Relocation to Bahrain from UK Employer-Salary Offered

Hi

The salary and allowance quoted sounds good from a UK perspective. However if you need to cover any expenses at home it's not enough. However if your long term ambition is the Mid East Bahrain is a good place to settle into. Education is very expensive here, be very aware!

Forgot to say, on that package, and a reasonable living standard, you won't have room to save. sorry!

Mate, you'll struggle to enjoy a reasonable standard of life here on that salary once you factor in school fees and housing costs.  Do you have just the one child or just the one of nursery / school age?

Evening,

You might find it worth checking out the Cost of Living thread here to help you with your decision:
https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=337348

School fees at BSB for kindergarten are 867BD a term making it 2601 a year.

I would suggest that you confirm whether or not your employers are going to pay for medical insurance for you and your family, and whether they will cover a return flight back to the UK per year.  Both of these are often provided.

All the best

Sarah

Hi
I agree with everyone else, it's not enough .

You really need to have school/nursery fees paid by your employer. An annual flight home for the family, car allowance , healthcare. Cost of living is high, that's a pretty low inclusive allowance.

Your allowance is plenty to rent a decent villa in an area like Saar or Janabiya which will most likely be of a higher standard than you are used to in the UK.  If you want to live in Jasra/Hamala etc you will struggle. 

I agree you need to ask whether a car is included as you will likely need 2 cars.  Medical Insurance as well.

Your basic salary is fine to live here if you don't want to do lots of designer shopping (food and clothes) and eat and drink in fancy restaurants every week.

Your salary is ok, your allowance (all incl) is not. With your experience you should apply to middle east companies directly, you will get double that pathetic offer. Bahraini law states annual bonus and one return flight home per annum. Also your company should offer help with housing, medical insurance, transport and schooling. They are taking you for a ride. Don't accept

Totally agree with Josnuggles

Thanks all for your comments. I will try to negotiate a higher salary to cover the cost of living.

Regarding school admission, I am considering Nadeen International School. I assume BSB and St, Christopher's are already full for the September session, so no chance for my son ( 3.5years old). Any feedback/comment on Nadeen, would be much appreciated. 

By the way, I haven't started contacting the school adminstration as yet, because I was waiting for the offer to be finialised. Is it already too late for September session. Also, if my child could not get admission to Nadeen, any other options we can avail as a stopgap arrangement.

On a side note, I would like to know the cost of school transportation. I assume there are bus services(either provided by the School or Privately owned) which we can avail for drop off and pick up.

Hi
Based on your earlier post, I really don't think you know what your getting into moving to Bahrain as a family. I know it sounds though, but you need to look at leaving your wife and child in the u.k. Until you get settled in. It can be very boring here for your other half, and culture shock is real, its not just a saying!

Think hard before you take the leap.!

reading_2014 wrote:

Any feedback/comment on Nadeen, would be much appreciated.

My son is about the same age as yours and he goes to Nadeen. He just started this term, but it seems ok so far. We had looked into all the international schools and settled on Nadeen for a number of reasons.

My son is in the Nursery group for now, but will be in Reception in September. I'd like to see a little more academics mixed in at the Nursery level, but I am not used to the British system so structured play might be the standard at this age in this system. Other than that, we are pleased with Nadeen so far.

Good luck.

There are limited buses that go to Nadeem. There are no school buses to service the international schools only private. I only know of one private bus driver that takes to Nadeem and he charges about BD50 a month. Bus to St Chris is BD90 per term. Also there is an age restriction on the buses for some companies - they won't take really young kids as most buses here don't have seat belts and the driving is crazy and dangerous.
Might be an option to hire a private driver. Check his driving licence and make him take you to the shops a few times to test his driving skills

My son got the last place for his year group in St Chris. If he hadn't got it then we would have stayed in the UK until a place became available somewhere

Nadeem is a great little school, it's like a little fairytale land.