyway.

Edited August 23, 2013 by zebedee

[Guest BurgessFamily]

There are several teachers at my kids school that are contracted. They'd like a perm job but I think the school likes the flexibility from term to term.

[obxer7]

Hi, I was wondering how you have gotten on with your application?

I am a science teacher and I have started my application for the skilled visa to Adelaide. How easy/hard have you found it to find a job there?

Thanks in advance

 

I am a secondary Maths teacher with 9 years teaching experience in the Uk.

 

We arrived 6 weeks ago and I haven't been able to get any sort of work. Nothing!!

 

I have visited about 20 secondary schools, handed in my CV and teacher registration, followed up by an email, also called a couple of the schools. I haven't even managed to get 1 days supply work. I have been told by several schools that they have regular teachers that they use for supply work but "will keep me in mind if something comes up. I have also offered to do some volunteering/observing of teaching but still nothing.

 

We are just in the fortunate position that my husband got a job within 10 days of arriving.

 

The ironic thing for me is that it is my skills/qualifications that got us here and I can't even get by a school reception desk.

[zebedee]

Obviously you are tied to Adelaide (assuming that your husband is working in Adelaide?) - but what is the teaching situation like in other towns in South Australia? It's sponsorship to South Australia rather than just Adelaide.....(again assuming that's what you've come over on)........I think some of the skill shortages are more rural based sometimes.

[Diane]

Also you might need to compromise on whereabouts in metro Adelaide you live. Yes, I know you might want to be within five minues of a beach and be able to afford a house for less than $300,000.... but wasn't there a teacher on here recently who had settled in Felixstowe (NE suburb) and had loads of offers of work at several schools within a fifteen minute drive? He/she might have to drive a little bit further to get to the beach in the summer, but has based him/herself in a good area for the work

[xzibit]

Considering there are families living on $30,000 wages, I'd imagine you'd be fine. The question really is can you live up to your expectations on a teachers salary.

[Guest Adelaide_bound]

Also you might need to compromise on whereabouts in metro Adelaide you live. Yes, I know you might want to be within five minues of a beach and be able to afford a house for less than $300,000.... but wasn't there a teacher on here recently who had settled in Felixstowe (NE suburb) and had loads of offers of work at several schools within a fifteen minute drive? He/she might have to drive a little bit further to get to the beach in the summer, but has based him/herself in a good area for the work

 

That'll be me

 

Yep, more work so far than I can physically accept - we're based in Felixstow, but we didn't move here due to work, just because neither of us (me/hubby) had jobs so just looked everywhere and we liked this house. We're about 15 mins from the CBD on the O-Bahn bus - we wanted to be nearish the CBD for hubby's options - so pretty close in (imho) and there is heaps of work. Its 20ish mins to get anywhere in Adelaide, so getting to the beach isn't an issue really - and whilst we did want to live by the beach in theory in practise we know we wouldn't get down to the actual beach all that much I reckon so a good trade off for us

 

Try signing up with Switch recruitment if you aren't finding any work off your own back - I use them as well as directly for some schools I went into with my CV or emailed (although this didn't work wonderfully well to be honest but the places it did work for seem to be using me lots so I'm not complaining really). I would also point out I haven't even had a tiny sniff from DECD schools - they seem rather sniffy imho and I'm much happier with my Catholic and Indy schools - not that the Catholic schools are in anyway Catholic - I've said one prayer in 4 weeks of Catholic school visiting!

 

I'm not looking for a full time perm. role whole heartedly, but if one drops in my lap I probably won't say no as some sort of Maternity rights would be nice, and its a bit boring doing TRT imho (expectations are a bit lower here - a good and bad thing depending on your point of view - bad because some days I'm bored to tears lol) so something a bit meatier would be nice some days. I didn't want to teach when we left the UK ever again, but we will see what happens. I have other irons in fires so we will see.

 

With regards to being able to survive - if it was only me working we would be more than fine on the amount of work I'm getting at the moment even with not being paid over the holidays (although over the holidays I would be looking for other sort of work). It wouldn't be luxurious but as we scrapped by (and I do mean scrapped by) on my salary only in the UK as a teacher, it would be better than that here given the pay rates etc ($280ish directly for Catholic schools,$200 for agency work and not sure on Indy directs or DECD schools).

 

Anyway, if you are struggling for work hassle the two agencies and they should be able to find you something depending on where you are based (ie if you are out in the sticks you may find it a bit harder due to less schools obviously)

 

Good luck

[Guest Adelaide_bound]

There are several teachers at my kids school that are contracted. They'd like a perm job but I think the school likes the flexibility from term to term.

 

What kind of school is it Burgess? If its a DECD school there is a bit of an issue in that it might have other teachers that are on perm. contracts but are taking long service leave/long term leave/break of service etc, but the way perm contracts work for teachers is that basically once you have one, they have to give you a job whenever you want one even if you've taken a bit of time off - its a bit weird compared to what we're used to from the UK really. From what I can gather resigning or leaving a perm. contract role is a *massive* deal here and you are mental to do so unlike in the UK where you do it every time you move school or something....

 

Its a bit of a rock and hard place for the schools really and even though I'm a teacher who obviously wants lovely strong rights and stuff I can see how it doesn't actually work in practise for the majority of people in teaching (imho - I'm sure if I got a perm. contract I might feel differently lol).

 

They can only contract you for a certain amount of time for the same job (ie as a teacher) though before they have to offer you more than just a rolling contract so its not all doom and gloom.

[Guest Chris_J]

Might be better looking rural too. Don't teachers here have to work in a rural location for a number of years to build points? That's what a guy at work told me, who used to be a teacher.

 

As for wage, Zeb is right you need to divide by 2.2 not the exchange rate. I'd think my wage was amazing, but its roughly £34k sterling and we are just about managing with Centerlink too. Dunno where my Wife shops for food but she spends loads....and daughter also goes to Kindergym, swimming lessons and music class and wife also goes to meditation.....I'm missing out I tell thee.

[Guest Adelaide_bound]

Might be better looking rural too. Don't teachers here have to work in a rural location for a number of years to build points? That's what a guy at work told me, who used to be a teacher.

.

 

From the teacher events I've been to there are a surprising number of people whom prefer to work rural, so my initial thought of 'go to the country if you want a job' doesn't really ring true in my experience in that there are lots of people who do want to live and work there (its very much a lifestyle choice thing) so its not like they can't get people to live out there. Its a bit harder in the very remote communities, but then that's a whole different kettle of fish.

 

If you work for a gov (DECD) school there is a points type system in that they generally want you to work in the sticks before Metro area but that's generally for new graduates working their way through the system rather than experienced teachers, and for getting a perm. contract rather than long term ongoing contracts, from what I've seen. So you can work in a DECD school in the Metro area without having to work out in the Country first if you don't mind having a rolling contract instead of a perm contract (the two being very different from what they mean in the UK).

 

Also the fact that Catholic schools here aren't Gov schools (unlike in the UK), and there are heaps and heaps more Indy schools (especially if you include the Catholic schools in terms of Gov/not Gov schools), so there are still loads of schools where the building up Brownie points system doesn't apply at all.

[Guest BurgessFamily]

Kids are at a catholic school. Think the school likes the flexibility of picking what classes the teachers get each term (and also hours).