Kiwi Oliver Tattersall at a football match in London during his OE. Photo / Alice Wilkins / RNZ
By Alice Wilkins of RNZ
An OE in London is often viewed as a rite of passage for New Zealanders and Australians, but British-based recruiters say it is a difficult time to secure work in the city, even for experienced expats.
Oliver Tattersall, 28, has been working as a software developer for six years.
He moved to London from Auckland in June to begin his OE and was initially looking forward to the job hunt.
“There are a lot of exciting job opportunities in London, especially in software development, so I had pretty big dreams of all these cool companies I could work for,” Tattersall said.
However, the reality of finding work soon became clear.
Tattersall sent off 200 applications during his search – many never returned a response.
Several times he progressed to the end of an interview process only to lose out to another candidate.
“Those were the down days, when you’d go through an interview process and miss out after the second or third round, and be back at square one, when you’re just sending off several applications a day and hearing nothing,” he said.
After months of unemployment, Tattersall was relying heavily on his savings and had signed up for temporary work.
He also started posting about his job hunt on social media, to give himself something creative to focus on.
The posts were viewed by his friends and he also received several messages asking questions about what type of work he was looking for and what experience he had.
“If you know people it’s a lot easier to get a job, and so I thought sharing my journey was a way to put myself out there,” Tattersall said.
Finally, after four months of searching, Tattersall secured a position as a senior associate developer in financial services.
However, other London job seekers have not been as lucky.
Imogen Haylock, 29, has temporarily moved back home to Adelaide after being unemployed for six months.
She secured a marketing job when she first moved to London in 2024 but was later made redundant.
Finding work for a second time has been much harder.
Haylock eventually had to move out of her flat and live with her sister in London to save rent.
She decided to return to Australia after a promising job opportunity fell through.
“I realised it has been six months and I am back at absolute scratch on this job hunt,” she said
“It just felt like absolute logic to leave and go home at that stage, and just recoup and actually have the chance to stop job hunting for a minute and reset, because it is very draining.”
Haylock has also been sharing the highs and lows of unemployment on social media and started a WhatsApp group of 150 followers who are also seeking work in the city.
“I wanted to be really honest and be like, yes I’m unemployed, and yes I can be optimistic about this temporary break and this ability to enjoy London in my spare time, but the reality is that it’s really hard and I’m really struggling with this.
“I didn’t realise how many people were going through what I was going through, particularly in marketing,” Haylock said.
Deb Brown, a recruiter at Armadillo Connect, which specialises in helping New Zealanders, Australians and Canadians find work in accounting, marketing and legal roles, said it has been a challenging time for London jobseekers – and that’s likely to continue.
“Corporate and commercial lawyers, who usually have found it fairly easy to secure work in London, particularly if they’re coming from the top-tier legal firms in Australia and New Zealand, this year, even those guys are struggling, and in some instances we’re suggesting people just to hold off coming to the UK,” Brown said.
She said London companies are struggling and cutting back on recruiting to save money.
Brown advised New Zealanders considering moving to ensure they have at least several years of industry experience and have started planning for their job search before arriving.
She said clearly stating whether you can obtain a longer-term visa on your CV is also a good idea.
“What I will say is Australian and New Zealand professionals are highly regarded in the London job market, and we have all those Aussies and Kiwis before us to thank for that because they have created a great work ethic and a great reputation.”
– RNZ
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