I want to finally leave London to go back home to N Ireland but my remote job is only temporary - should I go anyway?

[belfastlass]

Hi all,

I'm really stuck on the moment about what to do. I have been living in London for the past 7 years and am heartily fed up with it esp. my current house which is a flatshare. I have been itching to move back home to Northern Ireland for a long time now, where I can have a much better quality of life, be nearer my family, and maybe even afford to buy a house.

However at the moment I am working a temporary 6-month contract work from home job after a period of unemployment due to covid. My worry is that if I move, and they don't extend the contract, then I'll be unemployed in NI where the economy is not great. In London there's much more chance of getting a job. Ideally I am aiming to get a WFH gig, however even those now are becoming more like 'WFH but you must come into the office 1-2 days a week'. With most jobs in my field being in London, I'd have to stay at least in the South-East if I got a job like that.

So my head says stay, but heart says go, and meanwhile my mental health suffers due to living somewhere I really don't want to be anymore!

What would you do?

Would you be able to get a new job that was WFH but be in Belfast/Dublin 2 days a week? Does it have to be London?

I would go home.

Find a job and then move home?

Go home, life is to short to be miserable.

What do you do? And what part of NI do you want to move to? There will be many more opportunities if you're close to Belfast.

I'm in quite niche area (online investigations) - there aren't a huge amount of jobs in this field, and the vast bulk of them are based in London. There was one I interviewed for last month for example where they insisted I would have to work from the London office one day a week. I'd be moving to Belfast, so happy to go to an office there or Dublin once in a while, but not constantly flying back and forth to London.

Basically if I move back I'd be taking a bet that either my current contract is extended, or I can get a new and 100% remote job. I'm

There are lots of jobs here right now (and we’ll paying compared to salaries here in the past), depending on what industry you work in, is there something related to your current role you could do as an alternative? Even on a lower, but still decent, salary you could probably have a nicer lifestyle, eg live alone or even buy somewhere eventually, and be near family and friends.

I’d go to NI. “Life is short” as they say - and the last 18 months have brought that fact home to many of us.

Could you look for something with HMRC ? One of their regional centres will be in Belfast (and may be already). Your investigative skills may be helpful.

A lot of companies are opening up or expanding in Belfast. My firm has an office there and staff turnover is unfortunately (for us) quite high because there are so many opportunities, particularly in Information Security - is that in any way related to what you do? NI is still primarily working from home. In your situation I would move for all the reasons that you have given.

I would go home for the duration of your current contract and then have 2 plans, and see how it pans out.
Plan A: get a job in Dublin/Belfast or current contract is extended; so you can stay put in the longer term
Plan B: have to get a London-based job, so move back to London and find a new house share or a cheaper place of your own further out if you don’t need to go into the office often.

The main thing for your mental health is to move back home for a bit first. Things will probably become clearer once you have done that.

I’d go home. I did it in 2019 with a job offer in my home town, and even though the job never materialised because of Covid, it was the best decision for my MH. Though I was gone a lot longer than you and coming back hasn’t been straightforward, either.

I'd go home for now as you're not happy and then see what happens job wise - if your current contract ends you can still apply for jobs in London from NI if necessary. If you stay and your current contracts ends anyway you're stuck in a house share you don't want to be in and unemployed.

Just say you're going back for the next 6 months and see where it goes. After 6 months you might decide that actually you want to come back to London anyway.

Where are you in the six months? 3 weeks in - go home and accept you might have to move back in 5 months. 3 weeks to go - stay put. Where to draw the line? It is probably only worth moving for 3 or 4 months plus I guess.

Are you ok to move to Northern Ireland from a tax point of view. Where I work we are not allowed to move “abroad” but I’m not sure if they mean from GB or UK if you see what I mean.