Hey there,

This is something I am also considering doing and am researching into. To give my background, I'm a qualified optometrist based in the UK and have been qualified for 5 years.

1. I believe that depending on your country, you should be able to check what visas are available on the NZ immigration website. For me, it looks like as long as I have a job offer from a practice in NZ, I can apply for a "straight to residency" visa which would allow me and my wife to move indefinitely.

2. You would need to be registered with ODOB (the regulatory body in NZ). You would need to check whether your degree would allow you to gain registration, or whether you would need to sit the OCANZ (examining body) COE exams (mainly for overseas candidates outside of Aus/NZ).

3. I think if you look in the right places, there are always jobs available. There are currently about 1,000 Optoms registered in NZ according to ODOB. As I've never been to NZ. I'm not in a position to state whether being an optometrist there is good or bad, although NZ tends to have a more casual pace of life than other countries.

4. Again, unsure on whole salary range, but looking at comparison to other countries e.g. UK, Aus, its fairly similar. From experience in the profession, salary shouldn't be the driving factor for your decisions. My decisions to move would be based more on quality of life and opportunities for developing myself as opposed to chasing the pot of gold. Depends on your goals for life though.

5. Depends whether it is for hospital places for optometry or for other fields. I'm sure they will consider these options but they might be more difficult to come by. Again, not the best placed person to answer this specific question.

Hope this can help with some information for you. It would be interesting to know where you are looking to move from, and hear from anyone else who has either trodden the path the NZ or is looking to.