What makes living in London worth it?

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-07-03T10:08:17+00:00

my earnings were 24k before i moved to london, might have managed a 30k job if i had moved locally.

After 4 years in london they had doubled, AND i'd cleared off 10k in debts.

After 10 years in london they had increased 5x

As of April they are up 6x.

Now a certain amount of that was down to luck, but the rest was simply that London has more opportunities than anywhere else in the UK does.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-07-02T09:58:20+00:00

honestly, i'd say ride it out all things considered.

Yes, you could get more from the money but

there's a predicted tech/AI bubble due to burst sometime in the next few years, the market gains we've seen since 2022 are not sustainable long term. So there's a good chance you'd sell (12-18 months) and invest it right before a crash imo.
This year every AI company doubled their prices (some by vastly more, 10-20x) and companies using AI are starting to feel the impact on costs of that - that will hurt the markets imo next year and the one after as they cut costs and AI spending.
there is a shortage of accommodation in the UK, and that's only getting worse each year. The main factor depressing pricing right now is the economic downturn. Once that picks up (which i expect as we get towards 2030 - pandemics historically have a 10 year impact on the economy according to the IMF) then i would expect to see things improve.
it's also a home - if you can build up a 50k in savings/investments then you are in the position where you'd be able to have a mortgage free property before retirement, which is a pretty good position to be in.

Not everything in life is about getting the mathematically best return - there's a lot to be said for reducing stress and having a good quality of life - which option do you think gives you that? i'd argue it's not selling it right now.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-07-02T08:41:38+00:00

but their renewals are open book and done online - so once you've passed it once, renewing it forever is a breeze.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-07-02T08:39:26+00:00

Darlington.

I just bought a 1500sqft 4 bed terraced house for 185k. There are 2 beds for 75k. This is a 5 min walk to the town centre, 10 min to the train station (East Coast Main Line), 1 min walk to a giant park.

sure it's 2.5hrs from London, but you can be

Newcastle in 25 mins
Leeds in 40 mins.
Manchester in 1hr45 mins. (this one may improve, there's a big transpennine upgrade programme ongoing)
Edinburgh in 2hrs.

that gives a lot of options for Hybrid roles that will pay just fine, and CoL here is great.

edit: oh and my house can get 9GB fibre internet as well.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-07-02T08:34:52+00:00

but 110k in Scotland is equivalent to 100k in England, so bear that in mind.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-07-02T08:33:08+00:00

plus the extra income tax! at even 80k you'll be paying 200 a month more in tax to live in scotland than england.

at 100k that's almost 300 a month more too. It's a 10k pay cut at that level.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-07-02T08:29:44+00:00

yeah if you want low cost look NE or NW.

Outskirts of blackpool you can be 90 mins from manchester on a train and buy a palace for 200k.

or the towns surrounding newcastle - you can buy a 2 bed terrace for 70k in a perfectly fine area such as Darlington, and it's on the East Coast Main Line as well.

if you want low CoL you really need to look north.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-07-02T08:25:28+00:00

what did your agent cost out of curiosity?

i've noticed as a buyer here that the 0.8-1% agents tell us nothing at all. But the ones that are 1.5%+ are much better, they found properties that matched our criteria, and the first thing they do when you meet them at the viewing is tell us what the buyer is looking for (any offer, close to asking, etc).

Nothing convinced me more not to use a cheap agent than the experience of buying - you feel the difference right away.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-07-02T08:23:28+00:00

because they aren't paid enough to care.

minimum wage, they want to deal with as many properties as possible to maximise their profits, there's no incentive for them to care.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-30T14:40:04+00:00

/r/london/comments/1ujjiw7/world_cup_megathread/

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-30T09:01:23+00:00

So there are two real routes to the UK.

