Moving to Dorset, England - is it worth it in my situation?

Fi011 wrote:

Hello everybody,

I would like to hear some advice regarding the business opportunity I've been offered. Advice and suggestions from both native people and expats are welcome.
I'm a Network Engineer working for one of the largest Serbian ISPs. I have a wife and 4 year old son. My wife is not employed, and it seems she prefers staying home with our son, than finding a job.
I have a solid salary in Serbia, and I'm doing some freelancing on the Upwork platform, where I make some nice cash on the side. We own an small apartment in Belgrade, capital of Serbia.
We also have a male 8 year old cat, and we wouldn't even consider leaving without him.

I was approached on LinkedIn by a recruiter who offered me a Senior Network Engineer position in England, Dorset, specifically in the small town Blandford Forum in Dorset. To be honest it looks as a very boring place. From pictures it really looks like the town has only one main street and houses scattered around. I suppose they are having troubles to find a descent engineer from England to work there.

I was told that my salary with taxes would be 4000-4500 £. I was also told the taxes would range from 20-40 %. I did check the cost of living there, and it seems the apartments have reasonable prices, especially compared to London. Three bedroom flat in the city center is around 750£. Still, there is a kindergarten expense, bills for electricity etc, and of course cost of living. I would probably need to sell my car and buy one there.

Still, if my wife would not work, I wonder what would be our quality of life and will we even feel some degradation of the said life quality?

I'm happy with my life here, but again, on the other side, I wouldn't mind to make a change.
But I would like to know your thoughts. Is it worth it?
Is this a descent salary? Would my salary be enough to pay the house, bills, and have a normal life. We are modest people, but we like to go on a vacation sometimes, to go to cinema (doesn't exists in Blandford Forum it seems) and so on.

Thank you in advance.

Hi and welcome

Thank you for the introduction, I wish everyone was like you, it makes life so much easier in giving advice.

Just to add to Cynic's comment.

Blandford Forum is a small market town, with a population of around 10,000 but serves a community of 25,000. So yes small compared to city life in Belgrade. So if you are a city person Blandford won't be for you.

Saying that as you have a young family in my eyes Blandford would be an ideal location to raise a family. The town has low unemployment, a farmers market as well a couple of supermarkets and some major branded shops like WH Smiths (Newspapers, Magazines, stationary etc..) Boots (cosmetics), Post Office.....

Buses run from the town to locations including Poole, Bournemouth, Salisbury and Shaftesbury and is 15 miles (24 km) from Poole railway station. So you would not be too isolated, you could travel to London on day trips or the cinema, bowling, Ice Skating etc...

The town is almost surrounded by land that has been designated as having landscape value of national significance: the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) to the west and the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs AONB to the north and east.

If you would like any more information feel free to ask away.

SimCityAT
Expat Team