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.

If even just a small portion of the wealthy leave our country we are seriously fucked

Regardless of the above we are already fucked.

Im a Londoner & don’t know anyone recently. I did know people who moved back to various Europe countries after Brexit and a some former colleagues went to the ME & Australia before this.

If even just a small portion of the wealthy leave our country we are seriously fucked

Regardless of the above we are already fucked.

Im a Londoner & don’t know anyone recently. I did know people who moved back to various Europe countries after Brexit and a some former colleagues went to the ME & Australia before this.

I know quite a few that have left - professionals from Indian, Sri Lankan and Jewish backgrounds who were doing well in the UK and have young kids. Many more are thinking of leaving - there’s the budget and the worries about racism/antisemetism being in the up.

I completely understand why younger people would look for opportunities elsewhere though.

I do know 3 families that moved to Scotland post Covid.

I had loads of neighbours and school mum friends who left London during/post Covid. Sometimes regret I didn’t do similar.

Ive noticed an influx of Hong Kongers in areas not far from me.

These media pieces about people emigrating come up every few years. Has been that way since at least the 80s. We emigrated in the 90s. A couple of our friends did too. Since then more have and a couple have gone back (as did we for 7 years).

But we're a bunch of university educated professionals with lots of choices and skills that are coveted. Moving around is not only relatively easy for us, it's good for the sorts of careers we do too. Of my school friends who aren't university educated, only 1 has emigrated.

Since at least the 90s, there has been a lot more international movement as affordable flights have made a move less drastic and holidays, TV (and, now, the Internet) have given people a better look at what things might be like for them elsewhere. Lots more people both leaving and returning compared to earlier decades. Net emigration of UK nationals has been slowly increasing, though. There has been a an uptick since Covid in particular, but it may just be people making up for having plans scuppered then.

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

this started years ago, my eyebrow lady went back because she would earn similar money as beauty was booming but house prices etc are so much cheaper. A school mum friend was moving back post primary as the economy made it more viable.

I know one person who's gone to Australia (not sure what she does for a living) and a younger colleague (lawyer) who's gone to New York.

Me too although I am not sure it's that great elsewhere, at least for entry level jobs. I was reading something the other day about someone in Sydney who'd made lots of applications and been rejected by AI - same old story as in the UK and the US.

I think if you graduated before covid and got on the work ladder then you are ok.

Nope, no one talking about doing it and we're in a demographic where people could afford to if they wanted to.

People forget we never recovered from the 08 crash & have had nearly 2 decades of low productivity, wage stagnation & low investment. This has disproportionately impacted younger people and young families. Things aren’t going to improve much either tbh. Plus the grass isn’t always greener although some countries are not quite as fucked up as us (yet). Housing costs are a huge part of the problem plus with an ageing population our pension & NHS model cannot work.

I work with a large number of people who themselves are migrants to the UK from all over the world. A number left after Brexit - mostly those from other European countries with children who decided this wasn't the best place to bring them up. Now I know no-one planning to. Several are actually going for British nationality.

Funnily enough, the complete opposite. We know six people who are seriously considering leaving the USA and moving to the UK.

No prizes for guessing why.

My friendship group is very international, not especially wealthy, and most of the movement has been back to the UK and I don’t know anyone who has moved to UAE!

A couple whose children have flown the nest retired to Thailand, but this was always part of their plan. They have just brought their plan forward as conditions in the UK deteriorated.

A couple who were medics in Australia have moved back to the UK whilst they have young children, to be nearer family, but plan to go back at some point.

A couple with a young family have returned to the UK from Germany. Partly due to the school system not being well suited to their child and party due to lack of work opportunities for a non German fluent trailing spouse.

One family returned to the UK last year after 15 years in the US, citing deteriorating conditions for foreign nationals. They are quite left wing and loathe Trump.

Two Syrian families moved away from the UK - one to Jordan as it is friendlier to people from the ME, and one back to Syria to rebuild their life there.

And of several families I know who moved to Portugal 2-3 years ago, one family has returned to the UK and the rest are still there.

Mid-40s professionals and don't know anyone emigrating. I do know someone from the US moving here though (he has family here).

I knew a lot of people who left after Brexit and during Covid - mainly to be closer to family, especially aging parents. But also because they felt unwelcome and like the UK wasn't the place they thought it was.

