What's your reason for leaving Canada for the UK?

Hi there,

I can only talk about my own experience. I am British but lived for the last 10 years in Vancouver with my Canadian husband. We moved to England in April just in time for the credit crunch. I loved Vancouver but I did work very long hours with little holiday so although I was living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world I didn’t actually get to utilize it much.

At least in England I get good holidays and the Brits take there time off very seriously. I don’t work any where near as many hours and took only a small pay cut (no where near as big as when I moved to Canada where I halved my pay). We have settled in quite well and relatively quickly. My husband loves it and we have done things like popping over to Paris for the weekend where we met up with some Canadian friends.

As with everything there are pros and cons. Canadians are much more polite and I miss wait service in bars/pubs (which you don’t get here). Service generally isn’t as good and things like the bus drivers are definitely not as friendly but that is a generalization. The Post Office however is a great improvement on Canada Post. My husbands finds however (just as I did in Canada) that having an accent is an advantage and that people treat him better because of it.

He says that paperwork was much easier like getting his social insurance number and opening a bank account was easier than in Canada.

I really think it depends on where you choose to live. Like everywhere there are good areas and bad areas. We live in Tunbridge Wells which is only an hour to London and it a really nice town with history, great shopping and the countryside on your door step. It is an affiant area which is reflected in the cost of housing etc but also in the lower crime rate etc.
Do make sure it is what you want to do as the cost of moving is quite expensive, it cost us C$8,500 to ship our stuff (Aprox a one bed apartment) and we are renting (as we didn’t know the area and wanted to wait before buying a house) and since we have no credit rating had to pay 6 months rent in advance plus deposit to secure a place to live. Cars are also more expensive than in Canada and unless you live in London you really need a car. My husband definitely found it difficult to adjust to driving here with the narrow roads and being on the wrong side of the road.

Anyway all I can say is for us it has worked quite well although the move was pretty stressful and being nearer to my family has been great. Maybe you could take an extended holiday to come over and really take a look around before you make such a big decision.

The other thing is you can always move back, it is only going to cost money.