Non-Londoners, what sort of a salary increase would convince you to relocate there?

[artemisdubois]

As per the thread title, how much more would you need to be paid in order to convince you to relocate to London (Central)?

Of course the main reason I'm asking is that I'm in this situation at the moment of considering two different jobs. I'm early-thirties, engaged to a man who can run his company from anywhere with good internet and would be amenable to the move. We don't have strong family ties to our current home city, though we'd be a lot further from them if we moved to London.

Taking into account the massively-increased cost of living, commuting time and costs, busier lifestyle and other probably basic differences I'm yet to consider, it's quite complex. I'd love to hear opinions and what your price might be - I'm sure for a lot of people no amount of money would be enough.

I'm currently on about £45k and in a big house in a nice area and go on naice holidays every year. In order to have the same lifestyle in London, i'd be spending 3 million probably on a home. I don't know what kind of salary i'd need to cover that but it'd be a lot more!

I had a great lifestyle in London on 35K, 15 odd years ago (renting). Now I'm outside London on 18K. I now have a DS of school age so wouldn't move back, but say I didn't have any kids and wasn't planning any, and it was for just a few years, 80K would persuade me. I'd rent, and I'm older now so would want a less bohemian set up than I once had! With DS it would need to be 200K and I'd privately educate him.

You'd think differently if you had kids though, dodgeball

Why? Plenty of people work in London and have kids

Sounds like a great opportunity OP - try it! Give it a couple of years - move back if you hate it.

You wouldn’t have a big house in London obviously. It’s a different culture. You can’t expect to transport your life elsewhere into the capital. Wouldn’t you think someone was a bit of a wally if they wanted to move their sprawling 5 bed 4 bath huge garden house from Connecticut to Manhattan? Loire to Paris?

You either want to live there, or you don’t. If you do you just need to work out what you can afford.

There are really good state schools around me and I'm zone 3, 30 mins to Kings Cross / Euston. It's not all inner city London! OP if you're happy to rent for a couple years and keep your house, you can have an amazing time in London. I absolutely love my life here and wouldn't move at all.... the range of activities you can do, things to see and diversity of people is just brilliant. And it's exactly the place I want to raise my son.

I think it would depend for me, on if I wanted to buy or rent. You’d need a great big deposit to buy - so I’d want to be able to save for that on top of living expenses. London is hugely expensive and again depends on your expected standard of living. Would you be happy renting a one bed flat in zone 5 or are you wanting more of a three bed house in zone 2? The cost difference is massive!!
I’ve lived in London for many years but always had quite low expectations - think student then one rung up from that 😂 . It was quite different from friends living in the north who had lovely big houses etc

Although many people are saying they wouldn’t move there or go back, I think it would be a great adventure for a year or two.

We live in Zone 4. 200K combined income. We have a good comfortable life. We live in a terraced house in SW London. Excellent schools. 20 min commute on the commuter rail for me, 35 mins for DH. We love love love London and never intend to leave. I don’t see the appeal of the countryside- I find it quiet, boring and frankly dull. Country weekend walks and pub lunches are not my idea of a Saturday. Neither is a big detached house in the middle of nowhere. My sister lives like that and I can last maybe a week at hers before getting bored. So DH and I are unlike 95% of the people on this thread.

We love the buzz of London, how cosmopolitan it is, the kids go to outstanding schools, DS1 who is v musical has had some outstanding opportunities. I love the noise, the people and the general anonymity that goes with living in a city but in our own neighbourhood we know people, I have a great support network and the school mums are lovely. We have lived in some big big cities around the world in Asia, Europe and North America and London is hands down our favourite.

@titchy because without kids, you only have yourself to think about and a few years in a small flat is no biggy. With kids, you have their a lready established lifestyles to consider on top of all the usual upheaval that comes with moving. They're likely already used to having their own good sized bedrooms and space to sprawl in the rest of the house. As parents with a decent income, you'd be likely to be off the bottom rung of the property ladder for your area. For us, that is a 200k 1930s 3 bed semi with garden and off street parking in a leafy suburban area with everything we need on our doorstep, a few minutes walk away, including countryside and woodland. Unlike families already living in and around London, we couldn't afford to replicate what we are used to without a substantial hike in income.

You can rent a good 1200 square ft flat in a nice part of Zone 2 for about £3k per month. A 4 bed family house will be about £5k; it will be a terraced house with minimal outside space but Wandsworth Common or Kew Gardens will be your back garden. Set your sights a bit lower and the rent halves, although it may add only ten minutes to your commute. Everything else is cheaper and the quality is usually higher because competition in service industries is fierce.

