It depends on you.

Many laowai come and live in poverty as you say and your salary will suck compared to whhat you earn now.  This often a choice they have made. They live in smaller cities or work insanely low hours. 

Others work 5 days a week and work 8 hours a day and make quite good money.  

If you want to come close to your salary, then you will need to do that and only work in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen or Guangzhou.  Probably a training center or perhaps an international school.   Training centers are an easy job to get, you can just go to a city center walk up and pretty much get hired.  

With that salary, youll be either able to save more than you do now or youll live well but still be poor every month.  Depends on if you choose a luxury apartment in the city center  and go to expensive restaurants and pubs every day.

Most will choose to work and enjoy the center, but live a little ways away. Find a balance between cheap food and expensive food. And youll be living wonderfully.  

Have fun!

By the way,  many many people swear never to go near training centers, but judging from your post, age and love of money, im pretty sure youll thrive. 

You'll probably have problems in China with your 'environmental health' diploma. There is no such a thing as 'health' anywhere in China.

Look occasionally at this web link:

http://aqicn.org/?map

Teaching English is a sure shot for a job, it can give you a safe income while looking for something else. Don't ever try to get a job with a agent, find if by yourself. Come on the right visa, the Z visa. Mike's advices are very sensible.

Cost of living is low, as are taxes and travel expenses. Your life will definitely change, and more expats report social isolation, though some seem to thrive in expat communities or immersing with local culture. Personally, I found locals to be very petty, ethnocentric/passive racist, and difficult to have a normal conversation with, even if the can speak English. It may be cultural differences, but it really seems like locals aren't very interesting at all.
If you're going to date pretty girls here, you may enjoy it so much that you don't even notice the intellectual void. You'll be more popular with the ladies than you ever were back home, simply due to how rare foreigners are here,and how rude and lame local men are.
Practically speaking, Chinese hospitals are a disaster. Good health care is lacking, as are bedside manner and customer service. You'll pay a high price for western food, though some of the Chinese fare is affordable and tasty. But ordering is difficult when you can't read anything.
You will be able to save a lot more of your salary than you could back home. After expenses, this might even bring your savings over your 2.5k job at home. But there are risks. You won't be paying for any pension plan. Health care might or might not be payed by the employer. Chinese bosses are accustomed to bullying people, and will try the same with you. Chinese are quite xenophobic, and have no qualms about discriminating against laowai in business.

In my experience, if you have little cash, costs and bureaucratic resistance are high. When you have a lot of cash, expats report how easy it is to transfer funds and do business.

If you ever have kids, get them out of China ASAP if you can. Education is disastrous for their formative years.

I made the move and regretted it, now i'm stuck here. but there are others who are quite happy here. I can't decide for you, but I suggest trying it out for a year (contract) and see how it suits you. And be sure not to burn your bridges!!!

Go work in big cities in China,better the international one has lots of expats.Then you can enjoy something Chinese and western.Because you might feel miss home and lonely after been here for a while.Might miss hometown food,so live in international city in China and try local and western food.Western food is usually more expensive than Chinese food,if you keep live in between you will save lots than you may can back to home.If you have teaching certificate and get degree,I know in Shanghai you could probally get paid around $2k-$2.5k.But I do not sure about the insurance,but I guess you may get insurance if u r working for an international school here.I personally do not recommend you to work in train centres,public international school is better choice,you will get more holidays off and get good salary.My ex is an America,So I know those teaching salaries here.Another American school was interested in him and told could pay him $2K.

Go work in big cities in China,better the international one has lots of expats.Then you can enjoy something Chinese and western.Because you might feel miss home and lonely after been here for a while.Might miss hometown food,so live in international city in China and try local and western food.Western food is usually more expensive than Chinese food,if you keep live in between you will save lots than you may can back to home.If you have teaching certificate and get degree,I know in Shanghai you could probally get paid around $2k-$2.5k.But I do not sure about the insurance,but I guess you may get insurance if u r working for an international school here.I personally do not recommend you to work in train centres,public international school is better choice,you will get more holidays off and get good salary.My ex is an America,So I know those teaching salaries here.Another American school was interested in him and told could pay him $2K.

i work in china because of age discrimination in developed countries, with teacher certification , saudi, japan, korea all pay better, dont come here until your have to.

Mike and Coineineagh have a good answers above, and i'll just add a few other things.

Public schools are more reliable to work for but lower paid than training schools, but even then it is possible to save money.

You can live cheaply if you want, or blow it all if you are a party animal who eats only foreign or 'western' food - i would not recommend that as it tastes terrible and is over priced.

You can feel isolated at times, so being happy in your own company and well stocked on down-loads it essential.

prepare for internet restrictions - they are getting worse, even with a VPN.

Even in more international cities you will be under scrutiny the whole time from locals.

You would have to be prepared for being BS'ed most of the time.

Make sure EVERYTHING is spelled out clearly and to your satisfaction before you sign anything - keep asking questions.

