EU: Should the UK Leave or Stay?

[Regina]

I hope we stay in just long enough for me to freely move to Europe with the EU open-borders (and never look back)

After that, do what you want Brits.

I can definitely recommend it. You either find somewhere better to live or you appreciate what was good about the place you left. In practise it's a mixture of the two. I moved to Germany for three years and I didn't intend coming back. I moved back to Scotland a 1 1/2 year contract but I intend to move back to Germany. But I'm also now prepared to move anywhere in Europe.

The younger generation are utterly screwed in the UK. Not that I count myself as that any more at the age of 41 but I was late and missed jumping on the goodies wagon before the ladder was pulled up.

The problem is always learning the language well enough that you can get yourself some stability. I was working in an English speaking work environment which meant that I had little exposure to the language and few chances to practice. It takes a long time to properly learn a language. It also means that I had to look for work in other English speaking work environments which meant that even though there was a shortage of software engineers in Germany, I was competing with a massive amount of other software engineers who couldn't speak German.

Another problem I found that with engineering at least, Germany is quite a sexist culture compared to the UK and this also affected my ability to find work.

I can say with some confidence that I probably won't be coming back, permanently anyway. If for any reason I do come back, I'll be sure to settle in or around London, since that's just about the only place in The UK I'd actually enjoy living in. Might sound crazy for a millennial to say this, but it's not even so much about the money or the opportunties for me. I just don't feel at home in The UK and want to explore places that are more my aesthetic, climate, culture, the lot.

I don't feel that language would be much of a barrier for me personally, since I'm enthusiastic enough about learning languages that I'd really go to every effort to get fluent as fast as I can.