To ask, if you work in the Civil Service/ BBC etc in London and the SE and are asked to move North will you?

[Flumpaphone]

Ok, I know this might be a bit niche.

Following on from the recent announcements of Treasury and Department of International Trade jobs moving to Darlington and BBC jobs going to Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow, I was wondering if people currently in those jobs (or anyone else who might be asked to move out of London) will/would move?

If you would move - why?
If you wouldn't move - why?

My reason for asking is that I'm in the North and I'm trying to work out if all these announcements are genuinely a good thing for the economy or if the only real beneficiaries will be LNER and the regional Premier Inns for a couple of nights a week.

Nobody’s saying ‘all northerners are talentless’ which is what I think people are extrapolating from Comtesse’s comment but she is right. Working in public service isn’t generally ‘I want one job for the rest of my life’. It’s all very well there being a department in Darlington but if there’s no career progression or options for sideways moves if you want a change, people aren’t generally going to want to relocate there, knowing they will probably have to come back in a significantly weaker position than when they left. It’s hard to sell up in London, leave, then come back to an equal place or property unless you have had an astronomic salary increase in the meantime.

Also some jobs just ARE London centric regardless if it’s the civil service deciding that their ones will move out- if the bulk of a particular legal speciality is in London then it doesn’t matter if the CS move theirs to Preston, the private sector won’t, so the CS will always be an outlier.

It’s like saying ‘all theatre is in London’. Well it isn’t- but it’s a hell of a lot easier to get consistent fixed base work in London than in the regions (when it’s running anyway!).

Exactly. It's probably the wrong question to ask anyway. Part of the point of relocating departments is to break up the Westminster bubble presumably. They likely don't want so many lifer civil servants and they're happy to have people float in and out from other walks of life. That's fine, good even. But it's pointless then castigating the Westminster bubble for not wanting to exchange their current life for a very different one, you have to accept that you've shaken things up.

Substantial London Weighting 😂😂😂😂😂😂 in DEFRA I'm not sure if it's even as much as £3k.

The government will save by securing cheaper building leases outside the capital and probably lower staff turnover as job roles that are "not well paid" in the capital are "decent salaries" in other locations.

I think overall it's a good thing.

Civil servants hopping around departments is great for getting promotions, but it's crap for the actual civil service. There's a constant jobs merry go round so you have a vast number of people who know a little about a lot with no depth, and their only specialism is being in the civil service, which is a really narrow view. If geographic dispersal can help with that it's a very good thing.

I've always worked in public sector and never wanted to live in London, but have still managed to do a job with a lot of ministerial contact. Had to travel to London one or two days a week from my city, but I imagine that would be less necessary nowadays.

As for someone upthread questioning the quality of SCS outside London - I can only laugh. Loads of talent, and in my experience people with a broader worldview, which the civil service really needs.

I would quite like to move out of London. But I am not the primary earner in our family, DH's job is here and the DC are settled in school, I am caring for aged parents etc. Therefore I simply can't move.
I think this may impact women in their forties/ fifties more than other groups. We are less likely to be the main earner and more encumbered by life responsibilities. If our jobs move, we can't follow Still, will be cheaper to replace us.

@Iwouldlikesomecake

Nobody’s saying ‘all northerners are talentless’ which is what I think people are extrapolating from Comtesse’s comment but she is right. Working in public service isn’t generally ‘I want one job for the rest of my life’. It’s all very well there being a department in Darlington but if there’s no career progression or options for sideways moves if you want a change, people aren’t generally going to want to relocate there, knowing they will probably have to come back in a significantly weaker position than when they left. It’s hard to sell up in London, leave, then come back to an equal place or property unless you have had an astronomic salary increase in the meantime.

Also some jobs just ARE London centric regardless if it’s the civil service deciding that their ones will move out- if the bulk of a particular legal speciality is in London then it doesn’t matter if the CS move theirs to Preston, the private sector won’t, so the CS will always be an outlier.

It’s like saying ‘all theatre is in London’. Well it isn’t- but it’s a hell of a lot easier to get consistent fixed base work in London than in the regions (when it’s running anyway!).

It's really chicken and egg though. We have a ridiculous and needless concentration of a lot of things in London. There's no reason for it except for habit and it's self-perpetuating. There is very little that HAS to happen in London.

That said, of all the things that don't have to happen in London, law making, which is what I do, has the closest connection because it happens to be where parliament is situated. I have worked in regional civil service offices before and I'm sorry to say they did feel a bit back officey. I do think with imagination this could change but it feels like a little bit of thought and planning needs to go into it rather than thinking of building one office will overnight change things

Haven't read the whole thread so apologies if this has already been said. But in the past when other departments have done the same, only a tiny minority of staff actually moved. Single figures. HSE is the example which comes to mind.

I was offered a civil service move years ago, to the north. It was a senior management position. I refused it, for the same reasons as many here, and regretted it long term.

