To think leaving UK is the best Option now

[LeavinUK]

We are thinking of leaving UK now to move to Dubai or USA. We have two young children who are in nursery, not in School yet and one will start school next year.
The reasons are the state of UK. Looking at the state of NHS, the waits are so long if you ever have to go to A&E, you can access better healthcare of you have insurance in any other country. Another reason is the ever increasing tax, we both work full time and I have the potential to earn six figures but I am staying at a flexible job to earn under 6 figures and I am forced to not get a promotion or switching to High paying jobs by the fact that I won't be eligible for 30 funded hours of Childcare which I I think is very unfair on hard working people who want to progress in career while having young children. UK doesn't feels like a family friendly country overall.
We also don't feel safe now going out to city centre etc which have become a ghost town and so much of illegal immigrants loitering around and so much increase in crimes.
Our friends who moved to Dubai are able to afford full time house help, nanny and a driver while earning similar to ourselves. While, here we are struggling with young kids and paying huge taxes. I have family in USA who are earning big bucks and paying much less taxes and being able to save and invest better for retirement while we will be working till 68 potentially 70 which is totally insane.
AIBU to feel leaving UK is the best option now and have you made a move or considering moving?

Thank you! We actively avoided areas popular with expats when we were looking for a property! 😂

My advice if you're seriously considering moving here would be to start improving your French now. They're increasing the standard of French required for long-stay visas from Jan 2026. A decent standard of French will make navigating the bureaucracy soo much easier.

What makes Bradford third world?

@LeavinUK

I don't want to become high earner due to the tax implications and end of any childcare hours funded by government

"I could earn more money, but I'd have to pay tax on it, and I'd rather get free childcare from the government that I'm avoiding paying taxes to."

The taxes are only going to go up but very little improvement in the public services

"...though if I were earning more, and therefore paying more taxes, I think I should get better public services than low earners who don't pay as much tax..."

Dearheart, I don't think your problem is geography. I think it's ethics.

Having been to Dubai a couple of times I can see the appeal, it is very clean and safe, people speak English there are some nice properties etc etc. But it is a bit of an urban jungle and very superficial and very strict, I would not choose it as a place to live.

OP have you actually stayed at all out in the ME? I lived there in Qatar and worked in Dubai as a consequence too. It’s bloody awful. I am also in tech by the way.

USA is a better choice I’d say, but not without its issues.

I also think it sounds like you don’t live in a very nice place which might be clouding your view. I now live in a nice market town in Oxfordshire, I don’t have any of the issues you are ironically citing as a reason to leave.

Yes. It's very safe, great restaurants.
Also, it's under UK jurisdiction, so it's not a Third World Hell Hole (sic).

Nothing, of course. 🙄

You'd be utterly mad to with either of those choices OP.

YANBU. I am in a similar position to you and it's just shite. You're held back in every which way when it comes to earning potential here.

If you earn over £100k then you can contribute money to your pension to bring your total taxable income to below the threshold for 30hrs free childcare.

Racist much? Too many people of colour in Bradford for you?

Hi, I’m an American. 🙂

Healthcare in the US will cost you money - potentially a lot of money, if anyone’s got a chronic condition or needs major surgery - but the wait times are nothing compared to what I’ve heard on Mumsnet about wait times in the UK. For example, it was recommended that both my kids be evaluated for ADHD, and we only had to wait two months for both of them to get full-day evaluations.

If you live in a middle-class neighborhood, you have a very low chance of encountering gun violence. You mentioned California - an unusually high number of its residents have left the state in the last few years, so I’d do a lot of research before deciding whether to move there. The political and social climate around you will depend a lot on which state you live in. Generally speaking, Americans think the British are awesome, probably because “you lot” made so much of our shared pop culture. You might get a little tired of answering questions about where exactly your accent is from.

I don’t know much about Dubai, but whenever I do hear something about it, it’s usually about either classism or prostitution, so I can’t say I’ve got a positive impression of it, based on my admittedly limited knowledge.

You should definitely go, OP. And persuade your friends who think the same way as you to go too, please.

