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.

In your shoes, I'd probably do it, yes. I wouldn't plan on staying there forever.
I did London in my twenties. Lived centrally (Swiss cottage, Kentish town, then Tooting Bec) which was great. Then.

I go back now and again and just find it all too overwhelming. But then I'm mid forties. And I have children. I just want to get out and go home. Which is only an hour away.

As others have said, you need to work out the finances. Does 2.5 x salary even make a difference? Will you be making the most of all that London has to offer? or just going to work, and going home again?

Another person you’d have to pay to leave London. My kids would disown me as well.

The housing costs are the killer.

£80k as a young single person willing to house share. £120k plus if I had a family or was over 30.

I hate living in the country. It is my worst nightmare.
So we manage comfortably in London on a combined salary of 200K. We have a terraced house on a lovely street in Zone 3. Kids go to outstanding schools which are much much better funded than most rural village schools. They have a lot of opportunities they wouldn’t elsewhere. We have some huge green spaces nearby for them. Kids use lots of public transport. Do lots of music and sport. We shop at Sainsbury’s. We don’t do mega holidays but have a couple of nice UK holidays a year or a big holiday.
Admittedly our mortgage is not very much but in our area for a nice 3bed you are looking at 2200 pcm in rent. You can do the calculations from that point on.

I don’t get the ‘I want to live in chelsea’ comments. And I need 500K. There is a lot of absurd stuff here from people who have no clue about London and only visit it as tourists.

My 4 bed terraced house is worth roughly 750K (we bought it for 500K and did the work). We have a garden, 20 mins on the fast train to Central London, 35 mins on the Tube, 3 outstanding schools locally.

A £500k house is £Unicorn salary for me unfortunately.

I calculated that to rent in a nice area of London (SW) by myself would need me to earn a minimum of £50k.

You can have an amazing quality of life once here as there is so much to do for free - but you do need to weigh up accommodation and travel costs first.

And it's not all grubby - I spend most of my time in the parks, by the river, outdoors. It's lovely.

How much are they actually offering you, OP?

Some of this is a bit unrealistic. We're kind of average among friends (public/media/charity sectors) and earn about 90k between us on 4 day weeks, have a 3 bed terrace in a well connected part of zone 4 and don't feel we are struggling at all. We pay childcare too (2dc). We have a few holidays a year, eat out a bit and don't stint on anything cultural we want to do.

We are, I suppose, not very consumerist so don't buy Stuff but feel very fortunate! I don't recognise some of these figures at all but suspect we might feel different if we lived in West London with a load of investment bankers for friends. It's all relative. I certainly find the cost of living loads cheaper than the rural area I grew up where people also struggle with high costs but also low wages and terrible transport.

So it all depends really. What lifestyle do you want?

Have done it twice in different life stages. I don’t need to do it now so the extra money has become irrelevant. Going to London is now a treat, that’s the way I like it.

But Potolbabu a combined salary of £200K is £unicorn to the overwhelming majority of the population. Many people have talked about having 'equivalent' to what they have now. To me, moving to a terraced house wouldn't be equivalent of what I have now. I think you are arguing against yourself a bit in saying you need a salary most people couldn't even dream of, to live in a terraced house (you've not mentioned gardens or parking which many people would have if in the rest of the country?).
Zone4 the same - "kind of average" isn't earning £45k for a 4 day week.
I know most people tend to mix with people like themselves, but do people really think those salaries are achievable for any but a tiny minority ?
We need someone cleverer than I to link to some actual facts and figures about earnings I think,

It made sense for me to start commuting when I got a £10k pay rise as I live in a commuter town. I have had countless increases since and am now in a place where I could commute from a nicer place a bit further away. I would only consider moving to London if I was earning over £300k as I hate living in large cities and would only move if I could afford to live in central london.

6 times. At least. At the very least.

OK we did it. Zone 2, large family house, not flash. 2 DC

Utilities: 250 ish
Insurance: 200
Phones 120
Sky/boadband 60
Parking permits: 30
Council tax: 180
Car insurance 80
Parking costs 40
School fees 3000
Cleaner 200
Window cleaner 30

That was monthly. No mortgage or car funding or general maintenance etc included. So, for us 4k net min before passing go have probably forgotten stuff.
Was wandsworth so council tax low.

Add on fares, food, healthclub, holidays and that's probably another 2k.

So £6k pcm. No mortgage or loans fpr a fairly modest lifestyle. School fees were a choice but were they?

I have a garden AND parking. We lived here on a combined salary of 80K. We now earn 200K. We had one child for five years on a salary of 80K. We have two kids now. It means we can do extra stuff. But the whole: it’s impossible to have a house, garden, parking and a good school for less than a salary of 500K is utter bollocks.

Minimum of £1 million per year and even then I’d have to think about it
London is great for a visit but I much prefer it up here in the frozen North

You don’t need a SALARY of 500K to afford a 500K house. The OP wants to rent and has a mortgage free house. So OP needs to budget for a house worth 2200-2300 in a nice area of SW London. And then make the rest of the calculations.

See more hyperbole- 1 million a year! Even my very successful corporate lawyer BIL doesn’t earn that. It’s one thing to say ‘I don’t want to live in London and nothing would drag me there.’ It’s another thing to say, ‘you need to earn a million pounds to live in London.’ This is nonsense.
The house next to us is rented by a group of 3 sisters. One is a botanist. One is in marketing. And one is a PhD student. Other side we have a social worker husband and a wife who works in IT. The other two are occupied by retired people. Then on the other side is a couple where one works for the council and the other works for BT. NONE of these people earn a million bucks.

I didn’t say you need £1million a year to live in London, I said that’s what it would take to persuade me to move to London

I meant that a £500k house would mean an impossible salary for me to afford the mortgage on it.

No amount of money. Tbh the UK statistics about the health effects of pollution in cities are pretty scary. I don't think any amount of free museums are worth the increased risk of cardiovascular disease, respiratory problems and lung cancer. I lived in London for a while in my twenties, but I'll never live in a city again.

I don't know how much exactly but enough to:

Allow me to walk/cycle to work in a flexible role
Not have to live in a noisy/transient/busy area
Be able to get out to quiet green spaces quickly
Not be surrounded with wanky or pretentious nobs
Not have ridiculous quotes for things like insurance; or unattainable doctors appts etc

I think basically I need to live in an unstaffed cottage in the grounds of Buck Pal.

A million pounds! And even then, I’m not sure.

Back for good- I meant average among our friends. I am well aware that is very much above the average salary and very fortunate we are too. It was intended as a counter to the 'you have to earn 300k a year to even consider it' brigade. Although we do live in a part of London I have seen pearl-clutching about on here...

@BackforGood @Bumblenut
The median earnings in London are 40k so half of the people here earn more than that. A lot of the lower paid jobs seem to be done by people who come to London for the experience in their 20's and most people who stay to live here and bring up their families, actually earn more. The London population is pretty skewed towards professional, high paying jobs so 100k+ is not uncommon.

I've got some friends on about 30-40k here and they considered moving up north for a better quality of life until they discovered that their roles paid the minimum wage or just a tiny bit above.