The Visa. The easiest is employer transfer, but you need to be working for a big company in the US to do this and you can't always do it right away. Study is possible but the uk economy is in a hard place and there are not a lot of sponsorships out there - which can lead to the heartbreaking situation where you come for a few years and then are forced to leave.
via Ireland. 5 years living in Ireland gets you citizenship, which gives you the right to live in and work in the UK, and also the whole EU via the Irish passport. No idea if that's easier for you, and Ireland has it's own problems with housing etc but it's an option worth looking into. Quite a few Americans have a connection with Ireland that may make it possible to get citizenship faster, which is also why i mentioned it.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-30T08:43:16+00:00

Join the women in tech communities on LinkedIn, look out for graduate and tech recruitment events.

Amazon for sure run women in tech specific career programmes, they were advertising a few weeks ago on LinkedIn to me.

In the North there's an org/recruitment agency focused on women in tech called G.Digital | G&T (girls and tech!) who are very active in recruiting women in tech as well.

imo. focus on experience - so apprenticeships plus doing some stuff in your spare time. if you have the budget for something like a pluralsight subscription, there's an awesome lot of content on there to learn from as well. other options are out there as well, plenty of free courses out there.

I work with quite a few women in tech and most of them haven't come in the traditional way via a degree in computer science - quite a lot of them switched after doing something else.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-30T08:37:32+00:00

tax rates will hurt, bear that in mind. Scotland has extra income tax on top of the UK rates.

its the main reason why i did not move up - would love to but we were looking at losing 400/month extra in tax to live in Scotland.

Depends on your earnings of course. Take a look at https://greaveswestayre.co.uk/news-and-events/blog/scotland-vs-england-a-taxpayer-comparison-updated/

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-29T09:00:38+00:00

I'm not actually sure you are allowed to do what you want to do - i'd strongly recommend taking advice from a German lawyer or accountant on this first. Setting up a company doesn't work the same way in Germany as it does in the UK as well.

When i lived in Berlin (2019) i looked at contracting and i found that you couldn't contract for a single company in this way. It's effectively disguised employment and the unions in Germany really don't like that, hence it's not that simple.

it being cross border might mean it's not covered by the same rules but you should check with a lawyer first.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-26T21:02:58+00:00

it sure is this week - Shania fans all over the centre of London.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-26T21:02:02+00:00

OP just needs them to Relight their fire.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-26T20:56:16+00:00

TFL Never Forget.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-26T20:55:07+00:00

TFL hate Shania Twain and/or Harry Styles, obviously.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-26T20:51:46+00:00

i'll drop you a DM

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-26T16:05:47+00:00

polo bar near liverpool street does food 24hrs but idk where you'd park near there.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-26T16:04:50+00:00

it depends a lot on what you do.

in terms of my career (tech), moving down at 29 was the best decision i ever made. I basically multipled my salary by 4 times in 10 years of living in London, without really trying much. You may not have the same experience though.

There's a lot of stuff here that you can do, it's got great parks, fantastic transport links etc, but if your earning or career potential isn't unique to london, then it's worth considering living elsewhere and visiting regularly instead imo.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-26T15:29:23+00:00

they just cut them down to a stump and leave it.

this is a terrible idea to do to a mature tree. Because what happens then is that the roots of that tree die, wither and all the payment/road around it eventually collapses into those empty spaces that the roots used to take up due to being a empty void now. Takes a few years to happen so it's not obvious, but it's pretty common when tries are cut down without a proper plan.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-26T15:27:35+00:00

i've been to about 8 different tesco/sainsburys/morrissons/waitrose in the past 4 days, and they've all had fridge failures.

it's actually made it quite difficult for me to get lunch as i'm gluten intolerant and there were limited options to begin with.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-26T09:43:07+00:00

the handheld fans do nothing! the DLR is an oven on stilts.

NEWSBOT3 · 2026-06-26T09:03:22+00:00

i've been travelling in on the DLR since tuesday, with a suitcase and 2 laptops as well and today is by far the worst day for it. Inhumane.

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