London is awesome. sure its expensive, impossible to park, full of muggers, void of skyline, cold, unfriendly, lonely, loud, smelly, 2 rubbish football teams...........

wait a minute that's Glasgow.

seriously, London is awesome, if you can find a place just outside the m25, you can take or leave London as much as you want.

p.s. chill, I'm from Glasgow.

Mate,

I'm an expat aussie in sorta the same boat as you (ex MIL/DKS [if you know what that means!], Chubb etc.), from Sydney and have been working over here for approximately 8 months. Work here is easy to find, the average service tech being on more than what was paid in Oz (>AUD$50k). You can try coming over here on a Working Holiday Visa, which gives you 12 months of work with 2 years of travel, in which you couldve probably find a job and the same company to sponsor you after that.

As for awesome CCTV systems... Well, a lot of DVR based systems, havent seen that much in the way of matrix-based (nothing beats a good ole Pacom 2030 or MaxPro system!!), definately a huge amount of systems... Havent seen much in the way of intergration like what we have back home, maybe thats just due to the company I work for (definately not a tech-based company)... I do think though the access control is not as good, probably due to Aus being more self-reliant (ie, Honeywell Enteprise, Asco (Siemens), Tecom, Concept, and of course MIL & DKS)...

Give it a go mate, reckon you won't be dissapointed!!

Sounds like you actually know your stuff. most techs would have no idea what you were tallking about. Thanks alot for the feedback it has cleared up alot for me.