My job only exists in London

[ILikeyourHairyHands]

I see this all the time on threads. Unless you're the Prime Minister, Queen, keeper of the ravens at the tower, a genuine pearly queen or jellied eel and pie and mash slinger, I reckon that's utter bollox.

There may be more opportunities within your chosen career in London but outside very specific roles, your job does not only exist in London.

My dh works freelance in broadcasting. I suppose some regional tv companies might employ frrelancers, but they are far more likely to have two or three members of staff on the payroll to do his sort of job. In London he has up to 10 clients who between them keep him in full time work. Elsewhere in the country, even if he could pick up freelance work, there would not be enough of it to give him a sensible income. But it's all good because we love living in London and hope to never leave.

My job doesn’t ‘only’ exist in London, but I’m
currently job hunting and on the main recruitment site for my specialism there are 345 vacancies in the UK - 288 of which are in London, 41 in the South East. If I wanted a job in the North East for example, there are only 2 current vacancies

It's not only businesses. Many government organisations are situated in London. People who work in government advisory roles, the media and for particular government departments and infrastructure services would not be able to carry out their role outside London. If you are, for example, a health economist for the DoH, or work in the security services, how do you do that job elsewhere? Our neighbour works in the Met diplomatic protection unit. One thing, say Lancashire, is low on is diplomats.

I feel very fortunate that I could do my job anywhere in the country. For DH to work at an equivalent level, the European options would be Frankfurt, Paris, maybe Zurich, Amsterdam. There is no equivalent job in Huddersfield, Norwich or Liverpool. It just doesn't exist.

My job is now so niche that it hardly exists anywhere. When I was looking for work on finishing university, there were lots more jobs in London, and lots more people of a similar mindset I'd get on with.

Yay it’s another London bashing thread! That’s original!

The queen of England is the queen of England, no matter where she is. She does work from Balmoral when occasion calls for it. Her job takes her on tours and public engagements all over the country. In previous years, she travelled all over the world for work.

Then his employers decided to move the whole business to Edinburgh as a cost saving. He refused to consider moving

Well, that's fair enough. Before we had kids I was offered a job in Edinburgh and we seriously considered it, but concluded it was too far away from most family and friends.

DHs job happens in other places, DHs career could only happen in London (or another country's financial centre).

He could move to another job in Manchester or Edinburgh, but if he wanted to move jobs again, we'd all need to move house again. Whereas hes moved from one bank to another in london several times and its only changed his commute by a few minutes each day, and as a family we've been able to stay in the same house for 10 years.

Going to another part of the country means committing to one company for many years, or very long commutes to another city. As well as a pay cut and needing to hope one of the 2/3 people currently doing that job quit just when you need them to.

The universities have their niche areas.

And they are linked in to the major teaching hospitals. Yeah, hospitals and patients exist all over the place. But nowhere else is there such a concentration of specialities. And that fosters cutting edge research, especially with link ups to world-class universities. Yes, there are are handful of universities which perform just as highly but that doesn't mean that many jobs come up (and might not match to your specific research terribly well). Plus in humanities there are amazing collections to be curated - places like the British Museum or British Library, which have aspects that are not replicated elsewhere.

Then of course there are all the functions that go with London being the capital Parliament, the High Courts and some of the civil service plus everything to do with Embassies and diplomacy.

Actually the flip side of this is when you get threads when someone complains about their job and the advice is "change jobs" and the OP comes back on to say they cant change job without moving to another part of the country or doing a completely different job, not just move to another company doing the same role.

In many parts of the country, once you've got to a certain level in many jobs, there aren't 20/30 companies within a few miles of each other all with that position. You are stuck or facing moving house when you move job, not that practical once you have dcs.

Hundreds of jobs across the civil service only exist in London, supporting ministers or being at the beck and call of parliament. I know at least 10 people in my team of 30 who could not do their job anywhere else but the London office for this reason.

Oh and while DHs job can be done remotely, his company only allow a max 2 days a week remote working.

There view is it's more productive to have people in the office able to talk face to face.

Dh could argue against that, but that how they arrange their company and is pretty industry standard, you are in the office. If you want the job, you do the job the way the employer wants you to.

It doesn't matter how jobs could be organised, if employers can fill roles with people who are prepared to work the way they want for the money they offer, they have no incentive to change.

I work for central Government. There are agencies scattered round the country (eg DVLA in Swansea, Environment Agency in Bristol), but if I want a career, not just a job, it has to be London. If you worked for Parliament, it’s London or nothing.

Would people saying that there are very few jobs in their field outside of London be better?

Yeah I would say in any international business, the UK presence is likely to be in London.

I work for a company who's biggest clients are international brands - clients visit often and our head office is in Birmingham.

The whole world doesn't revolve around London.

People who live in Germany know that Birmingham exists, in the same way that we know Hamburg, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf exist.

My company is so niche there's only one other in the UK doing the work, also in London, and only two others on Europe.

In a wider sense i could find a job at an investment bank operations team. There are some in my field in Manchester, Glasgow or Belfast but move to these places and you're stuck in your firm. Our company is full of people who have worked in these companies but were forced to move to London for career progression or improved work environments.

But yeah OP, I'll go and settle European government bonds at that high street bond trading house in Nottingham or Yeovil

I work in a niche area of law that is only really done in London in the U.K. In fact it's only done in a handful of cities worldwide.

I can think of one person in my area in a northern town. He developed his skills working in London and now works with a Paris team so is really just working remotely from Paris. One other person I know tried it from another SE town for a few years but ended up moving back to London.

As I read, YANBU OP, there is no job that only exists within London ; people seem tom be confusing positions within a defined career area and jobs that can ONLY be done in London. Number of jobs.opportunities ae always going to be concentrated around a big city, but to say there are no other opportunities anywhere else would be horseshit.

Working from home is not a good solution for jobs that require communication and working in teams. Which is most jobs.

In my small company there are huge problems because one of my staff works from home. Communication with her is just not as good. She’s not doing her job as well as she would be if she worked from the office.

I’m really not in favour of remote working.

I'm an unemployed ex investment bank employee. I can only work in one. They don't do remote working for obvious reasons. And theres nothing doing in the North West.

I am an academic. I research a very specific and not so common disease. The research centres related to this condition are only in London (or Edinburgh, but that’s even further).

I could leave the field and do something else still in academia, but it would be tough and I’ve spent 15 years training and working to get where I am in my career. I do have a very long commute but I don’t do it every day.

I also knew all of this at the start of my career and when we decided to live somewhere rural. So it’s fine. Dh knew when he met me that this is what life would be like.

It’s not hard to understand that most jobs of a certain level require you to be in London, lots of ‘jobs’ can be found outside of London but not at the same level or quantity.
There’s plenty of magazines and newspapers all over the country but once you get to the level of prestige and are past working for the Plymouth herald or the Manchester local lifestyle magazine, the main ones are on London,
My friends husband is one of the top lawyers in Europe. This requires him to commute 2-3 hours to london and stay over most nights.
I don’t see Wakefield having any fashion weeks or holding any parliamentary debates.

Yep my job only exists in London at the moment - it could be done from anywhere really but I wouldn’t be able to find a non London based job in the same field.