moving to cyprus

[shaun.turner]

hi i have just joined this forum i am a 41 year old electrical technician and work for the nhs and have a wife with twin girls six months old and i am thinking of leaving the uk for cyprus which is the best place to look for jobs and housing and has the resesion that the uk is having arrived in cyprus would love some help
regards shaun

[kimonas]

Originally Posted by shaun.turner

hi i have just joined this forum i am a 41 year old electrical technician and work for the nhs and have a wife with twin girls six months old and i am thinking of leaving the uk for cyprus which is the best place to look for jobs and housing and has the resesion that the uk is having arrived in cyprus would love some help
regards shaun

From experience (I'm a forty three year old father of 8 month old twins) life is very tough for young families in Cyprus. The routine healthcare bills (vaccinations, peadiatrician visits - plus food, clothing and other routine necessities, car seats, prams etc.) are far more expensive than in the UK. Salaries here are miniscule compared to the UK, and an electrician would not earn enough to keep a family together unless (as we benefit from) they had a live in grandma/babysitter who could look after the babies whilst both parents went to work.

Unless you have some serious money behind you, can afford to live mortgage/rent free, have a decent job lined up and your wife can also find a job, I would seriously reconsider moving to Cyprus. That's not to say that it is imposssible - we manage, but we have the support network of the Cypriot side of the family. It took me a couple of years to find a decent job (but even now the salary is much less than I could earn in the UK). Read the various threads about finding work, living and working in Cyprus and the general need to do very careful planning...One of the biggest barriers has to be the low salaries - since joining the EU the trades have been awash with migrant workers from eastern Europe who can afford to take very low wages and this has driven wages down even for skilled and semi-skilled workers. There's nothing wrong with that - unless you happen to be competing for a job and trying to survive in an economy where a twin buggy puts a massive dent in a month's average salary.

Good luck - I'd be happy to answer any specific questions you have after trawling through the huge amount of info in the forum threads...