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WLB is stellar and something very rare to see anywhere else in the world. There's just a culture for free/personal time here, and that's sacred. When you're off you're off. No "if you don't voluntarily put extra hours in this you don't believe in our case and you're out" US bullshit. Work environment/hours are super chill, especially if you're specialized in some niche where few around you really understand what you do. Consultancy of course comes with the caveat that, well, they get hired to do the stuff clients don't want to (and be accountable for potential failures), so... somebody at the end of the day must do the heavy lifting?
Pay is fine, of course forget London/Zurich/US TC. If you're highly specialized, you can fairly easily get to ~1M NOK TC (1.5M as a consultant), which is enough to make a pretty decent living. More than that is for Director+ level only and essentially gatekept for fluent Norwegian speakers, even more so those without some atrocious foreign accent (appearance often makes the difference). There's not very much a culture (yet) for having leaders with specialized/tech expertise, but rather leaders are just generic "experts in management/politics". It's not just pay, you'll also find career progression super slow, but WLB/pay and even society as a whole is structured in a way that you don't really need it because your life will have so much space for many other pleasant things. If you want it, e.g., for personal fulfillment, you may face severe challenges unless you're planning to stay here for the long term and climb above the middle of the ladder: learn the language, get citizenship, integrate fully, play the politics game, etc.
Team composition is highly dependent on where you land. There are very few international companies here, so if you don't speak the language chances are you'll land in back-end non-client facing roles. This is where you're more likely to find international teams and a dynamic/fun environment. Full Norwegian teams, especially if they are family people and not youngsters/startuppies, are extremely relaxed. You'll likely get this feeling of a pre-retirement work pace, which may be appealing for some.
Hi! I have worked as a consultant both in London and Oslo. Didn't find it to be too different tbh. WLB depends more on your team than the company culture, but in general I found London to have more single, child free people in senior positions, increasing the chances of having to work with someone who does not see the problem with long hours. Norway is more geared towards families, so expect people to fully understand if you have to drop at 4pm every day (and log back on in the evening), but not so much if you take 2 weeks off outside the school holidays! On two manager salaries you will be fine to buy a nice flat, but be aware that salaries start tapering off vs London at manager/senior manager level. A larger than expected difference for me is the climate during winter, it will be cold and dark most of the time from november to march. It's a lot less tempting to go for a run in -7c on icy roads than in +7c along the Thames! In terms of language you should be fine with English at work, but a lot of people don't like speaking English more than they have to and will switch to Norwegian in social settings if they are not speaking directly to you. In general people are slightly less polite than you might be used to.
With regards to Winter and dark, there's just one cure: take up skiing and get out in the snow. If you can't fight it, embrace it 😸
You can actually just take the subway to do downhill skiing after work and the cross country skiing here is world class. No car needed too
Bowl Leader
I followed your last comment in the other post. In your specific case I’d recommend on reach out to the team you would be working with in EY Norway on LinkedIn. There you get a better sense of what to expect. :)
You can try asking here ;) now we have quite a few members, it’s easier to share experiences when it’s anonymous