Moving north as a long term plan (cost of living related)

psd99 said:
It is definitely cheaper up north, but there is something vibrant, exciting and encouraging about London! It also rains 20 days less down here than up north - surely a crucial factor!?
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Depends on the kind of person you are. For me, I like visiting London, I like working in London, I like socialising in London. But would I live there? No chance. I'd rather live out on the stick in a big house with dogs than a small flat in the city surrounded by noise.

That's just me though..
 
Home is where the heart is..

All of my family and friends live in the South, therefore "home" for me is the South. Moving up North would be a false economy in financial and emotional terms being away from friends and family.
 
Depends what you want, some very expensive areas exist in the North, Prestbury, Alderley Edge etc, so not all cheap ex coal mining towns full of toothless hunchback grandads.

we have a load of market towns in Cheshire, some a very very nice indeed.

However i would quite happly pay not to live in stoke.
 
Can't say I'd move up here just for a lower cost of living, the job should probably lead you here. I absolutely disagree with people saying you get paid less in the North, in real terms it simply isn't true. The cost of living, commuting and just about everything else is a lower % than the paycut, so if anything you'll keep more of your pay at the end of the month.

That said, I find it hard to believe that job prospects up here are anywhere near as good. I work in Manchester, which some consider the "capital" of the north, but even there I've got no chance of getting a job with Google, Microsoft or any of those sort of companies, they're just not really here.
 
Redgie said:
Can't say I'd move up here just for a lower cost of living, the job should probably lead you here. I absolutely disagree with people saying you get paid less in the North, in real terms it simply isn't true. The cost of living, commuting and just about everything else is a lower % than the paycut, so if anything you'll keep more of your pay at the end of the month.

That said, I find it hard to believe that job prospects up here are anywhere near as good. I work in Manchester, which some consider the "capital" of the north, but even there I've got no chance of getting a job with Google, Microsoft or any of those sort of companies, they're just not really here.
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I live in the South and I've worked for Google.

/thread :p
 
That, sadly, was my point :(

Having said that, there is a Google office in Manchester, though I don't think they do any techy work there :(
 
I work in the food industry.

Lived in Portsmouth (Grew up even further South before that i.e. Singapore), came up North for degree, got a job here, worked and gained enough experience to get a decent job with work / life balanced, much better paid than the same job I found and interviewed at Park Royal!

Whoever said working down South gets paid better obviously works in non-food specific jobs.
 
al4x said:
Has anybody uprooted and moved for this reason?
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Almost. I lived and worked in Cambridge for 11 years before moving back up north to be closer to family (my wife and I decided we wanted to have kids, which meant having a house and we would never have been able to afford one in or around Cambridge, especially if she was to be a stay-at-home mum).

If you have a job that doesn't absolutely require you to be in the office, and if you've been there a while and are valued, try talking to HR about the possibility of remote working. That's what I did, and it worked out really well for me. I get the southern salary with a house I can afford and family close by. Obviously there are downsides to this: I visit the office regularly for a few days at a time, and remote workers are often the first to go in times of hardship. It can be a bit of a hard sell, especially if your employer doesn't like the idea of not being able to check up on you at all times of the day, but if there's trust there it can work.
 
Mr Jones said:
Whoever said working down South gets paid better obviously works in non-food specific jobs.
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I think it's just the financial services industry that pay significantly more in London than in the rest of the country. Everyone else (including me) is being mugged off by working in the South East.
 
Mr Jones said:
I work in the food industry.

Lived in Portsmouth (Grew up even further South before that i.e. Singapore), came up North for degree, got a job here, worked and gained enough experience to get a decent job with work / life balanced, much better paid than the same job I found and interviewed at Park Royal!

Whoever said working down South gets paid better obviously works in non-food specific jobs.
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There seems to be many more food factories based in the North though over the South so there will be more demand / wage competition there naturally.
 
xyphic said:
Almost. I lived and worked in Cambridge for 11 years before moving back up north to be closer to family (my wife and I decided we wanted to have kids, which meant having a house and we would never have been able to afford one in or around Cambridge, especially if she was to be a stay-at-home mum).

If you have a job that doesn't absolutely require you to be in the office, and if you've been there a while and are valued, try talking to HR about the possibility of remote working. That's what I did, and it worked out really well for me. I get the southern salary with a house I can afford and family close by. Obviously there are downsides to this: I visit the office regularly for a few days at a time, and remote workers are often the first to go in times of hardship. It can be a bit of a hard sell, especially if your employer doesn't like the idea of not being able to check up on you at all times of the day, but if there's trust there it can work.
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I myself work remotely occasionally and many of my staff do, I think the key here is to be contactable / available when necessary - the whole "checking up on you" becomes irrelevant if you're getting your work done on time, to a decent standard and are contactable when you say you are.
 
