Possible move to Barcelona

[yarg]

Hi all,

Having only discovered this forum very recently, I joined this evening and am after some help please. I apologise if any of the questions I'll ask are answered already in other threads; as I'll explain time is of the essence and I haven't not been able to thoroughly read through all the posts that my searches returned. I'll be going through them all at work tomorrow. I just thought that I would post this evening so that hopefully someone may be able to post an answer or 2 by the time I get in to work....

In any case, my wife and I are considering a move to Barcelona, chiefly because she is from Marseille and misses the slower way of life, the sun, etc. So we've been keeping an eye out for English-speaking jobs over the past few months; there haven't been very many and when one did come up I applied. I'm an IT Project Manager; my wife is an office administrator/team secretary. After 4 interviews the company made me an offer today: €40k per year with no relocation benefit. Obviously they're looking for me to give them an answer asap and that's why the time to conduct our research and ask questions here is short. I've never even been to Barcelona (something which I'll be rectifying within the next week so that we can make a better decision!), so I'd like some insights please into the value of that offer. It represents a massive drop in salary for me; coming from London it would be around £20k less/almost halving my salary and on the face of it I simply can't accept that salaries are THAT much lower (I have done some research and know that there will be a drop but I wasn't expecting it to be that much). So I'm inclined to negotiate for more; however, I'd like your thoughts please on what quality of life we could expect on 40k....we are in no way extravagant, but we don't want to move country and then live like hermits....could we live a comfortable life on that?

In line with that last question, the company itself is based right in the centre of the city, and I'm not averse to a 30min commute, so can anyone please recommend nice areas to live? We would look to get a car, but in all likelihood I would travel to work via public transport, so the links would need to be good. We would like to have a decent-sized 2 bed flat/small house without having to fork out 75% of my take-home pay in rent...is any of that doable?

I'm sorry for such a long post! We are keen on the move and I have heard that Barcelona is lovely, but the financial concerns, in particular those over the cost of housing, have got me a bit worried....is it feasible?

Any thoughts and advice at all will be very much appreciated...
Thanks,
Graeme

[MikeF]

Hi Graeme,
I'm an IT consultant and I live and work in Barcelona (previously based in London). I've been here for a couple of years now. I'd say that your salary offer sounds about right for here. Unfortunately salaries are a lot lower, although I have recently seen some signs that they are beginning to catch up a bit. If you haven't already done so then take a look at the Infojobs web-site if you want to see current positions.

The cost of living is a lot lower than in London so you should be able to live comfortably on 40K. You can rent a good central apartment for 1000+ Euro/month. There are some good property websites (e.g. idealista) that list city rentals with photos. We don't have a car but we are fortunate in that we live right in the centre of Barcelona and tend to walk everywhere in any case.

My partner (Spanish) and I have no regrets about the move - one bonus is that we are closer to her family now.

It's absolutely essential for you both to visit Barcelona to make up your mind on this. Be prepared for higher noise levels - it's not like London!
You don't say if either of you speak Spanish (or Catalan). From my own experience I'd have found it quite hard here without a reasonable knowledge of Spanish.

Good luck and remember to have fun!

[omeyas]

Someone I know relocated to Barcelona about a year or so ago, but they don't read this forum. I could try and ask them, see if they can help. They are a professional couple, so I'm sure would be a great help to you.

Edit. I see someone has answered you since I started writing my reply!

[Beckett]

This is a big move. Too big a move to make without visiting the city first and making sure that it has the vibe you're looking for.

Have you done any research on the company you would be working for? Have you met in person any of your prospective co-workers? Are they people you would enjoy working with? Would you be the only native English speaker in your department? These are all important questions and you may find may be more important and relevant, in the long term, than the pay cut.

Why the hurry? It seems as though you've put the cart before the horse. Also, do you and your wife speak Spanish or Catalan? Don't underestimate the importance of language when uprooting and moving to a new country.

[yarg]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the responses so far, please keep them coming!
Apologies for where there are gaps, I should perhaps have given more info but I was posting that at 1:30am this morning...

With regard to the job, the hurry is that the position is managing a global IT project (for the techies it's a 20 000 user AD migration) and the project is due to start next month. I work a 2-month notice period in London so obviously there's a clash and the company offering the position is keen for me to make a decision one way or the other as quickly as possible. I have had numerous telephone discussions/interviews with people at the company and have met in person in London with my prospective manager and a senior member of the team. The entire company/workplace is English-speaking, with employees from all over Europe and as far away as South Africa being based in their offices in Barcelona.

As for our Spanish, mine is non-existent, but I'm not too worried about that from a work-place perspective for the reasons noted above. I'm fairly confident that I will be able to pick up the basics that I'll need for day-to-day life pretty quickly. My wife studied Spanish almost all the way through her school life in the South of France, eventually finishing with 8 years of studies in the language, even spending some time in Barcelona as a student as part of a very short exchange programme. She works in tourism and while she was living in France she was having to deal occasionally with Spanish customers and their enquiries over the phone or by e-mail. So while she isn't confident in her Spanish levels at the moment, with all that background I think she will pick it up far quicker than me.

That's a bit more of our story; thanks again!
Cheers,
Graeme

[Beckett]

Graeme,
If it is a multinational company that urgently needs your services, you should be able to negotiate a higher salary. Maybe not equivalent to what you are currently earning but higher than their initial offer. The fact that a multinational company doesn't want to help with your relocating expenses seems like a warning light to me. Must mean that they're really cheap as a company or not all that desperate to hire you. If they really need you and want you, they'll fork over more money. Demand more!:)

[KlaudjaB]

Hi Graeme:
My friend Omeyas asked me to reply but I'm having some problems replying directly, so I'm sending this through him.

