Hi,
I just wanna ask a question, it's very hard to find a job in UK if you are other nationality? I finished bachelor degree in mechanical engineering(specialization mechatronics), work few year as cnc miller operator, and drafter for a litlle. I tried to search a qualified job in my country, but nobody needs fresh mechanical engineers, everybody looking for more experiencied + weak industry in our companies. How with jobs in UK as:
Mechanical engineer(junior);
CAD/CAM designer(junior);
Drafter;
CNC miller;
Just searching the better life and career opportunities, sorry for mistakes, and my bad english

 

Hi,

I see you come from Lithuania - which is part of the European Union - so I see no issue with you coming to work in the UK.

The opportunities for engineers in the UK are reasonably good - but you need to remember the UK is a shadow of what it once was in terms of industry and manufacturing some 30 years ago. Back then we were designing; ships, aircraft, cars, lorries, trains, diggers, cranes, tractors, forklifts, bridges, oil rigs, power stations, etc, etc - and the size of the companies were huge by comparison to what many of the companies are today.

So now there is much less variety of engineering companies than there was 30 years ago - and in general terms the size of companies is much smaller nowadays.

The pay is very variable and quite often quite poor (in my opinion) in relation to some other professions - such as the; medical, legal, and accountancy professions - which enjoy very good rates of pay - in many cases salaries in excess of £100K. In very general terms - the rates of pay - in the old industrial heartlands is quite poor - but I would say the best pay is in the energy sector - such as the oil and gas - but the type of work might not be the most exciting (in my opinion).

The other thing you need to think about in the UK is the high cost of housing - which as a rough rule of thumb - gets more expensive the further south you go from £250K for a simple house/flat in Aberdeen - to more than £500K in London!!

You will not make much money as a CNC miller in England - maybe £15 to £22K - which is poor (in my opinion) - since that is the sort of money a bus driver or lorry driver would get in the UK.

As a drafter - with some experience - you could possibly get £25K to £40K in Aberdeen - and possibly a bit more if you become of value to a company - by being a source of knowledge to that company.

Whilst I appreciate that these very rough salaries might appear huge to you - don't forget the price of houses and flats in the UK will be much higher than back home in Lithuania as I have tried to give you a rough guide to above. Yes, you can rent flats - but you could be anything from £1K to £2K per month.

On another note - there are a lot of "engineers" going around - that I wouldn't employ - since they have forgotten most of what they have learnt. So I guess what I am saying - is you need to have something to offer - you need to be good at something - to get noticed. If you are pitching yourself as a drafter - then you need to know how to do drawings - and you need to know your way around a 3D package such as Solidworks and know about limits and fits. (I cease to be amazed at the number of young engineers who can't detail up a part to be machined).

Hope this is of help.

 

Thanks for reply, well sounds good. I understand it's very expensive flat rent, and etc., but i looking for the one of cheapest, but not with 10 people in one room I don’t like big cities as London, first I expect to found the best job offers in all England, and choose the desirable one(high pay rates, long term contract, a lot of trainings in various things, friendly employers and colleagues…) and after all search cheap flat with low crime level, and emigrant number in small town. I’m interesting in what is the main industrial districts, cities, towns to get engineering job ? How much money need to rent a flat, buy food, clothes and other main things, pay taxes, get a cheap car… per week/ month/ year ? How with english, it’s need very strong to communicate and in technical language? How with inch, and other units in job, there is any problems more?
I understand employee need to know a lot of in cad systems, standarts, specifications, etc. but I know some people who don’t know how to draw a line in AutoCad. I’m planning go to Solidworks, Edgecame courses + a lot of information is in torrents, youtube, manuals, tutorials... There is more cad/cam softwares as AutoCad, Autodesk Inventor, Solidworks, SolidEdge, DraftSight, Mastercam, but I think these two is main.
I think the main advantage is that I work in manufacturing. What is engineer if he never ever had the piece of steel in his hands, and don’t know how is catching the +-0.1 or +-0.01 accuracy of part? When people from hammer with rasp make a nail, then they call himself’s something more… I know some managers when hole of part is crooked, and they blame the low engine power of machine, but not blunt, or bad sharpened drill, parallelism of part…

 

Hi Blitz,

Just picking up on some of the questions you have asked.

I don't know any serious design company who is still using 2D Autocad. The main 3D CAD programs that are in use are Solidworks and Inventor. Don't try and learn them all - instead learn one of them - I would suggest Solidworks - and get to know it well. However, you really need to know how to use the 3D package - and yes you can get some ideas on Youtube - but you need to offer more than that to an employer. You can actually buy Solidworks training manuals on Ebay (they usually sell for about £30 each) - but you can buy the training CD's for less money.You need to know limits and fits like H7/h6 - and preferably have some knowledge of Geometric tolerancing.

Your knowledge of machining should be of value - from the perspective of knowing how to model something - and also knowing how to detail the part up for machining.

Don't expect companies to roll out the red carpet for you - there are a lot of companies that will not pay for your training. They want people who are self starters, not novices.

The other thing you need to be aware of - is that you could be made redundant (it happens a lot) - and you might not find the next job round the corner - you might have to go 100 miles to get the next job (depending on where you are based - and depending on whether you are fussy about the type of job and money you want).

I know I said in my first posting that the oil industry is not the most exciting type of engineering (since it is quite a mature industry), but the pay is probably the highest in the country - and there are jobs round the corner if you do get made redundant.

So Aberdeen - would be my suggestion for you. There is a sizable Polish community in Aberdeen - so you would probably feel at home with them

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for reply, somebody can delete this topic? Thanks

 

My brother got hired as an Engineer for Emerson Australia. He wanted to work in UK but the competition is just fierce.