bcn?

I mean Barcelona

Well I don't think they pay well or at all for some interns. Are you planning to work part time or full time? Most arch firms are small practices. I think for a senior architect may earn about 10 euros/hour.

Thanks
I will be looking for job only after my masters.I have a bit of working experience of around 5 years.will it make difference?

I duno much but i think one should get around 3000 eu on higher side.

an extremely talented friend of mine with a b.of a in architecture moved over and was making a whopping 5 euros an hour.

5 bucks/hr sounds not far off what i have heard from friends. as to 3000 eu/month - no way! - consider yourself lucky if you get half that.
spanish architecture may be great, but the working conditions aint. do it for the experience - and consider that you will probably have to fund it out of your own pocket.

I have 4 yrs. work experience here in Barcalona and also received a masters degree here and I´m making as much as the cleaning lady...9 euro/hr....If that tells you anything about the salaries in Spain.

SICK!

(...in a bad way!)

thats realy bad (does the cleaning lady have a masters degree too)
just joking.

Then what make the architects to work there.Is it the city,food,chics & ciesta?

9 €/h for 4 year exp and with a local MArch sounds aboslutely ridiculous, people in their last years of school (ETSAB, ETSAV, LaSalle & ESARQ) here can easily make 10€/h.. making 12 to 15 €/h (2000 €/month) is not that difficult once you're graduated

maybe the cleaning lady knows more about the context in which she's working than you (the local labour market for cleaning ladies that is).. in the end her work is much more depressing than ours so she deserves a higher salary anyway..

and we don't do ciesta (and that's "siesta" -spanish-, but we're talking BCN here so that would be "migdiada" -that's catalan-)... just like not every american goes around with a cowboy hat or Jacques Herzog and Peter Zumthor don't go to the office with wood clogs for being swiss..

Medit
I know it sounds riciculous...because it is. If I´m going to stay longer here, I need to lay down the law.

Medit - you obviously haven't been to Texas. Everyone wears a 10 gallon hat down there. They also wear cowboy boots and listen to country music. Yee-haw

pmachine, there are tons of arch offices in the whole metro area.. up until now there are 10,000 licensed architects in Catalonia (at the COAC), and we're 7 million strong in this nation.. I can't recall the numbers but I heard once that we have more architects here (in Catalonia) alone than in the whole state of New York (19 million)... and that means two things: there are too many architects, and some of them (locals) will have more chances to have better salaries -or simply to find a job- than others (foreigners) if only for having a greater knowledge on the language, culture, local arch education, etc than someone who comes to work from abroad (having a MArch to work in a "normal" office will be absolutely useless unless you try some local starchitect, in fact having an "impressive" CV may even scare some employers as they will expect you to ask for a too high salary)
good news is that with so many architects around arch offices appear from nowhere, there are tons of them in BCN city and dozens and dozens in the surrounding cities, so if they're paying you shit in yours just try another one, not that difficult...

A, yes, I heard about this Texas state.. I think there's a world leader making this planet a safer place since three years ago or so that comes from there.. I bet he loves country music (not exactly country versions of NIN songs) and wears one of those hats.. ;)
its just that I hate recurrent topics.. seems like all we do in the iberian peninsula from lunchtime to 5.00 pm is sleeping and lazying around.. (though I wouldn't mind doing that!).. or those people who go to Les Rambles in BCN and buy a Mexican hat (???.. this more than a topic is a complete mystery to me.. why the heck they are selling Mexican hats in Les Rambles?)

more exactly in Nov 2005 there were 9,006 licensed architects in Catalonia (we will probably be over 10,000 by Nov 2006 I guess).. I don't know how to find how many architects there are in NY though..

I know what your saying medit. I find it rather difficult to move up as a foreigner here.

