To ask, if you feel your job can only be done in London, what you do?

[CleverButScatty]

I often see people in Mumsnet say that they could not move away from London because of the job that they do.

I have also seen on a thread this morning sharing disbelief that a company has located it's head office away from London and still expect to be able to find quality staff that will be office based a couple of days a week. (Apparently there must not be any quality people to recruit in the whole of Norfolk ... I wonder what Norfolk based Mumsnetters' views about that are!)

I am curious about how much of this is reality and how much perception/snobbery.

So if you have a business that could only possibly find the staff you need in London, or have a job that can only be done in London, what is it you do?

I know I have made a tongue in cheek comment above, but this is genuinely not meant to be goady. I know there will be industries/ central government functions etc that are London centric, but I wonder if that is quite as much as people think.

TIA if you take the time to comment.

Lots of firms are London only. The ones with offices in Manchester and Birmingham generally have London offices too, but they're smaller firms that pay less to begin with, then even less because it's in the regions.

The big salaries come from working with clients that are prepared to pay top whack and who need highly specialised knowledge, like private equity funds, and they're in London.

The clients that use the firms in the regions are prioritising price, and don't necessarily need the degree of specialism that you get in London.

Bear in mind that at the top firms the newly qualified lawyers are on £150k plus bonus, whereas someone ten years qualified would be earning far less than that in the regions.

This map shows some of the job vacancies across the UK right now
Over 80% of our jobs are based outside of London, see what’s available near you!
For a full list of jobs near you, head over to Civil Service Jobs.

https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/our-locations/

I do know a professional drummer. He lives in the NW. Not a jazz drummer but still a drummer.

I work at a University with London in the name. So can’t really do that in the regions.

I just want to be really clear that I am not for a second suggesting people.dbpuld move away from London.
I am just noticing that a lot of people say they can't even if they wanted because their job doesn't exist elsewhere, or the suggestion that a company is foolish to base it's headquarters outside of London because they will not have access to suitably skilled staff.

I know that most people live where they do because of ties such as family and friends, bot their job and would not suggest people change that.

I just think sometimes people are a bit ridiculous about the huge majority of the UK that is not London.

I also think people are a bit disingenuous about how niche their job is. I work in education. The exact role that I do,, dealing with the exact organisations, NHS trust, schools etc I work with only exists in my area. However there are umpteen similar enough roles elsewhere that I could relocate without a salary drop of I needed.

What I wanted to understand was how many jobs there are where the industry/ role just doesn't really exist outside of London.

But presumably most, if not all, councils have that same function so you could get a similar job for a different council.

I think you're looking at this the wrong way OP. There are certain industries heavily based in London. Therefore people who work in those industries tend to live in or around London. Yes, many of those jobs can be done remotely, but most organisations still want their employees in at least part of the week. Therefore you still have to live a commutable distance (commutable being up to the individual - I know many people in East Anglia commuting to London). It isn't that the jobs cannot possibly be done anywhere else than London, but that an organisation generally wants to be close to the industry hub, and therefore it is unlikely that employees skilled in that particular industry will live hours away from the industry hub.

Thanks. So really it comes down to the fact that the higher value clients are also London centric?

That’s unfair @JaninaDuszejko

I don’t see many posters/people saying ‘their job can't be done elsewhere’ , are ‘doing a high powered exciting job that couldn't be done elsewhere’, or that other places are ‘backwater’.

Most of us have ordinary jobs and there are just loads more jobs in London compared to most other places in the UK. Meaning more prospects and options, often higher wages. And / or we have worked here, settled and have housing and DC in schools they like.

Also no need to be disparaging about living in a flat!

I was about to say insurance is a good example of a sector that can be outside London, but realised that what was Norwich Union, now Aviva, is now based in London.

This is the type of generic statement I am trying to unpick a little.

I’m a debt capital markets specialist. There aren’t many of those in the UK outside of London.

High court judge/KC

Face to face roles in London local or national government or contractor for them who needs to physically see people in London constantly?

People in service roles like bus driver etc could work elsewhere but there'd be much less work in rural or semi rural areas.

