Thinking about working abroad?
Here’s how to weigh up where
Working abroad is possible for far more people than realise it, and there are a lot more places worth looking at than the handful of cities everyone names. Ten cities, ten starting points. Click around and see which ones you keep coming back to.
Headstart
The feature
Opportunity isn’t spread evenly. Different cities are growing in different industries, hire graduates in different ways, and feel completely different to work in.
A place that suits one person can be the wrong fit for someone standing right next to them. So the question worth asking isn’t which city is best. It’s which one fits what you want.
If you’re after big institutions, structured graduate schemes and name recognition, look at London and New York. If you’d rather be somewhere fast, young and scaling, start with Berlin, Lisbon and Ho Chi Minh City. If you want to work alongside people from everywhere, where almost everyone in the office moved there too, look at Dubai and Singapore. If you’re drawn to engineering and technical depth, try Tokyo. If design, brand and manufacturing are your thing, Milan. And if you want a serious career without a punishing cost of living, Toronto, Berlin and Lisbon are where to start.
This isn’t a ranking or a list of the “best” places to work. They’re ten starting points.
The cities
Ten cities, one at a time
For each one: what it’s known for, what’s growing there, where graduates actually start, what the working culture is like, what daily life costs and feels like, and what routes exist for international graduates. Click a city on the map, or one of the tiles below it, and its profile pops up.
Visa and immigration rules change often, and what’s open to you depends on your nationality and where you studied. Everything here is a starting point. Always check the official government source before you plan around it.
How to decide
Before you fall for a skyline
Start from what you want out of the job, not the place
A city that suits someone chasing a specific industry is often the wrong one for someone chasing pace and responsibility.
Work out the two or three things you won’t compromise on
Pay, working culture, cost of living, climate, distance from home, language. Most people can only hold two or three of these firm, and knowing which yours are narrows the list fast.
Look at where an industry is concentrated, not just where it exists
Density matters early in a career, because your next job usually comes from the same city as your last one.
Check what’s open to you early, not last
Visa routes vary a lot depending on where you studied and what passport you hold, and they can decide the question for you. Look before you get attached.
Compare salary against cost of living, not on its own
A bigger number in an expensive city can leave you with less at the end of the month.
Take working culture seriously
It’s the thing people underestimate most and the hardest to research from the outside. How long the days really are, how direct feedback is, whether anyone actually leaves at six.
You’re not choosing forever
A first move abroad is a starting point. Plenty of people use one city to get to another.
Beyond the profiles
What a profile can’t tell you
Everything above tells you what a city looks like from the outside. It doesn’t tell you what a Tuesday feels like, whether people really do leave at six, or how long it takes to stop feeling new.
That comes from people who already live there. Alumni groups, employer communities, and networks built around a particular city or country. The Singapore Global Network is one of them: a global community of professionals and students connected to Singapore, and the quickest way to hear what working there is actually like. Find two or three people in the city you’re curious about, and ask them what this page can’t answer.
Our partners at Singapore Global Network
Singapore Global Network connects Singaporeans and friends of Singapore across the world, through communities organised by city, sector and interest: exactly the kind of community this guide is about.
So, where next?
Rather than asking which of these cities is best, ask which one fits what you’re after. The only way to find out is to look properly at a few.