You only need really big bucks if you want to buy a home because the capital investment is huge, but if you’re only planning on gilding your CV for a big career boost, plan to rent, give it 5 years, and really go for it.

Well honestly I'm not sure the general cost of living really is higher in London anymore. Maybe drinking in bars. But there are some amazing cheap restaurants here plus so much free stuff to do. Cost out how much extra housing and drinking would be

There are still cheaper parts of z2. Here you can rent 3 bed house for around £2200pm.

I met dh while living in a city up north, he needed to live close to London for career opportunities - I wasn't keen on the move but thought I'd give it a go.
I really fell in love with London - I agree with others that when you have kids lots of people move to the Home Counties, as we did and have a different lifestyle now, no need for private schooling - but we still go out in London when we can. I wouldn't live here though if we had a household income below £120k long term...

You really don't need daft amounts of money to have a nice lifestyle in London. Pre-kids I loved living there. Now I have a child I've followed the well-trodden path to the outer burbs. I hate the commute but school choices and outdoorsie stuff for small kids is much better here. London has a lot to offer children but the pollution bothers me. Out here we can enjoy the museums and stuff without breathing the air all the time. If I didn't have a child I'd move back in in a heartbeat.

I’m not sure I would think differently if I had kids because these hypothetical kids would be being born into my current life in London - I wouldn’t be uprooting them from a leafy suburb to a London flat (in which case, yes, perhaps I might be more reticent to relocate but I wouldn’t write it off). If I had kids now, let’s assume I had a partner - so with two salaries we could get a larger flat or even a house a bit further out like Merton or Croydon, I’ve seen 2 bed terraces advertised for around 2.5k a month round there. Or on two salaries we could afford to buy through shared ownership or help to buy right now and get a 2 bed flat. I wouldn’t privately educate so that’s not even in the equation. So I wouldn’t automatically move out of London to have kids, no

It would have to be for 3 or 4 times the amount of ‘spends’ we are left wth each month. That is, money left after taking account of all bills, food and petrol money. I don’t think you can really decide based on salary alone as obviously your housing costs would be massive.

No experience of London but I worked for some of my 20s in New York. It was fantastic but I wouldn’t have wanted to settle and raise a family there. Very happy now, earning a lot less and raising my children in rural Scotland.
I say go for it and enjoy, you can always move again if you don’t like it, but go for the experience while you can.

You'd think differently if you had kids though, dodgeball
@pickachew I have kids and I don't. I love bringing them up in London - Schools in my borough rank 1st or 2nd in the country each year. I can easily walk to 2 large parks, access to another 3 or 4 within 10 minute drive. Woods. Nature reserves. But also culture, theatres, cinemas, restaurants, pop-ups, local festivals. We could do a different thing every weekend as a family and never run out of things to do

I also love the community feel of my area, there are so many groups and meet-ups, local book groups, gin groups, parents groups. And people on the whole are liberal left leaning which means a lot to me. In fact it's one of the main reasons I don't move to the 'home counties'

Did you move them there from elsewhere, @rangeloaf?

I get you on the Liberal left leaning thing, though.

Most of the posters here are at a later stage in life than you OP. If you currently have no DC and you and DP fancy trying it (and the numbers work with the increase in housing costs) - then I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to go for it. You will likely have an amazing time and you should improve your career with the experience. Worst case, you hate it, move back after a year, or if it works until DC come along, move back then. I’m not sure what you have to lose

For context I live in a lovely area of zone 2 with 3DC, we thought we would move for more space once kids arrived on the scene (financial situation improved so we didn’t have to) but love it.

Another parent here who loves the London upbringing the children are getting. Broadminded, accepting and compassionate, but also intellectually stimulating - most of their friends are bilingual and they’re exposed to world class museums and galleries almost weekly. State school too.

dodgeballchamp
I’ve seen 2 bed terraces advertised for around 2.5k a month round there

You can get a 3 bed house in much nicer zone 3 / 4 areas than Croydon for that much!

Why would you want a 2 bed terrace (much less a 3 bed house in Croydon ) as a couple moving to London though? Spend the same on a one bed flat in a central area where you don't have to spend ages commuting and can enjoy evenings easily, especially if its on a trial /shortish term basis.

Housing costs remain a key factor with DC in London IME. Without DC a couple can rent a tiny place to save money. Can do that with DC too of course but much trickier.

Hated living in Croydon!

I was brought up in central London and lived in the vicinity for 36 years. Moved to Surrey and have to commute (easy commute) for visiting office twice a week.

Hate London with a passion. It has had a dramatic change for the worse, more crowded, more polluted, people are rude, its expensive, crime ridden.

Don't do it. Your life where you are sounds great. London is good to visit and then get the hell out of again.