Survey reveals that Australia is the top choice among British expats
I’ll admit that I love a good expat survey because I find it fascinating trying to determine what motivates people to move from one country to another. Today’s information is courtesy of NatWest International Personal Banking, which says that there are currently 4.6 million British expats living in different countries around the world. There are some interesting bits of information revealed, so we’ll go through them to consider what they might mean.
It seems that British expats are a great barometer for the global scene because they probably have more available choices than anyone else in the world. Not only can they move anywhere in the EU, but they can move to any Commonwealth country with relative ease. Also, being English speakers, they can go pretty much anywhere else and still get by without learning another language, which is something people who speak, say, Portuguese can’t say.
Top countries for British expats
Total 4.6 million
- Australia – 1.4 million
- Spain – 940,000
- United States – 794,000
- Canada – 630,000
- Countries with at least 10,000 British expats: 41
- Countries with at least 1,000 British expats: 112
Why is Australia so popular?
According to the survey, a “major attraction” of Australia for British expats is what it can do for your career. But it also mentions the more common-sense answer in that the climate in Australia is far, far nicer. The same goes for Spain and most of the United States too, though it’s not like there is a long list of otherwise popular countries with worse climates than the UK.
It’s revealed that nearly 75,000 of these expats are teaching in British international schools, and that all of China only has 38,000 Brits compared to 64,000 in the tiny United Arab Emirates. In other words, those who are not teaching are going where the money is.
How important is using your native tongue while living abroad?
Perhaps the most interesting thing I found about these results is that Brits generally move to countries where they can speak English. With Australia, US and Canada taking 3 of the Top 4 spots there is a clear pattern, especially since the cost of living in all of those countries is similar to that of the UK, so most expats don’t feel any wealthier.
Also, with Spain in the number two slot, it seems most likely that the vast majority of the Brits are pensioners who’ve moved into communities along the coast where English speakers dominate. With unemployment in Spain so high and getting higher, it’s hard to imagine that many of those people are working in banks there. In other words, Spain pretty much counts as an English-speaking nation when you are retired and living by the beach there.