As someone who has actually relocated from Darlington to London a lot of these comments are ridiculous. Yes it’s a good thing that jobs are coming to the north but it’s a massive sell to ask someone to move from London to a small northern market town. There are hardly any jobs in Darlington and surrounding areas so if you’re a couple your partner is going to struggle to find employment.

I also agree with Comtesse, if you’re an accountant/solicitor etc. at one of the big four or any city law firm you’re going to struggle to find a job in Darlington - possibly you’re going to be too specialised to find the same type of work let alone a comparable salary even taking into account the lower cost of living. People relocate to London because the jobs just aren’t there. No one is saying Darlington doesn’t have solicitors and accountants but they often do completely different work

For any relocation
The individual has to weigh up their own pros & cons
I've moved around quite a lot. I like exploring new places
Some people don't like change

@Spinner12345, whilst you may struggle in Darlington, you won’t struggle in Manchester or Glasgow (the two other areas of likely relocation). For obvious reasons, law will be a more difficult crossover into Scotland but not accountancy. And both will have a large pool to draw from in Manchester. The Big 4 have always had a large presence in Manchester albeit same grade salary is lower.

Don't forget the lower paid staff in London won't be able to buy anywhere, so they'll be made redundant/terminated, opening up the lower grades to locals in the process.

It's long struck me as unfair that cost of living in Manchester is just as expensive as London except house prices

I'm sorry but that's bollocks! It is NOT as expensive to live in Manchester as London by a long way (I moved up north from London 3 years ago and am in Manchester 2 days every week). Pub prices, eating out, even prices in supermarkets are more expensive in London, then you have to take into account the crazy cost of travel in London too.

Oh, and since housing takes such a massive chunk of your income, house prices make a huge difference to your standard of living.

@ComtesseDeSpair

We think it’s going to be quite detrimental if they insist on a quota for our department, where the majority of us are solicitors, economists, accountants and other specialists. Particularly at trainee level to lower SCS grades, there just isn’t the same talent pool outside of London, the most talented and ambitious young people aren’t living in and don’t want to relocate to Darlington!

I won’t be moving, my friends, family and life are in London. I live here because I love it, not just for work opportunities.

My DH is a lawyer working in a relatively niche field. He has worked for highly-regarded firms in Newcastle, Leeds and Manchester. I am sure he wouldn't agree with you here!

@HavelockVetinari, you’re correct that general cost of living in London vastly exceeds anywhere else in the country. However, we’re from the Home Counties and when we moved up here (incidentally with DH’s very senior corporate role) I found this area to be just as expensive as the SE; including house prices in the desirable areas. And I’m ashamed to admit how surprised we were to find ourselves having access to one of the top ten state schools in the country for my now 17yr old DD. We will be moving back south when she finishes her Alevels before DS1 starts senior school but I will miss a lot of what this part of the country has to offer.

So my point being that we really didn’t find the desirable areas up here any cheaper than those we moved from in the SE. So housing costs fairly similar. The difference is that even undesirable areas of the SE carry a SE premium whereas undesirable areas of Manchester can be very cheap housing wise.

I work in financial services and we do see young people starting in the CS then moving into the private sector then moving back to the CS in a more senior role. I think for those sorts of roles people will be reluctant to relocate. They will capitalise on their CS knowledge- go into the private sector and stay there.

Darlington already had a Department for Education office so it’s not such a surprise it was suggested.

Pub prices, eating out, even prices in supermarkets are more expensive in London, then you have to take into account the crazy cost of travel in London too

I'd agree with you on pubs and eating out, not sure about supermarkets but I always thought they charged the same everywhere, but I disagree about public transport, as it seems quite cheap in London to me, council tax is also lower than average than the rest of the country. If you think the cost of travel in London is 'crazy' then I respectfully suggest you never try and get on a bus in Leeds.

Civil servant here and no we would not move to the north. DH earns a lot more than I do and his job will likely always dictate where we live.

I would have love to in my 20s and early 30s, but now I am too tied - house, DH’s job, kids at school, kids’ friends, kids’ activities etc

I wouldn't realistically take the move. I love being at my department but I would fear being trapped if I didn't have exit options. As it stands, I could easily move to another government department, a regulator, or the private sector in London. I am not sure where I could move to if I wanted to or had to leave in Darlington. I have a good couple of decades of career left and I would be surprised if it were all in one place.

Besides that it's all the obvious concerns -

Kids in school

OH's job

OH is a very nervous driver and needs to be in a place with good public transport

Family nearby in London and in not so good health

Paid an eye watering amount of stamp duty for our home in London and don't really want to pay more if we moved.

All my external stakeholders are in London.

I always noticed that a significant number of London based Civil Servants seemed to view London as being the only place to be and often acted as though nowhere else in the country properly existed.
Which is exactly why schemes like this and the BBC's move out are necessary.