After living mainly in Bristol for almost 15 years we relocate to Sabadell, in the province of Barcelona (this is 40 minutes by train to the famous Ramblas) a little bit less than a year ago.
I totally agree with a previous post saying that your salary offer sounds about right for here. Of course it will all depends on your lifestyle and what you consider a good enough standard of life, where you want to live, if you have kids or not, and so on and so forth.
We're a family of three and we live a bit far from the centre of Barcelona but in a really nice town, much quieter that Barcelona (which is a really noisy city), with no tourists, almost no crime, but no beaches (that's the only bad thing I can think of!). My husband and I are both professionals (he's a scientist, I'm a languages teacher -English and Spanish), our kid goes to the local school and we live with around 40K and we do feel like our life is easier that it was in England.
The cost of living here is indeed much lower than in England, even including luxuries like going out for tapas every weekend (wine included). Houses and flat are expensive to buy but not that expensive to rent, the previous mention of around €1,000 per month for a flat in central Barcelona sound about right to me. You can also rent a beautiful house, great location, with a private tiny garden and a shared swimming pool in fashionable Sant Cugat for €1.500, far from all the noise of the city and with a commute of 40 minutes by train.

I also totally agree that you must visit Barcelona before deciding to move. Although you're probably going to love it anyway.

It's very unlikely that you're going to be the only English speaking person in your company, as somebody suggested. However, I think that language could be the main problem to face if you move here. We're originally from Argentina, so we speak Spanish as a first language but I'm still struggling to understand Catalan, let alone speak it; after a whole school year in Catalan my son is now trilingual, the lucky one!
Lack of Spanish and-or Catalan is a problem because not everybody speaks English in shops, supermarkets and so on, even most of the movies in the theatres are dubbed. So be prepare to invest some money and time taking Spanish classes. Or to confine your social life to other expats (the British are the third foreign community in Spain, after Ecuadorians and Romanians). We even have all the open TV British channels plus the local ones thanks to a cheap satellite dish in our balcony (National TV is total crap, local Catalan TV is a bit better but in Catalan).
Your wife, on the other hand, will have an easier time with the language as Catalan sounds totally French to me!! (mercí is thank you, mon fill is my son, and so on and so forth).

As I teach English to local and Spanish to expats who were relocated from all over Europe, and as a sort of nomad myself, I know that moving to another country is never easy as there are loads of little cultural differences that will bother you in many levels. However we've no regrets of moving here, although we do miss our friends back in Bristol, that's about it.

I've been writing a blog since I've moved to Barcelona ( http://www.klaudjab.blogspot.com is mainly for my British friends, feel free to check it out if you want and ask me any question.

GOOD LUCK �

[omeyas]

Thanks for the post, Claudia. :thumbs-up: perhaps he can take some Spanish classes with you! :)

[eldeano]

Thanks for the post, Claudia. :thumbs-up: perhaps he can take some Spanish classes with you! :)

Double identity??

[omeyas]

I often read a Spanish forum, it´s about Spanish living and working in London, and just been reading a thread about wages in UK and Spain. I guess 40K sounds about right!

Pues, soy Informático y cobro cuatro veces más en Londres de lo que cobraba en Barcelona, mi novia trabaja en logística y cobra el triple más o menos.

Los costes pueden variar bastante dependiendo del estilo de vida que lleves. Según Mercer que hacen estudios sobre estas costas, teniendo en cuenta todo lo importante, Londres es un promedio de 42 por ciento más caro que Barcelona.

http://www.mercerhr.com/knowledgecenter/reportsummary.jhtml/dynamic/idContent/1095320

[yarg]

Thanks again to everyone for their input, and especially to Klaudja for the detailed response and blog.

We are still doing as much research as we can and a deciding factor will be the cost of housing. I've found a few myself but can anyone recommend any good websites (similar to rightmove and findaproperty in the UK) that deal with Barca and surrounds so that we can get a better idea of what sort of rental property we could get?
Also, we are not at all keen on living in Barca city proper, and I don't mind a 30-45 minute commute. The company offering the position is based in the port area. So with that info, could you please recommend nice areas for us to look for a place to stay? We're not that fussy as a couple; the only requirement is that it's out of the city in a calmer/slower environment and that transport links are good. Being near the coast would be a nice bonus...

Thanks again!
G

[MikeF]

I've found the best web-site for Barcelona and surrounding areas is Idealista (http://www.idealista.com). It contains comprehensive property details from almost all the local estate agents. You get a geographical drill-down to very precise zonas and you can search for rentals or sales. Most of the properties also have photos.

You can use the Barcelona Metropolitan Transport web-site http://www.tmb.net to find how long the commute to the port would take from a given address to the port area using public transport.

If you don't mind a 30-45 minute commute and you want somewhere quiet, I'd suggest that you look in the area in the hills around San Cugat - although it's too quiet for me :). There's a good train service into Plaza de Cataluña from there.

If you want to be near the coast you could look at Sitges, but the commute will more realistically be closer to an hour. I know people who were living in Castelldefels (between Sitges and Barcelona) and moved into the Gracia zona in Barcelona centre because the commute can be a nightmare.

Barcelona centre can be noisy, but it depends on where you are. We were renting an apartment which was quite noisy because it was on a busy road. We've now moved literally around the corner and it's incredibly quiet (except last weekend when we had the noche de San Juan).

Good luck in your quest!