Moving from London to Bristol... Jobs in Bristol?

[Aerie6]

Our family is investigating the possibility to move from London to Bristol within the next 6 months. I am currently on mat leave and my OH works as a contractor (developer) in London. I used to work in HR and prior to the pregnancy I was working towards changing my career. Now that we are getting close to the move I am starting to get concerned about jobs. I would like to be able to work locally in Bristol rather than commuting to London, and my OH is willing to commute to London 2 days per week.

For those of you who live in Bristol, do you find it's reasonably easy to find jobs locally, or more often than not you have to commute to London?

This is one important item to clarify before buying a house in Bristol so any advice from your experience is much appreciated.

Thanks! X

Myself and my colleagues/friends have never had trouble finding work in Bristol. Is there any roles you may be interested in on any of the job sites? I work in Financial services and never had any problems and get contacted by recruitment agencies regularly. Hope this helps.

What sort of thing did you want to do in Bristol? If you wanted to stay in HR there are so many huge law firms down there with big HR departments for you to consider - I'm a lawyer so can only comment on that industry but Bristol is full of insurance companies too so plenty of opportunities.

I live in Bristol and don't know anyone who regularly commutes to London for work.

From a contractor perspective, ime, it depends on skill set I.e. Dot Net, Java etc. Easy to google to see what's available - but day rates are likely to be more generous the closer you get to the big smoke. Can't comment re HR roles but there are a healthy amount of decent sized employers in Bristol so there should be demand.

Personally, I commute to London 3 days a week and see plenty of the same people catching the 7am from Parkway. It's v v v expensive though and soul destroying in the winter - but the pay, for me, is double what I'd get locally so, right now, I suck it up for the benefits and to make sure I have a lovely home in the best city in the UK :)

There are jobs in Bristol but it's very competitive in some sectors - especially if you want to move into the public sector! A lot of graduates stay in the area so there are many well qualified and talented people around - we could recruit most people who make it to interview they're all so good!

Finding a reasonably priced family house in Bristol near to good schools is another battle (we had to move out of the city) but may seem pretty cheap compared to London prices.

Bristol is a really affluent city so it surprises me that a question about employability has been asked.

Do you know Bristol at all?

I'm an accountant and my husband is in IT, we have never had any issues with finding jobs in Bristol. It's a great place to work and live but I agree that the over-subscribed schools is an issue.