Cities in Oceania
12. Sydney, Australia
Overall, Sydney (12th) performs well in the Expat City Ranking 2020, particularly in the Getting Settled Index (12th). More than four in five expats (81%) say it is easy to get used to the local culture (vs. 61% globally), and 75% feel at home in Sydney (vs. 64% globally). A US American expat shares: “The people have positive attitudes and are usually in good spirits!” Luckily, expats seem to have enough time to spend with their friends, since Sydney also performs well in the Urban Work Life Index (14th): close to four in five expats (79%) are satisfied with their work-life balance (vs. 64% globally). “I like the work-life balance! And I enjoy working to live, not living to work,” shares a US expat. But it is not just the work-life balance — 71% of expats are also happy with the local career opportunities (vs. 43% globally).
Moreover, 88% of survey respondents rate the local leisure options positively (vs. 71% globally), putting the city on rank 10 in the Leisure & Climate subcategory. In the Quality of Urban Living Index (26th), this is Sydney’s best result. On the downside, all of this comes at a price: Sydney does not perform well in both the Local Cost of Living Index (56th) and the Finance & Housing Index (44th). In fact, 70% of expats rate Sydney’s cost of living negatively (vs. 36% globally), and an expat from Canada says that “the housing in Sydney is old, but the cost of living is very high”. This statement does not come as a surprise, with more than four-fifths of survey respondents (82%) saying that housing in Sydney in not affordable (vs. 41% globally).
22. Auckland, New Zealand
Auckland ranks 22nd out of 66 cities in the Expat City Ranking 2020, ending up in both the top 10 and the bottom 10 cities worldwide, depending on the topic. It performs best in the Getting Settled Index (8th): most expats are happy with the friendliness of the locals, both in general (81% vs. 68% globally) and towards foreign residents in particular (78% vs. 66% globally). Additionally, Auckland comes twelfth in the Feeling Welcome subcategory, with 78% of expats finding it easy to get used to the local culture (vs. 61% globally). An expat from France says that “people are open-minded and easy-going”. The city also performs well in the Urban Work Life Index (11th): expats are not only really happy with their work-life balance (79% vs. 64% globally), but also with the local career opportunities (62% vs. 43% globally) and their job security (63% vs. 59% globally).
However, all of these benefits seem to come at a high price: Auckland does very poorly in the Finance & Housing (57th) and the Local Cost of Living (60th) Indices. More than one in four survey respondents (26%) are dissatisfied with their financial situation (vs. 21% globally), and 69% rate the local cost of living negatively (vs. 36% globally). Moreover, the city also ranks 52nd in the Housing subcategory, with 74% of expats saying that housing is unaffordable (vs. 41% globally). A Venezuelan expat says that the “housing prices and living costs are very expensive”.
