Hello hello, I'm looking to move over to London from Australia and work as an engineer in a mechanical, mechatronics or related field. My desire to move to London stems from me wanting to live in another country for a few years and to have the opportunity to travel. I have chosen London/UK as I dont speak any other language other than English (yet) and its proximity to the rest of europe and the rest of the world makes it a tad easier to visit other countries and places on weekends than it is from Sydney, Australia. While I have been doing some research into this move I have come across some worrying information regarding the feasibility of working as an engineer in london, specifically in regards to expected salaries and cost of living.
I have a degree in mechanical and mechatronics engineering with experience using various CAD software (Solidworks, fusion360, AutoCAD etc.) and experience with C++ and the linux operating system, robotics etc. I have just over 1 year post grad experience in a mechanical engineering role at a mining company and have 1 year of undergrad experience in a CAD design role that I gained over two internships. Now my questions:
Is this a mistake? With my amount of professional experience I am not really expecting anything above an entry level/ junior role, and from what I have read online, the expected salaries seem quite low.
So to be specific, will the jobs I can expect to land in the mechanical/mechatronics fields with my amount of experience give me a salary that allows me to a) Live in london and b) allow me to save a tad to travel every couple of months (I am okay with slumming it a little with how I live to facilitate saving some money for travel, but I dont want to be on struggle street 24/7…).
Also any estimate of expected salaries within these fields and the range of salary to achieve these goals are welcome as well as recruitment agencies I can look into to help facilitate this move/ landing a job when I land in the UK (Sorry for the long winded post).