Moving to the UK from Australia

[Allybee84]

Hello everyone,

I am a 34 year old Mum based in Western Australia with my husband and little boy aged, 2.5. We are Australians with Aussie passports but also have EU passports/Italian passport via my ancestry.

We're thinking about moving to the UK and considering London. The lifestyle in Australia is great for raising a toddler but we are bored of living in an isolated city and crave the culture and proximity to Europe that the UK offers. We love the English countryside - Australia is beautiful but we love to read by the fire and trudge through mud more as much as the beach :)

It's an inopportune time to move with Brexit on the horizon and we'll have to see what happens in the coming months before we make big decisions.

I have recently finished qualification at Univery in Professional Writing and Publishing but my work history is fairly chequered/varied but I would like to find a job in media/press. My husband is a Commercial Property Valuer. I'm wondering our chances of finding jobs.

General opinions and guidance appreciated. Feel free to be as honest as you like. I guess I'm wondering how difficult it will be in the current climate and whether the lifestyle of having a toddler in London is as great as I envision. I'm fantasising about Hyde park, a white Christmas where we aren't too hot to eat pudding and roast, the museums and weekend trips to Paris. I know the realities of commuting, living in a small place and in a city where people don't make small talk but I still want it !

Feel free to give it to me straight...

Oh the weather! Australia feels so open and large when you look at the skies. You rarely get that low down, overcast, miserable cloud cover which England suffers from for weeks on end. So depressing.

I lived in London in my 20s, and now live in Perth, and think you would be absolutely mad to do this in the current Brexit climate. In fact I'd avoid the UK completely and consider somewhere else in Europe. What about Ireland, I lived in Cork for a few years and it was lovely. Or if I you speak Italian I'd give lovely Italy a go. You need to rip off those rose tinted specs, unless you are wealthy you won't be living anywhere near Hyde Park, and it hardly ever snows. Oh and I loved living in London, but I moved out as soon as I had kids as a house with a garden was too expensive, and childcare was also eye watering! Please do your due diligence, there is a reason more people move in the opposite direction.

Based on what you say you want, and where you're coming from, I would definitely recommend anywhere in the UK except for London!
Look at towns/cities outside of London, preferably not far from an airport so you can easily explore Europe.
English countryside is gorgeous, but you don't get that in London!

Lol OP this is probably the worst time in the last 60 years to get balanced answers on the pros of living in the UK. Everything's going to shit right now.

Who knows what the visa situation will be when you're in a position to move?

In terms of lifestyle, London is an exciting, global city. There's always something going on and you feel like you're part of it. It's expensive, but it sounds like your DH's job is relatively well paid. Not so much that you can live near Hyde park, but you'd certainly be able to afford the tube fare to visit it. And London does have other parks!

And we do have white xmases sometimes - we had two around ten years ago. Mostly it just rains though.

I think your big adjustment would be climate and space. London is crowded and gardens aren't big. Also the climate affects not just your mood but what you do - people spend a lot of the year going from one indoor place to another - whether work or home or a pub or restaurant or the theatre etc. So that's maybe something to keep in mind as it can be an adjustment for Australians.

Tbh if I had an Italian passport I'd seriously be considering Italy - plenty of culture, great food, and a decent enough climate for spending time outdoors, some lovely beaches, more likely to have more family space in terms of home.

And no bloody brexit!

Have you always live in Perth op?

What about trying other parts of Australia? Perth does have an (international?) reputation for being dull and so far away from everywhere (so expensive to visit there also).

How about Melbourne if you want
cooler winters?

Otherwise I'd suggest you all do a crash course in Italian and try there.

I've lived in London and Melbourne and I would recommend Melbourne.

London is hard to get around with a toddler and everything is so crowded, including the museums. You'd see more culture in Melbourne because it's much more accessible.

But moving outside London might work better. Try and find someone near a decent airport for European flights.

I wouldn't move to Oxford or Cambridge, personally, and I've lived in Cambridge myself before. Why? The traffic is terrible and they're heaving with tourists all year round. They're also very, very expensive. Personally, if you're not going to move to London itself due to the very high cost of living there, I would either move to either a nice, smaller city within the London catchment area (aka the Home Counties), or I'd go to one of the large Midlands/Northern cities. Edinburgh is gorgeous, btw, but it's chilly a lot of the year and it's also expensive by Scottish standards. You can see how much rents are though online, so you'll be able to compare between say, London and Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham, Edinburgh and London.

As for other comparable cities in Europe - there isn't another London - and I can say that as someone who has travelled to most of the major cities in Europe and who has lived in Italy for a year. Paris is lovely, but smaller than London and with the recent 'gilets jaunes' protests you can see how lawless France is at times (although I appreciate that were riots in London too back in 2011). Rome is also lovely, but it's not like London - it's much smaller and in order to live there you'd need to speak Italian (do you with your Italian heritage? Your DH would also need to though if he was to work and Italy is shockingly bureaucratic). What I'm trying to say is that moving to other European cities throws up the problem of language. There are countries in Europe where many (though by no means all) people speak excellent English - Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, etc - but none of them is comparable to London.

*should say CITIES in Europe

Dublin is about to get really busy, so worth considering?

Manchester is very friendly and cosmopolitan. Just saying!!!!!!!

Thanks so much for all the input. We've travelled heaps but lived in Perth all our lives. We're going to apply for jobs and go for there but will steer clear of London and look at other cities.

Blown away by the informed and helpful answers on here. You are all so wise, experienced and switched on. I think this is another motivation for moving, getting out of the 'Perth bubble' that can be quite insular especially after having children.

Thanks again, this really has been eye opening.

Perth is very lovely, my rellies actually lived down in Rockingham. The beaches were glorious (so was the fish at Hillary’s!). Our visits to Perth led us to wonder whether we could consider emigrating.

In 2007 we packed our bags and headed to Sydney for a year. We had a child by this point. At the end of this year we came home and decided to give it six months before making a decision.

We ultimately decided to stay in the uk. Jobs played a part (my DH would have to go to an ‘area of need’ for two years if we moved permanently). The reason for staying was also that we would miss Europe too much. Soo much to see, so diverse. By comparison, Australia felt bland. And honestly, truly, we love Australia.

I also knew I couldn’t live anywhere but Sydney. Every where else was so small and isolated and....two dimensional. But my god I miss it!

The two countries are so different, you’ll yearn for the one you don’t choose. I couldn’t personally spend my life yearning for home. I used to watch British TV in Sydney and feel homesick. You may feel the same in reverse.

But honestly you may love the uk. Do your research, come back here, PM us. Good luck!

Ps love to my beautiful southern land ❤️

Hi OP I'm from one of the smaller Aus cities (not perth) living in greater London ie suburbs with our young family. I think there have been some unnecessarily negative comments, feel free to pm me if you like as I don't want to put too much outing on here but I love raising my kids in my little corner of the world. Brexit is a major concern but presumably you wouldn't be doing anything immediately, hopefully we'll know more soon