We usually hear that it’s London or Zurich due to high salaries being available there, but the high cost of living might take away a good part of it.
In your experience, which is the best city? Feel free to give your own criteria, be it the weather, culture, ability to navigate in English, etc.
navigate in English
I don’t like this as a requirement. If you’re going to live somewhere, learn the language. I’m in Tokyo and it drives me crazy that people don’t even make some attempt at learning the language. You will have a much better, richer life and be less of a burden on others if you learn the language.
Hello,
I agree with you, completely. I live in Barcelona so I learn both Spanish and Catalan, and I feel the same for people who don’t make an attempt at the language.
On the other hand, I can also understand that if someone only plans to stay for a few years, and the language is very hard to learn, they might want to decide to not learn it, or prefer a country like the Netherlands or the Nordics where most of the people speak English.
Copenhagen. Best city in Europe (with tough competition from Amsterdam). You can easily live there without a car, rent is not too insane and the people are nice and speak perfect English. Just avoid working at Deloitte, because they treat their newest engineers like disposable garbage.
Rotterdam or The Hague are a lot nicer than Amsterdam if you’re coming this way, and a damn sight cheaper, although housing is tough all over.
What’s with the Deloitte hate? I don’t work there just curious
They are famous for overworking and underpaying their staff, especially newer hires. They promised to improve their “unhealthy, stressful workplace culture” a couple of years back, but nothing has really changed. Lots of articles about it if you Google a bit, and I have personally had a lot of friends from university make the mistake of starting their career in Deloitte, Netcompany or the like.
Thanks for the perspective! It was on my radar, but I didn’t really consider it as I would probably struggle with the weather during winter.
Happy to see that you’re having a good time!
If you’re a Software Engineer, you won’t be seeing much of the weather anyway ;)
Depends, I see it from my window ha ha
best
You’ll have to be more specific. “Best” according to which values?
I just edited my post to provide more context.
I was tempted to say Vienna or Salzburg, but there isn’t a lot of opppertunity in software development
Yes, that’s a shame, Vienna is a lovely city
Zurich
In terms of COL, I think you can avoid most of the UK. The major hubs like Bristol and Cambridge are all prohibitively expensive with no real bump in salary compared to London. Manchester is a decent hub with cheap(er) rent costs, but nowhere near London in terms of the work available.
Berlin is a popular tech hub, and I’ve had a few friends move and negotiate living without needing an in-depth knowledge of German. I’ve heard great things about Dublin and Amsterdam, but the rent situation in both is insane.
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If you work remotely, then the world is your oyster. There are many small cities with a good mix of what you like. Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Romania, Sweden, Norway, all countries with such cities where you can also speak English. But if you drop the English requirement and are willing to learn the language, then many more countries fit the bill.
A country in Eastern Europe might do well for a high salary and low taxes. There are a few countries that have tax advantages for people who move there and register in the municipality.