My husband and I immigrated from the US to Scotland almost 20 years ago and have no regrets. And we are 'immigrants' not expats - we have normal jobs and pay our taxes and had our kids here (who identify as being Scottish) and contribute to society by working hard and volunteering in the local community and recycling and all those things.

We moved for a job and an adventure but quickly realised that life was infinitely better for us here than there so figured out how to stay (legally). You couldn't pay me enough to move back to the states - my husband had an insanely well paid job offer in the states around 8 years ago (headhunted) and we didn't even hesitate in turning it down. Once you add up all the additional costs - and we realised it wouldn't be practical for me to work given the lack of childcare and annual leave - it wasn't actually that much money at all. We've run the numbers and we are far better off here financially once everything is taken into account.

Workweeks are looong and it's entirely possible to have 0 to minimum time off work. Mass shootings are a part of every day life, food standards aren't great (and getting worse) and if either of your kids is a girl or you are considering having more children you should really research what that could mean for you. I could go on and on.

California is crazy expensive. You should look up food prices (just look up a local grocery store and do a weekly shop online, it will blow your mind) and do some research into rental costs. Don't look anywhere around the fires as it's insane just now. Huge homeless populations in San Francisco so avoid that too.

If you do go to the states make sure to carry your passport, green card and anything else relevant on you at all times. ICE is raiding everywhere and while if you're white you're likely to be okay (which is gross and terrible), there's no guarantees of where this is going.

Dubai... well, I'm a woman and a feminist. I have a daughter and I'm Jewish so really take your pick on how impossible that would be for me to consider. Am also a bit of a socialist so couldn't contribute to any of that mess. But like others have said, that's an ethics question not a logistical one.

Great post and really informative!

There’s something so distasteful to have the opportunity to contribute more to the pot for those less fortunate when you can easily afford it, but to instead choose to deliberately not take it, and in fact, keep under so that you can take from a pot you don’t need instead for free childcare.
But even worse, you want to move to a country deliberately because you know you can exploit poor people who have no choice other than to clear up your mess.

its horrid.

So you've not been to Bradford then!

Nothing to do with the people, it's the squalor, so many obvious money laundering places, serious litter problem everywhere, burned out buildings left to rot, open drug dealing on the streets.

You could all live in a lovely gated compound together. Called ‘Echo Chamber Villas’.

There's plenty of areas in the us like this.
There's plenty of areas in the middle east like this

Your assumptions about the us are wrong. They have higher levels of lots of negative things like street homeless, fuel poverty, heating poverty, and general deprivation

The difficultly is that people are often comparing the really snazzy parts of cities to the "worst"cities in the UK. Most of the UK, us, etc live somewhere in between.

I will never understand the mindset of people like you. Don't want to earn six figures because they think they deserve free stuff and don't think their very important self should pay taxes on their megabucks.

The free stuff isn't worth anything near the extra you'd still be taking home. You only pay high tax if you earn high money, leaving plenty thousands extra to live on.

You want the benefits of living in British society but not the responsibilities to that society which come with it.

You want to go live in countries with more misogyny, more danger, higher prices, higher health care costs and more expensive housing because you are not getting free stuff you can more than afford here. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.

So leave. Go for it. Don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out.

P.S. The bit about illegal immigrants in your opening post comes across as disgustingly bigoted. There's no way you can tell who is British just by looking nor their immigration status for that matter.

Your choice of words and phrasing is very odd for a native British person who was educated here. Did you yourself or your family move here thinking life would be cheap, with high wages, low taxes and plenty of free government money before finding out you were very much mistaken. I'm seriously getting that vibe.

Dubai doesn't have a legal minimum wage.

Incidentally, don't for a second believe the OP is real.

It's like someone asked AI to generate a thread based on Elon Musk's anti-UK and anti-Europe talking points.

Try spending 5 minutes in San Francisco. I couldn't believe my eyes. Whole neighbourhoods with drug addicts literally lying in the gutter, shooting up in public, staggering about. I've never seen anything on that scale here. We walked down a street with dozens of drug addicts I'm a semi conscious state.
Bradford seems almost upmarket compared to places I've seen in America.

I don't agree with the OP but "mindset" won't get you a GP appointment around me (south UK)