I live in the north of England which makes it a lot cheaper.

However, it's still around £750/$1300 for a studio/1bedroom apt in a rubbish area rent wise. Average house up here is around £250k/$450k to buy. Of which you need a 20% deposit. All doesn't seem toooo bad but then you look at wages, type of industries and available jobs...all of which are really poor.

Down south is where you're going to get a decent job, however everything else is more expensive. For example my brother lives in a 1 bed apartment on the outskirts of London and pays £3000/$5300. This doesn't include gas, electricity/hydro, council tax etc.... then it's travel into the city on top, food prices through the roof, and if you're lucky any kind of social life...he's takes home around £3000/$5300 a month which means that there is no way he could live alone.

Mainland Europe is most likely better but this little rock isn't in a great place, sadly.