If you could live anywhere in the UK outside London....

[Monkeybutts]

If you could live anywhere in the UK outside London....where would you go to find an affordable family home near good schools (primary and secondary)?

We are returning to the UK from living abroad. No plans yet for where we will work and no need to be totally close to friends and family. So the whole UK is our oyster...highest priority is great schooling!

Any thoughts?

York is historic but full of hen parties and drunks so I don't recommend that

@NeverTalksToStrangers maybe but NI is completely backwards compared to the rest of the uk 🇬🇧

Lincolnshire has some of the best grammar schools in the country and some of the best priced houses! They also have one or two extremely good comprehensive schools - William Farr is one.

Southwold, Nottinghamshire has a very good comprehensive - The Minster School, and reasonably priced housing too.

morallybankrupt it depends where in York you go and when you venture into town.
I have to disagree re: herts. Moving from Yorkshire to Herts was a massive disappointment. Severely lacking in hills and any natural landmarks really. For me at least. Give me Ribblehead Viaduct or Malham Cove any day.

Winchester is lovely for younger couples; a tiny bit livelier than our area. I’m not other sure you’re going to get much in that budget though and whilst Hampshire has beautiful spots it also has a few grim places.
My daughter has a sweet little terraced Victorian house in walking distance of the station. One bedroom and a box room plus a converted loft room. No parking but a small rear garden. £500k
Some areas around are going to be cheaper but Andover and Basingstoke aren’t anywhere near as nice. Rough even with huge housing estates built for London overspill. Petersfield is a nice Hampshire market town with good travel connections and schools. Not sure of house prices.

West Sussex is lovely too but housing is expensive in the nicer places near the good schools. Chichester is a fabulous place to raise a family but house prices are high. Arundel is nice but again, I think house prices are higher. Horsham might suit.

If you wanted a nice place with more affordable housing I’d maybe think about Cheltenham.

Some lovely places mentioned, but how feasible will it be to get technology jobs in those areas?

Unless/until OP specifies what sort of tech job, it's not going to be really possible to say. It's too broad a category to narrow it down just from the sector name. Perhaps OP will be doing that bit of research herself?

Exeter

We have lived here for 5 years now. We previously lived in London, Vancouver and Oxford.

Good schools, affordable houses, great sense of community, and half hour drive from the beach, Dartmoor, lots of National Trust places, close to Cornwall.

Great outdoors life, we are still discovering beaches! Great food and local produce.

The negatives are: students (but only here 7 months a year), lack of cultural life (but there is a good small venue that has the odd good gig), not a lot of great restaurants.

Bristol. Vibrant city, close to the countryside and Wales, gorgeous houses in some areas, a lot of things to do, not as busy or expensive as London.

So many interesting suggestions, I'm overloading poor old Rightmove with my searches now!

For jobs, I'm hoping we could both find remote gigs. Barring that, we would have to commute to a city with work available. We are both in web development.

I've been searching a bit and Cambridge, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester and Edinburgh all seem to have some decent job listings. 🤷‍♀️

West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire.

I'm with @JellyBellies

Also love Hampshire and Kent as grew up there but WB has amazing schools and it's a brilliant town atmosphere plus houses keep their value

Thanks @flumpybear! Yes, great schools and the added advantage of no 11 plus.
My kids have thrived since moving here so I recommend it.

Hexham
Newcastle
York
Leeds
Sheffield
Edinburgh
Glasgow

"I have to disagree re: herts. Moving from Yorkshire to Herts was a massive disappointment. Severely lacking in hills and any natural landmarks really. For me at least. Give me Ribblehead Viaduct or Malham Cove any day."

I live in Herts and have family in Yorkshire, and I have to agree with this. If we didn't need to commute to London I'd move to North Yorks in a heartbeat.

Some parts of Herts are lovely and have great schools - but you'd struggle to find an affordable family home in them.

Winchester is very expensive £400k is really flat money there, I think Alton is too

Folkestone. Returned to the UK a couple of years ago, in a similar situation. We looked quite extensively before plumping for here (a massive gamble as we’d only visited it once) and it was the best decision ever. Money goes a long way here, husband can still travel to London in less than a hour and the kids love being by the sea. It’s simply fabulous!

A previous poster suggested north wales. I would say that you will def get a nice house but jobs distinctly lacking. However, not too far from Manchester. You will get a lot better housing for your money up north ..... But I'm a southern girl personally although having lived north, south west and east!

I'd do York or Durham. If you want Bham grammar schools they are changing the admissions criteria so harder to get in outside borough of Birmingham

Worcestershire- Malvern area.
Beautiful, welcoming, reasonably priced.

Malvern itself is practically vertical. But lovely.

Hampshire is pretty idyllic.

I'm London based and not currently moving. We have looked at some options though.

We have family who've moved to Clevedon. A great town easily commutable from Bristol with a good selection of primary schools and an outstanding secondary. It's by the sea and has some lovely surrounding countryside (cheddar gorge).

I'm not sure I'd consider an area with the 11+/grammar system. I'd certainly research the system very carefully having read what I have on here.