My situation: I am in a position with my current job where I would like to be looking for a new job (company has bought a pre-made system to replace our main IT system, so in March my job is going to change from being a Java developer, to configuring this new system by editing xml and scripts in a proprietary language based on Java). I have been a Java developer for about 1.5 years since graduating, so I am worried about spending such a large proportion of my work experience doing such simple work and working in a proprietary language.
The problem with looking for a new job now, is that my partner is on a contract which will run out in January and his expertise is not needed much in the city we live in (though is needed in other places), so it is quite likely that we will want to move cities in less than a year (and I will be looking for a new job either way).
Given that looking for a new job, getting it and fulfilling my one month notice period will likely take several months, I could only expect to be in a new job for an absolute maximum of 9 months.
The more general question: What will look worse on a CV - a year of work that doesn't require much of the knowledge I have and want to continue to use in the future, or a better job that only lasts 9 months?
Context - I currently work for a reasonably large financial company (hence the ability to buy a software suite so that the programmers barely need to program any more). I would like to work in something more technical in the future as my background is technical/scientific, and would certainly not rule out small companies / start ups.