I love NY - been a number of times.I always secretly aspired to work there.I'm a realist and I know the legal hurdles one has to overcome to make the move.Having now joined a Big 4, I'm again wondering about the possibilities of short stints in NY with work.I wanted to ask Big 4 guys if they have experienced this or think this is a remote possibility.Cheers

You could be just like somebody off of "Friends" and go jogging in the park and socialise in wine bars talking about business with top city merchants! And live in a little apartment and get taxis and buy clothes from The Gap and buy a Starbucks coffee every morning as you get up really early to go to work!But really, at the Big Bad 4 there's no such glamour. Take the guy that wants to live in Brum but get paid London rates and expenses, for instance. Basically they're so big they don't need to fly people from all over the world, they have regional offices for regional staffing. The only reason MBB and the like do it is to maintain an "allure" or "international mystery" and so that they can pretend johnny foreigner is a genius but just doesn't speak the language very well when in fact he's just a regular bum like the home team guys.

100% agree with everything Bushy has said here. Also with the imminent US elections to be honest it looks like an already quite introspective country will become even more protectionist in the labour market, so I guess anticipate it will become increasingly difficult to get staffed into US projects from outside.

Thanks guys - I knew the reality, just wanted to ask if there were any exceptions.

There are exceptions, I've recently had 8 London based colleagues work out in our NY office for 8 months, but that was to bring the US up to speed on a project that started in the UK and had sell-on to the US side of the company. But that is just one anecdotal exception, I'd be inclined to agree with Bushy and Mars on this one

From the computer:[b]NEW YORK SUCKS!!! Help! Is moving a reality for me?[/b]Keep in mind it is only March and I have made LOW 6 figures. I currently live in NY and have about $100,000 saved up. I don't necessarily have any employment opportunities anywhere else but I am tired of the hustle and bustle of this city where one lives to work. I don't have a college degree I speak 2 languages and would ideally like to move to a place like Puerto Rico or Panama City Panama. I love the weather, their way of life, their outlook on life and people. I want my wife and child to learn Spanish. My entire family outside of my grandmother and mom live in Puerto Rico. I hate it in NY and I know if I don't leave now by the end of the year the $100k will be gone. I spend $48k a year on rent which is obscene and that is not including any utilities BUT that is life in NY. We live on our vacations and simply past the time working and miserable when we are not. Both my wife and I work 10-11 hour day none of us are happy. In NY Everyone is in constant competition with each other even children. Form grades, to looks, to where they go on vacation, to where they go to school to what sport they play to how good they are at the sport, to how much money their parents have.They go from schools to afterschool programs to sports and tutoring. All of which costs thousands of dollars and your choice is make the sacrifice or be forced to have them feel austricized by there peers. Oh and EVERYONE is striving to be on Wall Street. My son is 10 and had to write a paper on what he knew most about, his friend wrote Politics Effect on Wall Street and the Economy. I kid you not. I seriously wish I were lying. I want my son to walk around with his friends play stick ball kick a soccer ball and strive for the best but not feel bad about himself if he fails. Do I have enough to leave this nightmare or is it unrealistic to think that $100k will last me long enough to find a decent job in one of these places?

The last post from BEP sounds only realistic to me. After having left London, happily, I feel like any big US city, NYC in particular, is just a London to the power of two when it comes to daylight-robbery rent, bad infrastructures, insane working hours and cutthroat competition for about anything.Not to mention the annoying accent and the atrocious spelling/grammar, as the post clearly exemplifies.And yes, Big4 transfers are possible downstream (e.g. people from mainland Europe working in London as graduates and then moving back to their native country) but not upstream: you can't move to the UK from mainland Europe and you can't move to North America from the UK.