Younger expats see a larger salary increase on relocation

If you’re looking to an expatriate-focused professional career, better get started when you’re younger than 35.

One lesser-known fact of expat life is that the sooner it’s started the more can be initially earned and the more successful it can become. Taking the average expat assignment results in a pay increase of around 35 per cent more for the same job in the home country, with younger expats seeing increases from around $40,358 to a new rate of $54,484. Of course, expats older than 35 years also earn more then at home, but less so than their younger counterparts, with increases of up to 24 per cent seen as the norm. However, those at 55 years old and older only increase their earning potential by around nine per cent.

For younger would-be expats, surveys suggest the best places for the largest salary increases are Turkey and Indonesia, neither of which are exactly expat favourites to date, but India, China, the USA and Singapore are almost as good, far better known and generally safer. Head of HSBC’s expat division John Goddard believes expats are now looking at more than just money when deciding on a new destination, with environment, work/life balance and safety and security now high on the must-have list.

Germany tops the rest of the world in the latest HSBC survey as a career incubator, both for its job security and its working culture, with runners up including the UK, the UAE, the Scandinavian bloc and Singapore. Lower down the list at 19th position is all-time favourite Hong Kong, presently the scene of violent protests, with Russia and China lurking at 11th and 12th place respectively. The one problem for expats who rely on surveys for a life-changing decision is that, by the time the results are published, instability of one kind or another may have rendered the chosen destination less than relevant.