China is a great place to work in - for a limited amount of time - and a great experience.

but be sure you want to go and make sure you are well prepared

Thanks everyone for the advice guys 

i am prepared to work hard and long hours in china for a round the same money i am on here even if its a bit less than the money but am not prepared to work long hours for low pay. The cost of living in the western is getting so bad now its hard to afford a good standard of living your really need a good job of maybe $60000 plus a year for a house and kids much when i was in china everything was relatively cheap and i enjoyed my last trip to china for a holiday. Maybe i could try a short term contact to see what its like of about a year. but what about holiday is the minim 5 days that chinese workers get which is desperate 

I think the question you gotta ask yourself is whether you'd be bored in ANY job or whether it's just a bad fit with you and your current position. You can come here and it'll be an interesting experience for a while living in a foreign country, but that'll get old and so if you still hate the job you'll be miserable.

You don't have to live in poverty here if you're willing to work. You can make close to $40K a year pretty easy and that can go decently far here as long as you're not expecting to be really flashy. If you can live with a 30 min commute to downtown you can live in a perfectly good new complex for something very reasonable.

On the other hand...if you have higher aspirations than $40K or I guess maybe $50K at the absolute high end you might want to look at what you're doing now and ask whether there might be an opportunity for advancement in the future even if you don't like it now. If you don't like teaching, you'll fucking hate forever it no matter what they pay you. There's no executive level pot of gold at the end of the ESL rainbow to keep you motivated.

Some people DO manage to come here as teachers and move into something more lucrative/interesting. On this thread Dr. Monkey is a scientific advisor, MikeCA i believe is a manufacturing rep or some kind of white collar factory position and I'm a financial analyst. But don't let that fool you into thinking that's common, it's really really rare and I got extremely lucky (i'll give those other guys the benefit of the doubt they were genuinely talented). Just a coincidence that 50% of this thread is the tiny minority who pulled it off. I wouldn't recommend to anybody that in 2014 it's a great career move to head to china to teach expecting to transition into a business role.

China does suck a little bit in terms of environment. I went to ireland with my dad 5 times growing up and I have to say that ireland is possibly the greatest place on earth. I LOVE ireland. Chinese people would KILL to get to live in a place so pleasant, so for what it's worth that should tell you something about China.

Bring lots of shoes and check out squat toilets

If you have a degree in environmental health then China definitely needs you.

Yeah i would love to have the chance to apply my knowledge and skills in china in my field. It may not be long term thing or may not work or even possibly without knowing the right people but it would definitely be be very good for C.V. In terms of working in the west in my position if i wanted progress it would probably take a long time and would not be graduated in the company. I feel even at on a short term level i could try china and give it go if it were not to work i could always walk away having had the experience and gaining in life from in it.   

You probably won't be able to show up and work in your field - the people I know doing this were either transferred here or had a long history of Chinese academic study which make them valuable enough to bring. So assuming you don't want to teach (funny how everyone just assumed you were wanting to do that), can you see if there are ways you can "lateral" over to China from somewhere based in UK?

As in an internship, or something like this? Seems like 10 years ago you could probably easily do this, but now there are boatloads of locals coming back (however unwillingly) from overseas study who can do the same but already know how to navigate the country, its language and culture etc.

My advice: don't listen to the naysayers, but play it smart and make sure you're building bridges rather than burning them.

Hi everyone thanks for the advice so far

how would i go about getting a work visa in china would apply for one outside of the china or turn up on a tourist visa and get one. I am not too sure how i would go about if i were to come to China. 

I do know that there is so many graduates in china that are unemployed or underemployed that it would be tough completing with them for similar type jobs. 

Hi everyone thanks for the advice so far

how would i go about getting a work visa in china would apply for one outside of the china or turn up on a tourist visa and get one. I am not too sure how i would go about if i were to come to China. 

I do know that there is so many graduates in china that are unemployed or underemployed that it would be tough completing with them for similar type jobs. 

if you have decided to work in China, your best bet is as an English teacher.

don't go as a tourist and hope you will find a job there - you will have to leave the country to get the correct visa

There are many websites with jobs advertised:

for example:

http://www.esljobfeed.com/

be sure not to accept a job that does not offer a 'Z' visa

Don't believe anyone who tells you different.

do your research carefully - there are many questions in this section you can look up

only accept an offer that sends you the official documents so you can apply for the visa in Ireland.

Ask ALL questions about work hours, accommodation etc

ask for clarification on any fuzzy replies.

PM me if you need more information.

Apart from all that's been said, you need to know your level of tolerance for a lot of nasty habits locals have here. This is all over China, doesn't matter which city. You get people spitting, smoking in restaurants, peeing on pavements, shitting on the sidewalk, old aunties doing line dancing in almost any given open area with loudspeakers, the list goes on and on. If you've never been to this part of the world before then be prepared for the culture shock of your life. Now, before you go say I'm scaring you, ask those who've are here. If you are in a big city, you'll have to deal with jam packed metros - makes the London tube seem a luxury to travel on. The rush of humanity here is something not known in many cities I've been to.

However, if you do go to a smaller city, life is much slower. Cleaner air, nicer people, even cars give way to you sometimes. In bigger cities, all cars want to kill you. 

Anyway, give it a shot. What have you got to lose anyway? If nothing, you still can get something for the experience and go back with something to show for it. 

Listen to Sorrel, she's right about what you need to look out for. 

Meh, go for it. 

You should be able to last at least 6 months and then you can decide what you are going to do further from there.