To ask if you commute to London for work

[Lurverly]

From outside london (Obvs) how far do you live from london and where and how much does it cost you?

ive been offered a job that will pay me about £500 pcm more after tax than current role BUT it’s London and I’m West Midlands. An open return train ticket seems to be £100, and I’d have to go once a week. I’ve looked up season tickets and it’s £700 a month! Surely this can’t be right? Are there cheaper ways? It’s a good opportunity but I’m not sure it’s worth it for an extra £100 a month

Try renegotiating your salary based on commuting costs. If they want you in London you should have a London weighted salary to compensate.

I’m surprised it’s only £700 a month! You might need to factor in parking. From where I live (Hertfordshire/Essex borders), a season ticket would be at least £500 a month. Personally, unless it’s a great development opportunity with promotion opportunities and you won’t ever need to go in more than once a week (or you’d be willing to move closer to London), I’m not sure the difference would be enough to make it work for me. Especially once travel time is factored in.

Season tickets don’t cost in if you’re travelling one day a week. You just a have to buy a day return.

Thing is, I guess it is. I get 40k now so 2.4 after tax and deductions and this job is 50k and I don’t really have the experience to push for more, but even then if I got to 55, that’s like 3.1 after tax and deductions… a LOT of money on rail cost

It does seem substantially cheaper to buy and adhoc ticket

There’s no parking, my local station has street parking but I’m floored at how expensive it is, driving would be cheaper (stressful so I won’t but I’m floored at how expensive it is )

Are the days confirmed 1-2 weeks in advance so you can buy cheaper tickets? Plenty of people in my office commute to London from far away and we have set days in the office which means they know months in advance to buy the tickets.

I commute into London from Bedfordshire, currently 2 days a week, just about to change to 3, just about to take out a season ticket which will be £440ish a month

How was the subject of being in the office once per week approached? Is it definitely only once per week, or is the contract in London but with flexibility about attendance? There are a few reasons for asking as you don't want to suddenly find out you have to be there more often. Also, will the new employer pay travel costs? I'm assuming not from your question.

Then you have to look at the long term prospect and will it give you a forward move in your career plan?

Lastly, have a look at train reliability. I moved from a London Borough where the train was a 40 minute journey in with a 20 minute walk to the station out to a much nicer area were the train journey was an hour with a 4 minute walk to the station, so an almost identical commute time albeit with a much higher ticket price.

The trains were so unreliable and expensive that it was faster and cheaper for me to drive the car to London. I ended up riding my motorbike most days.

Split tickets booked well in advance. Train home after 7pm

Splitmyfare etc

I do a day or two a week in the City from north of Leeds, although its a much bigger wage increase for me than for you by the sound of things

Trains are ok from newstreet as there’s a lot of them

its one day but you’re free to come in more, it would be good opportunity wise, but it’s a lot of effort and I have a young family, so I’d really want to reap the reward for such effort. I might as if one every other week is possible

You can buy more ad hoc type season tickets now but they are only worth it if you travel 3 days a week or more, sometimes you can get 10 journey tickets to use within a few months. But you live so far away it seems madness.

Yes. About 45mins. SE area.

Hybrid work though so 3 home / 2 office.

£500 extra pcm might not be enough even if you only go 2x/week. You will just about breakeven.

Commuting those distances can be brutal (from West Midlands) as well.

Yes this is what I'm going to do (new job).

My advance ticket (return) can be £24, buy on the day (or day before) £55 (or more). Madness.

Yeah the commuting energy costs are rough! I used to do it adhoc at an old job but company covered the costs.

theyve said 1 day a week but there is flexibility… wonder if I could book a month in advance and it would reduce the cost

It’s exactly the same! And I misread the cost the cheaper and longer train is £99 but the faster train is £188 what a joke

Train tickets in advance will be much cheaper. I travel from London to East Midlands a fair bit and never pay £100 return, usually around £60, but can be less.

For cheaper tickets you need.ro look further than a month in advance, at least six weeks. The further in advance the cheaper it is (generally).

Is it always going to be one day a week? Even Zoom have changed their minds recently about employee attendance.

Unless your current job is very bad or in danger of ending, I would not take the job in your shoes.

Sympathies, OP - I’m in the same boat. The only way to make it less ruinous is to book your tickets as far in advance as possible, like 12 weeks. You can set an alert for your route on Trainline. And then never deviate from those days, obviously, otherwise you have to rebook at a more expensive rate. Sometimes it’s worth doing 2 days one week with a (cheap) overnight hotel, so you’re only travelling 2 weeks out of 4 but same in-office face-time.

I think this will make/break your new job really.

You will need to get this in writing.

My job is on an agile basis, so I can work from anywhere, its just understood that "normal" is 3/2 basis. In practice, we do a lot less at work (1 every 2 weeks) vs home.

It will also depend a lot on your manager. If you have one that thinks "as long as the work gets done" its all good, then you will be fine. Some managers are very old school and can make your life miserable by insisting on more days in office (for no real productivity reason), so thats also a risk.

Ultimately, if this job is a a step up career-wise, and you can do 1/week in office (for first 6 months due to probation), I would personally take the risk for £10k gross more (20%).

Yes it’s one day per week but they can be flexible they said, but you can come in more if you want (pass) my current place 1 day per week and tbh I barely do that anymore

Ask them if you can be contracted as a home worker. You'd then be able to claim back your travel costs from your work.
I travel from just outside London to Warrington once or twice a month - paid for by work so works fine for me.

I travel each week Chesterfield to London St Pancras £13.70 - £22.10 single (includes railcard), depends on day and time. Under 2 hours.
Leave St P 20.31 train EMR. Book 2-3 months in advance.

Coach takes under 3 hours to Golders Green (around £10) ( Therefore no negotiating London traffic ) then Northern line into central London £2.70.

You need to negotiate meeting times though to get these really cheap fares ie is after 10am possible? and working late eg to 7.30pm?

Astonished at the prices you're quoting for much shorter journeys.

I’ll certainly ask that, but they did ask me in initial screening if working and commuting to london would put me off and I said no but I didn’t anticipate £200 returns that’s insane