We are the ONLY profession that accepts very very very low wages like that. And then we ask ourselves why clients treath us like bitches.
You Reap What You Sow. And it has nothing to do with the amount of architects. Washington DC has to much laywers, but you'll never hear a lawyer earning as low as 5 bucks an hour. Not even 15 bucks an hour.

this is not new, john wellborn root, worked for a year as an unpaid apprentice for a year. of course, his family had money and he was only 19.

pmachine, where are you working in bcn? I work at roldan+berengue, and I make 1250 a month, minus the august vacation where they didn't pay anyone. so basically, it's a pathetic salary, and I'm almost ready to leave. i've been trying to meet more people here who are working in architecture. we should meet up sometime.

but can you manage to live [ lets say OK ] from 1250?

i mean if you are to stay an year or two and don't live an expensive way of life

well, i paid 317 a month for rent this summer, and now i pay 280 for an extremely small hole in the wall, for example.

I'll make a quick financial outline of me in spain so far, everything converted to euros so it's understandable. I arrived may 22nd or so:

expenditures:

620 - plane ticket (round trip)
350 - room deposit
1800 - computer
317 - rent june
317 - rent july
317 - rent august
280 - rent september
280 - digital camera repair (ouch)
100 - cell phone (so far, including sim card)

4381 - total

earnings:

1200 - june
1250 - july
0 - august ("vacation" in quotes)

2450 - total

notice i haven't eaten, i haven't take a single trip outside of the city, i haven't ridden the metro, i haven't been on a plane, train, car, bus, bicycle, i haven't even gone into a freaking museum ... in these calculations. and as far as i know, the other people in the office make less.

in summary, IT'S NOT WORTH IT. no amount of abroad experience can make a 1200 euro salary worth it. we get paid monthly, so any extra hours worked during the month, and oh yes... there are many, are chewed up and spit out and divided into your "hourly wage" making the whole experience even more depressing. I mean, yes i included my computer in there, and yes it was a hefty chunk of the calculation, but even without it, i'm still in the red. without eating.

without even eating.

I am bit confused now, so to make it clear, can anyone please fill in the following
Salary for 2 years US experience (after taxes):_______________
Apartment rent for an average studio:_________________
Utilities:___________________
Transportation:_____________________

And also are salaries and life expenses any better in Madrid?

: 20k - 30k gross (calculated by 2080 * 10, 2080 * 15), minus some 20-25 percent in taxes, 15-22k ), in euro. as far as i know, zero years experience and two years experience won't make too much of a difference, but it could. The biggest problem is getting the "proof of residency form" from the IRS. I suggest getting it before you come here, just go to irs.gov and find form 8802, then they'll be a lot more excited about hiring you...

I know a landscape office here that pays 10 euro per hour... that's per hour. So 50 hours a week = 500 euro. I know an office that pays 1000 a month, meaning 40 hours a week = 160 hours a month = 1000 euro = 6.25 per hour. That also means 65 hours a week = 260 hours = 1000 euro = 3.85 per hour. I know another office that pays flat 1500 a month, and another that pays 50 extra per month starting from something like 1100... If you're really good, and you have all the paperwork from the IRS done in advance, then you ought to be able to ask for 1500 a month. If you're not really good, or if it's just not obvious you are from halfway across the world, or you don't already have a connection/hookup, I would bet you'll have to start at 1000 a month and show them what you're made of once you get here.

Rent: 600 minimum (alone), 350 avg (with roommates). I have a friend at work who pays 125 euro for rent per month, total. But he lives in a bunkbed that's in a hallway to the bathroom, and has four other roommates. 125 is by far the cheapest I've ever heard of, and I have a roommate here who pays 600 for a gigantic dining room, a bedroom, a study area, and a terrace that looks over the sagrada familia and the agbar. It's a safe bet that if you want to live alone here you are going to have to shell out 600 - 700 a month if you're lucky, and that quite possibly doesn't include internet.

Utilities: pretty much included above

Transportation: a bike is 200 euro minimum and will at some point in time get stolen, metro is 65 cents a trip, unless you take it every day, then you can get a 90 day unlimited pass (includes bus etc...) for ~100 euro, walking is free, and having a car here is absolutely out of the question.

Food: not bad in the grocery, but eating out will destroy your pocketbook really quickly.

thanks David for your response. I have two questions
1. you said "if you are really good you can ask for 1500 a month", that equals 18k only (not 20-30K).
2. how much are the taxes?

