Job offer advice needed - London to Bahrain

Look, you can search the forum where we have had many many many similar discussions on the cost of living.  It really depends on your lifestyle.  For many people, 2500 is a good salary as far as Bahrain goes.  And for many, it is too little to make ends meet.   As an example, for me, the bare minimum, considering my own expenses and commitments now, would be 8,000 BD (which is the salary I actually moved to Bahrain on back in 2014).

Let me just address some of your confusions:

1) Career prospects:   I don't know your field but Bahrain is very small.  Generally people can only grow in  their career up to a certain limit here, after which, they need to move out e.g. to Saudi.  I am one prime example - live in Bahrain and work in Saudi

2) Azaaan:  You practically won't hear it even once if you are living in the expat areas. There is a rule re: loud speakers

3) Finances:  Your salary is lower and your wife has to quit her job.  My view is always consistent.  A move outside of your home country should have significant benefits for you, whether financial or career wise.  From the looks of it, you are not getting either

Hi

I dont know your personal circumstances, being from the UK i understand your thoughts about moving. From a purely business point of view, your deal does not stack up and I doubt if you will be able to maintain your current lifestyle in bahrain on that salary. X Tang is right it’s a small place,  difficult  for expats to progress. The only reason to move countries is to step up, you should be negotiating a package nearer to 5k before you  think about moving here 

Thanks guys for the advice. I am keen to make the move more for personal reasons than purely financial (for e/g cost of living is a lot lower especially childcare/slower pace of life etc).

I did consider UAE/ Qatar/ Saudi as well where the pay is higher however it is very challenging to land a role there whilst in the UK. My thoughts are taking a sideways move to get some GCC experience and build my network, then hopefully then transition to a more lucrative role.

I don't think it would be possible to negotiate 5K in this role at all but will try to push them a bit more. What kind of roles (finance/accounting related but not banking) and which companies in Bahrain would pay that kind of money? Perhaps I can target these once I am settled in?

Simple answer, none. 

To explain:

Bahrain is a small market as I already mentioned.  In your field, they are paying CFOs in that range in most larg-ish companies i.e. 4-5K.  You can get higher as a CFO in larger companies BUT for one, there are very few of those and most prefer Bahraini nationals and secondly, majority of the multinationals that would hire on merit, have either moved out of Bahrain or have drastically reduced senior staff............moving them to Saudi.  As one level down from the CFO (Assuming FP&A manager will report into the CFO), forget about 5K completely.    The absolute highest salary I have seen for FP&A heads (I know as they reported into me), in large listed or multinational companies (In Saudi and UAE), is in the 5-6K range - nothing beyond 3-4K in large companies in Bahrain.

I moved to Bahrain back in 2014 as a CFO in a multinational with 15 plus years of experience under my belt, across multiple countries (5 years in GCC at that time) and ALL of it in multinationals.   I came in on 8-9K BUT it was always clear that I was an "over hire" brought in to fix some things and eventually I would need to transition out to another role somewhere else as the company could not afford such an expensive resource in a place like Bahrain.   My successor with a much reduced role (mine was regional) was in the region of 4K and then they moved his role to Saudi.  As for me, the companies that could afford me in Bahrain, I could literally list on my fingers and most of them preferred Bahrainis as they were in highly visible high profile industries.  Hence, I moved roles to Saudi in 2017. See what I am trying to tell you here?

The other thing you need to keep in mind is that when you say 9+ years experience; in the greater scheme of things, it is nothing when you have people with 15-20 years experience and similar backgrounds willing to work for a lot less (and they have significant GCC experience).