House Share in London as Young Professional

[Marlenaa]

DD is due to move to London this summer to start her grad job. Due to the nature of the work/hours, she needs to live nearby.

She’ll earn around £35k a year. Or £2200 a month after tax and student loans.

The problem is, decent (non student) house shares are about £850-900 a month before bills. So possibly £1000 a month on somewhere to live! Just a room!

Is this normal? Manageable?

Sadly yes, it is normal.

It’s London. That’s cheep!

Yep, that's pretty normal. £900/month is the going rate for a room in a young professionals flatshare near me (London E1). Obviously you can pay a lot more though!

Yep normal! Surely she's been living on a lot less as a student though?

Its definitely doable. I earn that and pay full bills and council tax. Plus a car repayment. I'm guessing she'd only be paying a share of bills. My rent is the same.

Yes, about normal, depending where she lives. And that’s a fabulous starting salary for a graduate. Is she being too picky over where to live, though? Move a zone further out, and it’ll be cheaper. My colleagues straight out of university earn about 23-4K gross for shiftwork graduate jobs.

thats London! And she’s on a premium salary as a grad. I also think those flat shares sound on the cheap side. Does she not know any other friends from uni etc already in London?

Yes, this is absolutely fine - when i first moved to London 10yrs ago, i was earning 29k and paid £800 a month + bills so 35k sounds ok to me.

She could find cheaper houseshares by potentially looking further out / next zone. When you say nearby, what does that actually mean? Is she doing shifts so cant rely on the tube for example? If not, sometimes just two tube stops further out makes very little commuting time difference but can have a big impact on rent.

How is she looking for shares? I used to use spareroom to find mine.

Sadly yes that is very normal, though I suspect you could find one for c£700 with some compromises on location and perhaps quality. Is her pay likely to increase fairly quickly?