{"id":679756,"date":"2026-07-08T04:39:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T04:39:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/679756\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T04:39:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T04:39:39","slug":"british-couple-who-returned-to-uk-after-australia-dream-failed-reveal-key-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/679756\/","title":{"rendered":"British couple who returned to UK after Australia dream failed reveal key mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A British couple who moved to Perth to chase the Australia dream admitted it was the \u201cwrong choice\u201d and the complete opposite of what they\u2019d hoped for. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s around 970,000 Brits living in Australia according to the ABS, with the United Kingdom listed in the top five countries of birth for people migrating to and from Australia.<\/p>\n

Damien and Victoria Byron were among those, who left their life in Manchester behind and set out to establish roots in Australia.<\/p>\n

Victoria, 35 and her husband Damien, 40 made the move with their two children Fabiom 16, and Aluna-Anayh, 12 in 2022.<\/p>\n

The couple assumed it would be easy for Mr Byron to get work as a plumber, as he moved on a Temporary Skill Shortage Visa.<\/p>\n

The couple told Nine that in retrospect it was the \u201cwrong choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, we thought we\u2019d just figure it out,\u201d Mr Byron said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we got here, it was a lot harder than we thought to actually find work.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got plenty of job offers, but it was as an apprentice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Victoria and Damien Byron moved to Australia from Manchester.<\/p>\n

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He was also required to pay for a 12-month course to recognise his trade qualifications in Australia, after which he would be paid a minimum apprentice wage.<\/p>\n

He managed to find a role as a project manager instead, which meant he was working seven days a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t aware that was going to be the case, it was really tough when we first got here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a lot harder than what we\u2019d actually imagined it to be. We were just bleeding money,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The couple were having to eat into their savings just to survive, whereas Ms Byron found herself missing life back in Manchester.<\/p>\n

The family stayed in Perth for seven months, before making the difficult decision to move back home.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

The Byron\u2019s felt like they\u2019d made a huge mistake when they first moved to Australia.<\/p>\n

MORE:27yo quits Aus for \u2018safest country\u2019 then flees<\/a><\/p>\n

It made the family feel like they had \u201cfailed,\u201d despite that the family moved their things back to Manchester and easily slipped back into their old life.<\/p>\n

But once again \u2013 it wasn\u2019t what they had hoped for.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I landed, it was like \u2026 \u2018Oh God, this is the same feeling of why I wanted to leave\u2019,\u201d Victoria recalled. \u201cIt was like time had stood still. Everything was still the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Byrons were comfortable back in Manchester, but they knew they had unfinished business in Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe realised that in going to Australia the first time, the way we did, we\u2019d made a lot of mistakes,\u201d Mr Byron said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew what we had to correct and do right if we wanted to come back in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

A long family discussion and a pros-and-con list sealed their fate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were about 30 things on the pro column and maybe four on the con.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a year back on British soil, they decided to give Australia one last crack.<\/p>\n

Mr Byron made the trip over first, working on the mines in Perth for several months to build up savings.<\/p>\n

Ms Byron and the children followed and the family reunited in Sydney for an east coast road trip so they could figure out where they wanted to land this time around.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fell in love with the Gold Coast pretty much instantly, once we got there, we realised, this is the place, it has the best balance of everything for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut again it was a case of doing it correctly, doing it the right way, getting the opportunity before we go.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

The family eventually landed in The Gold Coast after an East Coast trip.<\/p>\n

The Byrons headed back to Perth for another 12 months before Damien secured his dream role on the Gold Coast.<\/p>\n

A year on, the family can definitively say that moving to Australia for the second time was the right move.<\/p>\n

They now have permanent residency and have the freedom to move back and-forth whenever they please, yet they don\u2019t see themselves returning to the UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe absolutely love it, and I\u2019ve got no plans to move anywhere else, but when we moved the very first time to Perth, when we said, \u2018This is it forever\u2019, I think it added a lot of pressure,\u201d Ms Byron said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a holiday, we\u2019re still figuring everything out. We\u2019re still always learning.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A British couple who moved to Perth to chase the Australia dream admitted it was the \u201cwrong choice\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-679756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}