Where do British Expats move to in Sydney

[BritishDadToSydney]

Hi all really appreciate some advice on emigrating to Sydney.

I work in warehouse automation and will have a few customers and projects mainly in and around the Sydney Southwest, Canterbury-Bankstown, Parramatta areas. So committing will be west of Sydney rather than into the CBD. My wife is a teacher so finding a school for her to work shouldn’t be too difficult to find locally.

We are from Nottingham, England, and live outside of the city in a village where travel into the city is easy (20/30 mins bus) but have green spaces around us which is important to us. We prefer being outside rather than inside and both me and my wife enjoy walking our dog, taking our boy (2yo) to the parks/kids stay and play sessions and dining out.

I keep reading plenty of posts of areas that are either high ethnic areas with crime, not really expat friendly, or areas that are not really ideal for commuting wether that be to the CBD or west. These posts I’ve read on multiple platforms have all been from years ago and difficult to assess if we should be concentrating more on certain areas or not.

We are looking for an area that has good public schools for when our boy is old enough, good transport routes into the CBD, near nice parks for walks, teaching our son to ride a bike, play sports etc… We will be emigrating towards the start of 2026 and looking at renting (not apartment) for a few years before finding our feet and purchasing a house once we have residency. I’d say our budget is up to $1000pw for rental. Ive read that the cost of living is around $6000 for a family of 4 in Sydney. Is this true?

My most favourable area I’ve read to move to would be the inner west (Concord/North Strathfield).

My question would be is this an area that’s recommendable for a family to live and grow, or if not based on our circumstances where should we start concentrating our efforts in researching further?

None of the areas you mentioned are known for their green spaces and probably aren’t what you’re looking for. Generally the west of Sydney is seen as the “rougher” part, but no worse than Nottingham can be. It’s also hotter than the eastern parts of the city as you don’t get the sea breeze. You’ll likely have to accept a longer commute, anything up to an hour is pretty standard.

The cost of living will depend entirely on your living standards and age of your children. You aren’t entitled to the daycare subsidy until you have PR and rates are from $150-$250 per day depending on the suburb and provider. I would say $6000 a month is very low if around $4k is going on rent and you have to factor in daycare. I would budget more like $10,000 to be safe. Food is also more expensive than the UK, around $1000 a month isn’t uncommon.

Those areas would be worth looking into further. As with most things you’ll have to compromise on your wish list as the suburbs you want to be close to for work aren’t the best for outside lifestyle or commuting to the city. Summer Hill, Dulwich Hill and Petersham are all lovely places to live with good schools and a village feel, but probably not an ideal commute!

The average house price in Sydney is $1.6m, but will be more in the areas you’ve mentioned and ones I’ve suggested. The market hasn’t slumped post covid like in the UK so don’t bet on anything coming down any time soon!

All in all it’s a great place to live and there will be a suburb you fall in love with. It’s just a very big place so it might take a while and a bit of searching. Good luck with the move!

Sydney is very expensive and the rental market is very tight. $1000 pw won’t go far if you are ruling out apartments. For comparison, while renovating, we rented a 2 bed very basic semi in the east for 1200pw over three years ago (so during COVID when things were cheaper). Things have gone up quite a bit since then. I would also allow quite a bit more than $6k a month. Expats on packages tend to live east or north shore/northern beaches. But that assumes you have a company package to help with costs.

The Hills area is very popular with British expats and much better linked now with the new Metro. Downside of the metro of course is increased housing costs. If you are driving Parramatta would not be too far. Your wife does realise that she won’t be able to just turn up as a teacher and get a job? There is an accreditation process she will need to go through (I’m sure you have already worked that out but if you google there is plenty of information). A lot of teaching positions are casual or temporary - my son is a High School teacher and is currently waiting to see if he has a job next year despite there being a massive teacher shortage in our area (North Shore so expensive, he still lives at home aged 25). Having said that Sydney is an amazing place to live and raise a family so I hope it works out for you. We used a migration agent as we didn’t want to uproot the family unless we had PR on arrival, might be worth chatting to one about your circumstances.

I don't think anyone moves to Canterbury-Bankstown, Parramatta because they like it . The only direction I would look at is maybe North, so Epping maybe, but not in your price range. I agree with previous poster, Petersham is nice, but big green spaces, not so much.
Why do you need to have good commute into the CBD?
Sydney is the second-least affordable city for middle-income buyers in the world just being Honk Kong so if you want to save for a house, it will be tough, especially because you have under-budgeted everything. The cost of rental and living in general. $1000 a week is 4.300 a month. You will soon see that the quality of houses in the $1000 range is quite low. Also many houses do not have heating. Insane, I know, and Sydney gets cold in winter and hot in summer (well , not this year, horrible weather so far). Heating the house will be expensive. Public transport is expensive, cars are even more expensive, both to buy and to run.
I would strongly recommend you book a flight outside school holidays (on both hemispheres) and come down for a prospective visit.
Moving here unless paid by a company will be expensive.
Visas unless paid by a company will be expensive.
School unless you are a permanent resident will be expensive. Public schools are NOT free for temporary residents. We paid $5000 per child when we moved years ago.
Fresh food so vegetables, fruits, fish, meat is expensive. Crap is cheap.
Outings unless you just go for nature stuff is expensive.

and something you need to consider is that cost of flying is crazy now. Both domestic and international. Unless you have a good salary, you might be stuck for a few years and not able to visit family and friends.

Then a word about teaching. Some areas have a lot of behaviour and conflict in schools so pick the area well.