Lots of people emigrating?

[LawdAMercy]

In your social circle do you know lots of people who have/are in the process of emigrating?

Keep seeing articles about people feeling fed up with the state of the country, cost of living etc and moving abroad and wondering if this is really happening at scale or just hyperbole.

We have been looking to buy our first home (early forties, have kids) for a while and have been focused on this for so long but wondering if I need to re-assess our long terms needs.

DH is foreign, we could go to his country but I’ve never been sure with the language barrier, leaving family behind etc despite the high standard of living there. Can’t help but feel that everywhere has its problems and a mode could be out of the frying pan and into the fire.

In our circle one medic family has moved to Australia and another was seriously considering it. However with the whole world unsettled now due to Trump the second family is now unsure and thinking that in a period of such great instability it's probably better to stay put.

Which country is it op?

No. Not unless my SIL moving to Scotland counts. If anything we know more people returning to the UK than leaving it.

No I’ve not seen that - also south east. (Near no water and pot holes land!)

we lost a lot of people immediately after Brexit for couples where one was an EU citizen. We have lost more people from the area moving to cheaper areas of the UK - lots of teachers moving up north. Nurses going too.

The youngest generation of our family have moved to US and Oz. US migrant would rather stay in UK but the job market there is so much better in his field and pay is roughly three times UK pay. Migrants to Oz are interesting: They say the pay is way better, job prospects are great but so many people are moving to Perth, where their industry is booming, that the house prices have rocketed up and almost doubled in the last couple of years, apparently.

We seriously considered leaving the UK for retirement. But DH's health has been up and down and while I am quick at languages, I really don't want to have to cope with complex medical issues in another tongue until I am more than just proficient.

I'm Swedish and left to go home after brexit. I was part of Swedes in UK online group and a lot of us left around that time/post pandemic. I am no longer part of the group so I don't know if people are leaving in any great quantities at the moment, but I do still have a couple of Swedish friends from that time who married Brits and stayed. I know on eof them is desperate to move back to Sweden but she can't because of her husband, think the other one is quite happy, but they are quite rich so probably isn't as affected by col.

My DS and his wife moved to France in October for work. London to Paris.

I have know lots of well off people and it's a mix as it's always been. High net worth people have more options and will follow opportunities. So in my group of closish friends (as in people I see socially), in the past year, I know one family who moved back here from Dubai in time for their children to start school, one family back here from a two year posting in Africa and a single woman who has moved here from the US for a job. I also know a family where just the dad has moved to Abu Dhabi (the kids are late teens) and a single guy who has moved to Singapore on long term secondment .

If I move the bar of people I know to include people at work/ people I vaguely know/ friends of friends then I can come up with dozens of people moving in or out of the UK in the last year or with plans coming up.

I don't have a sense of a higher than normal level of moves here or away but it's very anecdotal of course.

I advise high net worth individuals and its talked of but doesn't actually happen much. Not for anyone with family here.

I know a younger man who has no family and runs a small business talking about buying property in Dubai but he won't be able to leave the UK as he is the main person running his business here.

Mu own friends don't move in such elevated circles so we just stay in the UK.

I work for a company where we still have a lot of young people moving to the UK. It's become harder due to visa issues but the majority of my team is originally from overseas.

Yes, so, so, so many are leaving - both native Brits and friends from abroad. The latter group already started leaving after Brexit but even more are doing so now. These are friends who studied in the UK and/or have lived here their entire adult lives, and fully intended to settle down here for good, but could no longer ignore the reality that quality of life and their prospects in the UK have seriously gone down over the last few years. But I’m especially surprised at the amount of native Brits who have also started talking about leaving (or are actually leaving).

I want to leave as well and would have done so years ago (I’m from the EU) but unfortunately my English DH’s job is keeping us here for now. We constantly talk about it but haven’t found a way to swing it as he’d face barriers with getting new qualifications in a different language, and building a client base from scratch.

We live in London and most of our friends are professionals in their mid-30s, so they are fortunate to be able to ask for an international transfer or be competitive candidates abroad (especially in markets that aren’t as saturated as they are in the UK). Many are keen to leave before they start building a family.

I've heard of a few young people emigrating, mostly to the far east and Australia. A neighbour's son and daughter are both going to Australia, but separately. Their professions are in demand. A friend's daughter has moved to Japan.

Also think it’s interesting that Poland has started experiencing a “reverse brain drain” over the last few years - I’m not Polish but expect that many countries in that region will start experiencing this too if they haven’t already. Obviously not all returnees will be from the UK, but it’s indicative of the gap in quality of life narrowing between countries that traditionally saw large emigration vs. those that saw large immigration.

London here, but no one in our circle moving.
A few have come back, from France, and Australia.

Nobody I know is emigrating. The three friends I have who've lived abroad have all moved home in the last two years.

Yes 2 couples but they are going to Spain from America.

I know a few, and I have one friend who is not returning as she’d planned. None of them
rich.

I’m in a similar situation to @Papyrophile, although in our case it’s the cost of mandatory health insurance for the months before our local healthcare could start that’s the main stumbling block.

A fair chunk of people started to leave after Brexit... and the trend continues.

I'd leave in a heartbeat, I hate what the UK has become. Sadly my better half does not want to go. We've no ties, no relatives to worry about anymore, I'd so love to go.

My DIL is American. She goes home every 2 years or so but will never live there again. My SIL is Australian. She has no desire to ever live in Australia . They both absolutely love the Uk

It's interesting. Coming back from the US to the UK isn't really an indication and more like frying pan to fire so I'm not sure that's a good judgement. I am foreign in the UK and would move home in a heartbeat, but we have kids, jobs, mortgage etc so it isn't really that easy. We definitely will retire back to my home country though and both agree (having both lived there - Canada and go back at least once a year) that it is 'better'.

We know someone who just moved to the US but it wasn't that they were fed up of the UK it was just a once in a lifetime opportunity that came up.

Yeah lots of friends with young kids are moving away. I don't blame them.... i

Nope, but then it’s rather nice where I live and people move from elsewhere to here

I do not know anyone thinking about leaving the UK. My niece has just moved back from the States. Neighbour's daughter and partner currently live in Canada, but that was nothing to do with the 'state of the country'. There is lots of right-wing media puff about this, but it's all talk with no substance.

No I don’t know anyone who is emigrating at the moment though a friend has recently returned from Australia as she prefers life here and never really settled.