Left the UK in 2018 (we're both British) and have no plans to return. The timing was simply a job offer coinciding with all DC having left home.

If you are in your 20’s or 30’s you can go and work in places like Singapore, Hong Kong or Dubai and earn and save a fortune whilst having an absolute ball.

This is what DH and I did in our late 20’s and came back in our 40’s. We had a great time, but also saved a lot of money. This is going to sting, but we saved £1m cash in bank and then moved back to the UK and bought a house outright.

I’d encourage any young person to go overseas and earn and save and have fun. The UK is just a miserable place.

I’m glad I came back to the UK to give my kids roots and a British education in a good school. However they will both be at uni in the next couple of years and have both said they want to work in the US, so I have no reason to stay here. If an overseas opportunity comes up, I’ll happily leave with no regrets. People don’t realise it, but the UK is on a massive decline.

I disagree that it is without substance. As I posted earlier, we probably would like to move from the UK for a better quality of life and new experiences in retirement, but this assumes good health. We already know that DH will require constant monitoring even if there is never another crisis episode, plus one of his drugs means he has to avoid direct sun exposure. I really don't want to try to have complex conversations about pharmaceuticals and their side effects in a language I am still trying to perfect. I would miss too many nuances. DH is mono lingual.

@TheNaughtyDaughter has nailed the logic. We (being everyone on my favourite group chat of four couples) all left the UK in the 1980s and worked overseas to earn the money we needed to kickstart our life in the UK without family money. We took our energy and some threadbare qualifications overseas to work and earn. One of us mapped a country, quite literally, from a military helicopter, and now there are roads there, and upmarket hotels and resorts based on his maps. Another helped create the oil and gas service industry in the same country. A third introduced the concept of insurance. They had friends who were doctors and dentists.

We went (aged about 26) for tax free earnings and the opportunity to do something our parents hadn't. The lives we've built since then on the money we earned overseas has helped and is still helping our families to succeed.

Before you all tell me that this is a middle class educated only plan, let me tell you that there is a bloke in our village who went to the middle east as a tarmac layer, came back and bought a coal merchant round. He lives in a very nice house now.

That country (Oman) has since enjoyed greater prosperity and the population has grown exponentially.

No-one in my friendship or work circle - i'm in a city in the south

Totally agree. DH and I are from WC northern towns. We both went to Uni in the SE but MC prejudice blocked our London careers.

Overseas, no one gives a shit what school you went to, what Russell Group Uni you went to, or who your dad is. They take you at face value, and appreciate your merits.

Overseas I was able to meet my potential without the British class system prejudices.

As far as I am concerned (as a result of the bullshit I encountered in the UK), I have no loyalty to the place and don’t really care what happens to it. I speak a couple of languages, have a lot of assets, and can leave any time.

No. Nobody I know has emigrated recently. I’m South.

Not true. I think that we all now know their wealth doesn’t and has never ‘trickled down’ as it’s more likely to be syphoned off into tax havens.
I’m in London and I don’t know anyone who is leaving.

I’m leaving. I’m not wealthy, but probably top 10%, maybe 5%. I’ve lived abroad before, came back and set myself up to live and retire here at 45. At 50 I’ve realised I can’t make it work financially: I pay approx 50% tax, am single with caring responsibilities and if I stay I won’t have enough to retire comfortably at 67. No looming inheritance and I only started earning a decent salary in my late thirties. So I’ll move and do the same job abroad, pay lower tax and plan to retire somewhere with lower COL. I know a lot of people in my circle doing the same or staying out of the UK to see what happens.

If the financial pressure wasn’t there I’d rather stay home, but I’ve only got one life to live and it’s a choice between paying half my salary each month or finding some financial stability overseas and making a life for myself over there.

People in the UK struggle. I don’t know what the answer is, but targeting middle-high earners is likely not a sustainable solution. Anyone who can move might move and that’s a loss of revenue and expertise. Those who can’t move because of family or work ties will look for ways to cut back hours and avoid tax cliffs. The system needs an overhaul.

Yes, we need a way to keep the people who can pay more tax here, and paying tax, doing so willingly. But when people who have no intention of working can massage the system into paying the equivalent of £55k without getting up in the morning, everyone else gets the hump.