Houses are very cheap where I live, but accessibility to other countries sucks as you can hardly fly anywhere from Newcastle. We holiday a lot so this is annoying - but suppose it only adds 3-6 hours each way in transfers so not the end of the world.

Everything else is the same price though so you're not saving money anywhere else.

And job opportunities are terrible up here. The UK is like an upside down funnel.
Do a used car search which IMO gives a good indication of what job opportunities are like.

Within 10 miles of my house - 1
within 40 miles - 20
within 200 miles - 150
National - 5000

BUT, if you can find a good job then you are laughing. Me and my wife both earn good money (probably only average if we lived down South) but up here it's pretty much middle class if you don't waste it all on a really expensive car.
We have just recently bought a 4 bedroom house with garage, massive garden, and large rooms for £160k.

Issue is that we are both wanting different jobs to further our careers but finding them up here is very difficult.
I'm not exactly looking that hard really but when I go to an interview, I know there are probably 20 other people going too many of whome may have years of experience.
Hell, when I got my apprenticeship here 12.5 years ago there was over 100 applicants!!!!!!

Maybe a better comrpomise somewhere in the midlands rather than coming right up North unless you can get a job.
Many of the top people in my company live down in the midlands actually
 
I was chatting to someone over the weekend who sold their small 2 bed house here in the SE for around 300k, and managed to get a 4 bed detached, 80ft garden, and garage for around 55k! It's mad.

I don't blame people for wanting to move north - it's just a question on whether you can find career progression and aspirations to suit.
 
I moved down South for the crazy wage difference in a comparable role. Just bought a two bed house for £225k in Reading. The plan is to live here for a few more years then move back up't North (nr Manchester/Liverpool) and buy a huge house. :cool: I'd be approaching the limit for promotion without significant years of experience by that point too.

Just gotta keep my Northern ways for long enough for them not to reject me when I come back! I make regular visits to ensure my lingo isn't lost too quickly. I have already changed dinner to lunch... I fear the worst...
 
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[FnG]magnolia;26122284 said:
Why limit yourself to moving up or down the same country when there are so many other countries to consider?
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This x1000.

The world is a big place, so much to see and do in one lifetime. Why limit yourself based on some arbitrary birth location that you had absolutely no choice in.

As for moving to cheaper places, it depends a lot on your expected salary differences and job requirements. I was born in Scotland, I love Scotland bit there is a dirty of jobs in the high tech industry. There is a reason almost all my friends and graduates moved to London or abroad!

From a financial side there is a reason why house prices are lower, and that is based on affordability and avergae salaries. Also you need to compare like for like, look at an equivalent sized house in Edinburgh and you won't find it massively cheaper than most areas of London.

Cheaper countries/counties make more sense to retire to than to earn during the early part of your life.

Don't forget to look at finances in more details.when you have a significantly higher salary then you will be better off long term despite higher living costs. E.g., if you get a 5-10% pension contribution and/or match then that is going to be more substantial, when you get 2-5% pay rise or 5-10% promotion rise then you get very significant gains. If you can save 20% of you salary post bills then on the hire salary you will build savings much faster. After 10-20 years of paying off a more expensive mortgage for a more expensive house you have the option of selling up and moving somewhere cheaper with hundreds of thousands more cash.
 
I went from London to the East (Anglia that is), I earn 30% of what I used to but my quality of life is far superior.

Live in a 5 Double Bedroomed Detached Chalet Bungalow in a quiet Cul De Sac, have all the mod cons (Fibre etc) and it cost £185K when I bought it 5 years ago, that wouldn't get a decent flat in a decent area in London.

Don't regret the move one bit
 
Freefaller said:
I was chatting to someone over the weekend who sold their small 2 bed house here in the SE for around 300k, and managed to get a 4 bed detached, 80ft garden, and garage for around 55k! It's mad.

I don't blame people for wanting to move north - it's just a question on whether you can find career progression and aspirations to suit.
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55k?

Must be in a very bad area or Wales, because if you search rightmove around a 40mile area of Stoke, places like this don't exist.
 
Firestar_3x said:
55k?

Must be in a very bad area or Wales, because if you search rightmove around a 40mile area of Stoke, places like this don't exist.
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bad area lol.....

I live in apparently one of the bad areas of Newcastle and never had any trouble from anyone since moving here about 14 years ago (west end not far from benwell)


The bad areas up north seem like the good areas of the east midlands
 
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