We have been looking into relocating to Spain for the last 18 months.

Firstly, are there many opportunities in Spain for retail managers speaking little Spanish, if so, where are these advertised?

Secondly, how far would ?35000 stretch in terms of covering rent and living costs for a family of four, for the first 6 months whilst we establish ourselves, giving time to learn the lingo and search for jobs, enroll kids in school etc.

Looking to move to either Catalonia or Valencia region.

Does anyone have any recommendations for either region on the best towns for families to live in.

After 18 months desperate to move, would really appreciate any advice that you may have

Lorna y Andy

Of course you will have it much harder to find a job in Spain if you don’t speak Spanish. I would advise you to apply mainly at large international firms as you will have the best opportunities there.

There is a thread on the “living in Spain” board about cost of living, but it will vary depending on which part of Spain and whether it is a small town or almost a city.
I don’t want to sound rude,but I cannot be the only one wondering why, when you say you have been desperate to move for 18 months, you need information about cost of living and finding a job without speaking Spanish. What you have been doing for 18 months is your business, but surely you have been reading other forums where these topics are discussed frequently ? These are fairly basic issues and to still not have ideas after 18 months makes me think you may not be ready to make such a big change in your life, but only you can answer that really.
I read other forums both expat and job related, and the most difficult type of question to answer is the sort which goes something like ” help me make a decision which will affect my family’s future” without giving the readers any clues. I would be glad to give any relevant information I have, but without knowing anything about you and your family, it is an almost impossible question to answer. The “best” towns for one family might be dreadful for another, with weather being only one issue.
If you try to tell everyone what your likes and dislikes are, also any special requirements due to health or other personal issues, then I would expect you to get more replies. How old are your children and what sort of life do you have now, and where ?

If you want a professional retail job in Spain and don’t speak much Spanish, you have practically no chance unless you can find something with a company that deals almost exclusively with the ex-pat communities in the Costa del Sol (and maybe Costa Blanca). You could consider commuting to Gibraltar - there’s stuff elsewhere on this blog about working cross-border, but it’s mostly aimed at people in the finance/off-shore gambling/call centre industries down there.  Lots of folk do it.

Please don’t forget or ignore the importance of Catalan in Catalunya and to a lesser extent Valencia (like a lot of people do on this site).  It’s not a dialect, it’s a proper full-on language and it’s becoming more and more important all the time.  If I was you I’d stick to learning one language at a time, which means don’t go to a bilingual area.

35k will go a long way in most parts of Spain, although the nearer you are to Barcelona, Madrid and other expensive places like San Sebastian, the quicker you’ll get through it, naturally.  The costas are a funny mix of cheap and dear.  Right now there’s places to rent for nothing, or next to nothing, all over the coast.  I think your family could manage on it reasonably easily unless perhaps you need to buy a car or something.  Trouble is you probably won’t be ready to work after six months, unless you’re lucky, and the salary you’re likely to get won’t be big anyway.

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Firstly thank you for responding to our e-mail, secondly it appears that we really didn’t explain ourselves very well probably because the situation we’re in would take far too long! so for those who have the time here goes….

18 months ago the company which Andy works for requested that any experienced managers wishing to move to Spain in order to manage a store there to express their interest, so we eagerly did. We then sought out a Spanish tutor and had weekly lessons over a 10 month period, which sadly became too expensive so we had to quit.

Over the months we have spoken to the company HR in Spain, Andy has also had an interview in Barcelona which all went very well. E-mails have always been very encouraging but we could never seem to hold them to a time period when things may start to happen.

Just recently we’ve learnt that the company isn’t doing as well as once thought, so having been strung along and kept in the dark for many months we’ve come to realize that this avenue may sadly be closed, and therefore are looking at selling up and moving on our own.

The company move was a safe and less expensive option, they would help locate us pay moving costs, we planned on renting our uk property which would then fund renting property in Spain, so really everything was taken care of.

So really we are starting from scratch and doing everything on our own, hence the basic questions we posed in our first e-mail.

So the plan is to develop our language skills, put our house on the market, seek employment in Spain, rent for maybe 6 months in Spain then hopefully put a deposit down on a house.

We have two small children 5 and 2, so it is important we find the right area for them possibly somewhere in Valencia or a little further north. Our little boy is due to start his second year at primary school and is already establishing roots, this wasn’t meant to happen we anticipated being in Spain by now.

So that’s it in a nutshell. Again if anyone has any advice on moving to Spain (on a budget) we would be really grateful.

Lorna and Andy

“The company move was a safe and less expensive option, they would help locate us pay moving costs, we planned on renting our uk property which would then fund renting property in Spain, so really everything was taken care of. “
I think you have hit the nail on the head as it were. To have a regular income whilst getting established is very useful especially with a family. I will be travelling to Spain alone to get a job before the family come over so we cut down on cost and stress. Depending on how determined you are to live in Spain no matter what, I would suggest you narrow down the area you want to live, then make getting a job your top priority. My wife and I arrived in Spain with no job and very little Spanish, but I had already phoned around before arriving and had interviews lined up. You can always go shopping, rent somewhere to live and so on with only a little Spanish. Fluency would be ideal of course but I am just trying to think of your possible priorities.
An international school would mean your child would be taught in English, but that isn’t going to be cheap.
Regarding somewhere to live I have no knowledge of the area you mentioned, but it covers rather a lot of square kilometres and many towns and cities. If you can give people an idea of whether you prefer cities like Valencia, Barcelona etc, or a smaller town inland or coastal, then I expect someone who has personal knowledge would be able to advise.
Don’t forget to use wikipedia for information about regions and towns, both the English and Spanish versions, as there can be very useful links to the local ayuntamiento websites etc. We found these to be both interesting and informative when we needed ideas about our future location. Despite not having a good grasp of the language I found so many similarities between English and Spanish that I could usually get the gist of the Spanish sites [Enough for our purposes anyway].