Hmmm it was really late when I was writing that, I think I may have made a mistake. I guess by 20-30k, I meant you could eventually find a job for 10 euro an hour (which would be equivalent to a 20k salary in the states, since a work year is 2080 hours), or possibly up to 15 euro an hour, which would be 30k before taxes. 15 seems pretty high to me, and I have yet to meet anyone who makes that much, let alone an American who makes that much.

well, you can make 1500 a month without paying taxes at some offices, depending on how long you are staying. But if you are going to be completely legit, and especially if you want to stay here for an extended period of time, you can either get a NIE ID card from the Spanish government and pay taxes here, or you can get that 8802 IRS form before you come (you need months to communicate back and forth with the IRS... via, yes, a fax machine). If you get the 8802 form, then your salary will definitely be higher because the employer will not have to worry about not reporting you as an employee, and you won't get paid with an envelope full of cash at the end of each month like so many people do here.

2. I am not a good person to ask about how much the taxes are here, I don't really know about the Spain side, but with form 8802, you will have to send a quarterly check to the IRS estimating how much you owe in taxes, and then adjust it at the end of each fiscal year. I would guess you'll have to send about 23 - 25 percent of your income back to them. The worst thing you can do is send too little each quarter, but you can always get the excess you pay to them back at the end of the year.

I hope that's more clear. sorry about the confusion earlier.

Thank you!. seems impossible to make money unless you are sharing a place

another note about bank accounts...

I have an account here, and I can receive checks from work, and deposit cash just like normal, etc... but it is absolutely impossible to get that money back to the states for a reasonable price. a transfer online from lacaixa.es (my bank), would cost something like 25 euro plus 2 percent commission, and there is no way to make a connection to an american bank as far as I know. So basically all your money will be here just hanging out on your dinner table, or in a bank account that for me essentially amounts to an easy way to charge my cell phone.

The only other way I found to transfer money to the states was through a "banking by mail" service that my bank, wellsfargo, among many other banks, offer. You basically stuff cash in an envelope and mail it to the bank, and they charge you for the currency conversion.

My way out of this mess is to horde my money (horde is a bit of an overstatement, since it implies a large amount), and give it to my parents to take back with them in November when they come to visit.

If you know of any other way to handle the hole cross country banking issue, please let me know. I'm clueless...

damn... reading all of this is really discouraging... =/

hey I don't mean for this to be discouraging, except that one earlier post about how i couldn't afford to eat out, or eat, very much. I was just kind of depressed that day.

This is more so meant to be a realistic view of the situation someone might consider getting themselves into so they know a little bit more of what to expect. It certainly shouldn't cause you to change your mind about coming here, or cause you never to want to come either. If anything, it should make you want to come even more badly to break down all the barriers that there are here.

If you really want to blow an architecture firm away here, become an expert in web technologies, from something so simple as FTP, and for god's sake, teach your office how to use at a bare minimum: sheet sets, network storage, firefox, gmail, teach them how to resize images in photoshop, teach them what dpi means, teach them what dpi does not mean.

You have no idea how many offices here don't know how to set up an FTP server to transfer files for collaborations, magazines, etc... or even to set up a wireless network, a backup hard disk array, install RAM...

If i had known it was like this I would have put all that knowledge into a new section on my cv called "things i know that you desperately need"

and, one more thing. If you want to teach them what the US has barely gotten into yet, learn about how to run autocad on a terminal server.

I've given up on revit. Revit cannot find its way into these small firms here. I just don't see anywhere down the line where the process of learning about a technology like that could happen here. I am sure the larger firms here use it like b720, but for example, not a single employee in my office had even heard of it. It's not like it's the end-all solution to every problem architects have with autocad, but it's certainly a nice way to save time in the drawing documentation phase of a project, especially for the typical spanish building, which basically consists of intersecting cubes stretched one way or another.

does anyone know the firms that are into revit in barcelona? or maya? or rhino even?

hahahaha yeah working here (in terms of pay sucks) but somehow u keep staying here, is nice... and u found out u dont need that much money to live, i cant explain it but yes, pay is terrible, and life is good....