Not every international school offers a pension. And even if yours does, it may not be enough to fund the future you want.
A few years into my international career, I started thinking about what I was building financially alongside my career. I knew I didn’t want to reach the end of it with a great CV but not enough financial security for the future.
So I started exploring different ways to build long-term financial security while continuing to live and work overseas.
I chose one of the options below, and it helped me build assets alongside my career, create an additional income stream and eventually give me more freedom over how I spent my time.
I’ll come back to that one in option 3.
But there are several ways international educators can start building their own retirement plan, whether you’re just starting your career overseas or you’ve already spent 10 or 15 years abroad.
1. Build your own investment portfolio
One way to take more control of your long-term finances is to invest regularly yourself.
Depending on your circumstances, this could include investments such as funds, ETFs or other financial market investments.
The advantage of investing regularly over a long period is that you can build your portfolio gradually rather than needing a large amount of money upfront.
However, one of the challenges is that you are responsible for managing it yourself. Markets change, your circumstances change and your portfolio may need reviewing over time. Building a long-term investment strategy can require you to stay active, informed and on top of your investments rather than simply putting money away and forgetting about it.
The important thing is to understand what you’re investing in, the level of risk involved and how accessible your money needs to be.
2. Look at pension options from your home country
If you’ve previously worked in the UK or another country with a pension system, you may already have retirement savings sitting somewhere.
Don’t forget about them just because you’ve moved overseas.
It can be worth finding out:
- How much you already have
- Where your pension is held
- What fees you’re paying
- Whether you can continue contributing
- What your options are if you have multiple pensions
You may have more retirement savings than you realise, simply spread across different countries and employers.
3. Consider property as a long-term asset
This is the option I chose.
I built my own UK property portfolio while teaching in Shanghai, The Bahamas and Bangkok.
For some of the opportunities available today, you can start from around ÂŁ800 a month, with payments spread over time while a property is being constructed.
That can make property investment more accessible than many international educators might expect.
My own properties are professionally managed, so I’ve never needed to visit them. I don’t deal with tenants, maintenance or the day-to-day management myself.
That was particularly important to me as an international educator. I didn’t want an investment that required me to be physically present when my career and family life were taking me around the world.
Of course, property isn’t right for everyone. There are costs, financing considerations, tax implications, market risks and management fees to consider.
But my experience showed me that investing in property while living overseas didn’t have to mean finding a property, dealing with agents and trying to work everything out from the other side of the world myself.
Through Thirlmere Deacon, I now help other international educators explore their options. The team can guide clients through the process from start to finish, so they aren’t trying to navigate it alone from overseas.
For me, the ability to build assets while living overseas was a big part of why this approach worked.
And ultimately, those investments helped give me the flexibility to step away from full-time school life, travel and spend more time with my young family.
Here’s a real-life example:
In 2018, a teacher reserved a Birmingham apartment with a pre-launch discount for ÂŁ200,000.
They paid the 30% deposit of ÂŁ1,250 a month across a four-year build, and it was completed in 2022 with a ÂŁ140,000 mortgage, and a tenant moved in.
They kept putting the same ÂŁ1,250 aside each month. In 2024, the apartment was valued at ÂŁ270,000, when they remortgaged the property and released ÂŁ62,500. That, plus two years of continued saving, funded the down payment of a second property at ÂŁ270,000.
Today they have two properties worth ÂŁ540,000, ÂŁ135,000 of equity, and around ÂŁ1,066 a month in rental income after costs.
They are now using this net income towards property number 3…
Past performance is not an indicator of future performance. Prices and rentals can go down as well as up.
4. Create your own retirement savings pot
Another option I explored was building a dedicated savings pot alongside my investments.
For international educators who don’t have access to a traditional pension, an international savings plan can be one way to create your own long-term retirement pot. Options start from around 300 a month and can be portable between international postings, with plans available in currencies such as sterling, dollars or euros.
For me, having something that could move with me as I moved between countries was particularly relevant to life as an international educator.
It meant I could continue building towards my longer-term financial goals without having to completely rethink everything every time I changed country or school.
5. Make a plan that can move with you
This is particularly important if you’re an international educator.
Over my 10 years overseas, my country, currency and employer changed more than once. So I found it useful to keep an eye on where my savings and investments were held and how they fitted into my longer-term plans.
Before each move, I would think about:
Where are my savings?
Where are my investments?
What pensions do I have?
What currency am I earning and saving in?
What happens to my finances if I move again?
I didn’t want every new posting to mean starting from scratch financially.
Your school doesn’t have to provide the whole plan
A career in international education can give you an incredible lifestyle.
But if your school doesn’t provide a pension, that doesn’t mean your retirement planning has to wait.
My own experience of building investments alongside my international education career has shown me that there are different ways to build towards your financial future.
There isn’t one retirement plan that works for every international educator.
Want to talk it through?
If you’d like to talk through your own situation or simply hear more about what I’ve done, I’d be very happy to chat and share my experience.
After going through this myself, I now help other international educators explore the different ways they can build towards their financial future, whether that’s through property, savings or other investments.
Melanie Johnson
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Your school may not provide your retirement plan. But that doesn’t mean you can’t build one. The sooner you start, the more choices you give yourself later.