This is what I am getting at. I am not for a second suggesting that people should relocate.
I am challenging the idea that so many people claim they couldn't if they wanted to because their job only exists in London.

I feel that most people will actually live there for non work reasons such as family and friends.

Well yes, I could work at another university elsewhere, but I’d be hesitant to move outside of commuter distance of London, as there are so many institutions there so many options.

I think for lots of people it’s the same - it’s not the JOB that can’t be done elsewhere, but just the fact that so many companies are based in London so there’s more opportunity? That’s part of the reason why the OP in the original thread didn’t want to uproot her whole family to move to Norfolk…what if in a couple of years she wants to change jobs? There’s not much else in her industry in Norfolk. So she’d then need to uproot the family again, or just be stuck there.

Well actually no. My team only exists where I work due to the nature of the economy of the local authority. But even so, someone has to work in London councils. London hospitals. London nurseries. London supermarkets.

That's absolutely fine, my issue is with the fact the she felt the company's only choice was to let a Londoner work remotely or not find quality staff.
I felt it was a fairly arrogant outlook.

The concentration of money, power and politics has resulted in decades of damage outwith London - jobs, business, and policy.

We've reached a tipping point in the UK, and one consequence of the 'London problem' is the rise of Reform (not a Reform fan btw).

Symbolism is everything, so, here's an idea: how about a peripatetic Parliament that moves location every (say) five years?

Remote working makes this entirely possible. Obviously it would still need to be a city, for formal events, but just imagine the possibilities.

Westminster palace is falling apart, so now's the time. Plus, MPs would be forced to spend more time in their constituencies.

You can work in private offices at EO, HEO and SEO grades, they have to be based in London as that is where the SpADs, SoS, Perm Secs etc are and the role directly supports those. I work with people at these grades who do wfh but mostly are in the Westminster offices. It's means they often get the experience to progress rapidly though.

Civil service roles that have regular Ministerial contact (so senior roles, any high profile policy, communications etc) usually require presence in London. Many Ministers won’t accept videoconferences and will only see people in person. It’s career limiting if you’re not in the London office regularly, for those sort of roles.

And even if your Minister will VC, that only works when they’re in the Department. When they’re in the House of Commons you need to be there with them because a) the tech there is awful and even mobile phones often don’t work, b) the IT isn’t always as secure as the Department and c) you can’t remotely support them in a debate, it needs to be in person.

We ourselves live in Bath OP but work in music industry but it does mean my H still goes to London once a week on average and has a fair few overnighters - the peripheral industry’s round the business mean most people want to meet you ‘in London’ -

We ourselves live in Bath OP but work in music industry but it does mean my H still goes to London once a week on average and has a fair few overnighters - the peripheral industry’s round the business mean most people want to meet you ‘in London’ -

Office for National Statistics has various info and analysis, eg number of job ads by region / area in different occupational groupings.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/labourdemandvolumesbyprofessionandlocalauthorityuk/january2017todecember2022ONS

As a policy EO I was in and out of Ministers offices and Westminster regularly. It was impossible to do if you lived outside London. And it only got more intense as you got promoted. I started on a whole £15k pa in 2000, which was hard to live on, but the job was amazing.

I am a tax director in a large listed corporate. My experience is based mainly in global companies dealing with international issues - not a lot of UK specific stuff. I don't do what would be considered the "bread and butter" work (compliance etc), only really advisory/large projects/litigation.

There are a handful of roles outside London, only really in big cities like Birmingham, Manchester. Often the roles outside London are smaller companies and are really uk centric, and I don't have the right experience! Occasionally a role will come up in, for example, Bristol, or Derby, but you make yourself very vulnerable if you move somewhere with few alternatives if it all goes pete tong.

A friend moved away for a decent job. 3 years later they decided to shut that office and her job vanished. She was stuffed, there was nothing else like it locally.

There are hmrc jobs in a few cities but thats quite a different job, its very uk and lots of the jobs will be focussed on stuff like vat or small business or personal tax, i don't do any of those.