Moving to london as a graduate

TS7 said:
In that case I would definitely go with the one in London. If you are fortunate enough to get a job relevant to your degree from the off-set then you should definitely go for it. Just perhaps look for somewhere cheaper or do a house share with other people to save some extra money.
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Yeah, I'm pretty certain I'm going to take the London job. I have a fair amount stashed away in the bank, and the London job will offer me the best opportunities.

As for the loan repayment, I must admit to being lazy and using the figure provided by http://www.listentotaxman.com/

Going on everyone's advice here I'm going to start looking into sharing with someone afterall. Not ideal, but given that I have the ideal job, not everything can be perfect!
 
You simply won't survive living on your own in central London on £22k.

I'm possibly going to be moving into central myself next year, and have been looking at prices. I'm looking at getting a double room in a houseshare in Camden (Euston and Kings X end, for transport links) and that'll cost £450pm at the cheap end, £550 for a nice share.
 
In London, concrete jungle where dreams are made, oh There's nothing you can't do
now you're in London These streets will make you feel brand new Double-Dip will inspire you,
let's hear it for London
Remember OP if you can make it in London you can make it anywhere
Prudence :p
 
I don't know what you people need for disposable income, but I got by just fine in zone 2 for four years on a student loan (seven and a bit k) and a bit of help from the parents (few k). Can't have been much more than £10k/year.

Obvs if paying income/council tax that's more like 16k but easily liveable if you ride a bike, eat cheaply, share a house etc. Most people waste their money on pointless things I suppose.
 
iviv said:
Yes, £3k a year. Sorry, yeah, I'm not making silly amounts of money XD
The job pays £22k a year, which works out at around £16k after tax, NI, student loan repayments and council tax at around £700/year.
Then £800/month rent brings that down to £7k/year.
Utilities I'm not so sure about, but they should come to around £1k/year I think, then £1.6k for an oyster card for the year, and that leaves me with around £3k/year left over.
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That's a bit crappy, you don't have enough left over to live off.

What industry are you going in, if you don't mind?
 
Scythe said:
What industry are you going in, if you don't mind?
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I'm a Quantity Surveyor, so the construction industry.

Again, I'd like to thank everyone in the thread for their help, I've received far more responses than I was expecting and its definitely making me reconsider some of my earlier decisions regarding sharing. Though part of me is in the same thinking as joeyjojo. From my calculations shown in the post above, I'd have around £4k/year which works out at £77/week for food and just general buying things for myself. Plus if I share then I could knock a hundred or two off the rent which would lead to far more money left over, then once I start earning a little more I could move out on my own.
 
Sounds like the best/most sensible thing to do....although that's because it's the same thing that I've done essentially =]

Although my stay here has led me to discover in fact that I'd rather be up more towards the midlands/home, mostly as I'd like to be able to buy a house someday and down here there is a 0.00083.7% chance of it happen down here in the next 10 years given the contrasting prices of here vs. Leicester area.

In the grand scheme of things it's only potentially 6 months, then you can weigh up whether having little to no money is worth doing if you wanna live on your tod. No rush!
 
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Everyone does the same thing when moving to London.. Insist they don't want to share and try to make th economics work for living alone (either in theory, or practice). In the end it always turns out the same. Find a room for 400-550pcm in a shared house and enjoy it.

I hated the idea of sharing but you have to remember this isn't uni. People are professionals and have jobs to do in the morning. Being kept up all night until 5am by your housemates shouldn't be the norm.
 
dav3evans said:
Why'd you delete that? Was just about to say they aren't that expensive, been having a look for a while now =]
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Cus' it was a pretty terrible comparison on my part :p

I've been looking for houses at around the 7-750k mark (not for myself) and then compared it to houses a few family members have bought in London for around that much and there doesn't seem to be much in it. The premium market in Leicester seems to be holding up pretty well.

However for first time buyers, compared to London, Leicester is excellent!
 
Ahh cool cool =] Yeah for a first time buyer it's looking pretty good, we want to go for one of the typical terrace houses that are all over the place there, they go for as little as £65k if you find one that needs a complete refit, and with my Dad being a pro at that kinda thing it means we should be able to get exactly what we want in a first house for about £80k.

Similar property in London is 3-4 times that price! Defo can't afford that! :)
 
dav3evans said:
Sounds like the best/most sensible thing to do....although that's because it's the same thing that I've done essentially =]

Although my stay here has led me to discover in fact that I'd rather be up more towards the midlands/home, mostly as I'd like to be able to buy a house someday and down here there is a 0.00083.7% chance of it happen down here in the next 10 years given the contrasting prices of here vs. Leicester area.
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Yeah, ideally I'd rather not be in London, but I've got to go where the work is. And after doing a couple of years in London, while I won't have made too much money, I'll have 2 solid years of experience. The Rugby job I've been offered is more data entry than being a QS, but this London one has a solid graduate training program in place. And hopefully in a couple of years time I'll have the option to move to a different company that isn't based in London, or I'll at least be earning enough to move out in London to try and strike it out on my own.
As for actually owning my own house, unfortunately that isn't too likely. I have to travel to where the construction sites are, so its going to be far easier for me to rent near to whichever site I work on until that project is completed. I know many people do have a house, go out to the sites during the week and back home for the weekend, but that's a whole lot of stress.
 
iviv said:
Yeah, ideally I'd rather not be in London, but I've got to go where the work is. And after doing a couple of years in London, while I won't have made too much money, I'll have 2 solid years of experience. The Rugby job I've been offered is more data entry than being a QS, but this London one has a solid graduate training program in place. And hopefully in a couple of years time I'll have the option to move to a different company that isn't based in London, or I'll at least be earning enough to move out in London to try and strike it out on my own.
As for actually owning my own house, unfortunately that isn't too likely. I have to travel to where the construction sites are, so its going to be far easier for me to rent near to whichever site I work on until that project is completed. I know many people do have a house, go out to the sites during the week and back home for the weekend, but that's a whole lot of stress.
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Yeah I go back to Loughborough every weekend to see the gf, as she is staying with her Mom whilst training to be a teacher. Worth it to see her but becoming slightly soul destroying sitting on a coach for 3.5 hours twice a week! Though the recent Nexus 7 purchase makes it a little easier ;)

You are right though, gotta go where the work is, and I'm hoping that once I've got some experience I can move back out again. Although there isn't a lot of requirement for a colourist outside of London!
 
Stop doing calcs in terms of yearly cost.

Do a proper breakdown in terms of monthly costs, that's how you get paid, that's how you pay out for everything (bills etc).

£22k really isn't enough for London, you'll have a horrid time! London is an amazing place, it's unfortunate that you need lots of money to live well :(
 
22k a year is a joke in London, honestly. I started my grad job on 27.5 in Bristol, which was at the bottom end of the scale for the role. You need 35+ imo. Unless the future prospects are EXCEPTIONAL I'd be looking elsewhere.
 
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