As a life long resident of Australia, the missus and I are looking at stepping way outside my comfort zone and selling up and moving to the UK. probably for a ~5 year stint.
My wife is a dual citizen, albeit she grew up in Australia, so I understand I can get a spousal visa which will let me work. On the job front I’ve got 20 years experience in the banking & finance industry, and my wife has years of EA and legal secretary experience.
I’d love to hear any tips or advice on how to settle in, find a job, find a place to live and just any things about life in general that might surprise me.
It would be helpful to have some idea of where in the UK (particular place or type of place) you are thinking of moving to and maybe a couple of specific questions to get this started off.
I had sort of presumed I’d need to work in London proper for a decent job in banking. And if that is the case, what is considered an ‘normal’ distance to commute? I would rather not spend more than say 45 minutes on a train each way.
How hard is it to get a rental property? Here in Australia most real estate agents will require a couple of references, plus evidence of good conduct on paying your rent in your last place. We obviously won’t have any of that.
A few random non-vital things that pop into my head;
How difficult is to get around in general if you don’t have a car? Could we survive without one?
Do most homes/flats have ‘cable’ TV?
Is it actually feasible to hope over to the continent for weekend ‘sightseeing’ trips?
Is it actually a common pastime to hang out at the pub?
I’m living in Chesham which is zone 9 and the furthest station from London but still on the Underground - takes me 60mins to get the Baker Street.
Obtaining a rental property is relatively easy -the struggle will be finding one that you can afford. Rents are insane in London at the moment and don’t appear to be coming down any time soon. You will need a bank account and proof that you will be earning a salary to proof you can afford the place.
London is the best city to get around without a car. In fact, having a car is a hindrance as parking is hard to find and you have a congestion-charge for parts of the centre of the city on weekdays. The Underground runs till just after midnight but there’s a vast network of midnight busses. As of next year certain tube-lines will start running 24/7. The majority of ‘touristy’ London is walkeable and sometimes it’s quicker to walk to bother with going underground. Investing in a bike might not be a bad decision…
I believe you get 4 channels via aerial however most TVs come with FreeView built-in these days. You will have to obtain your own internet/tv provider though as most rentals come without.The two main providers are Sky and Virgin and best option is to get with a bundle, i.e. tv and internet…
From London St Pancras station you can catch the EuroStar which takes you to Brussels in just under 2.5hrs. From there you can catch a high-speed train to Amsterdam. The EuroStar also takes you to Paris in 3hrs which connections onwards to Cote d’Azur or Frankfurt. Luton Airport is 30mins on the train from St Pancras and flies to almost any destination within Europe and serviced exclusively by budget-airlines (EasyJet, RyanAir, Monarch). Both Gatwick and Heathrow airports aren’t that difficult to travel to for long-haul flights.
Yes it is common place to visit the pub :)…either after work or for a roast on a Sunday.
45 minutes in London is a short commute. I don’t live there myself, because… well… see previous sentence, among other things. My brother does though.
If you do live in London, it’s common to not have a car. Public transport is far more convenient, unless you go some way out of the city.
From my personal experience, albeit renting a crappy flat, if you can show you have the money for 6 months or so’s rent, that might be accepted instead of a reference. It’s pretty obvious why you wouldn’t have one, after all.
Yes, going to the pub is a normal pastime, even when I was a kid we went to the pub regularly (they had a playground out the back, though that’s less common in cities). They can be pretty different from Aussie bars, far more relaxed, and less focussed on the alcohol. In some pubs.
Yep, it’s perfectly feasible to nip over the channel for the weekend, both via regular, cheap flights and the tunnel.
Can’t answer about the cable tv, my house doesn’t actually have a TV, just various computers. I’ve generally lived in cheap shared places, so not the best examples
I’m going to suggest the other end of the country. Why don’t you consider the newly non-independent nation of Scotland?
There’s plenty of legal and finance work going in Edinburgh or Glasgow. Public transport in either city is reasonably good, although friends who have lived in both claim that Glasgow has a better network.
For property advice, the Solicitors Property centres for Glasgow or Edinburgh will give you a good rough guide for rental prices. Usual rules apply, in that the further you are from the centre, the cheaper it usually will be.
You could survive in the cities without a car, and on the odd occasions you may need one, car hire is easy enough. I believe you may need to apply for a UK driving license. More info here.
Cable TV is more comon in the cities, and doesn’t hit the less affluent areas. Sky TV is pretty common and they do similar packages via dish. For broadband, you can get reasonable speeds via the phone line using ADSL.
Visiting Europe? Easyjet and other airlines do reasonably cheap flights to Europe.
The pub? We never set foot in a pub. They are a myth perpetuated by TV soaps. We spend all our time in reading circles, discussing the great literary classics. Alcohol never touches our lips.
A couple of other reference points for you regarding commuting
There are some commuter towns further out in Kent that are only 45 minutes from St. Pancras thanks to the high speed link to the Channel tunnel.
Ashford is only 38 minutes from London, The trains run every 15-20 minutes at commuter times and a high-speed season ticket will cost you about £500 a month and a two-bedroom flat a mile from the station can be had for £750-ish (see here)
So about £1200-1300 for rent and transport to work. I suspect getting something cheaper much closer to central London will be a challenge but of course you may want to be closer to the action. Central and East Kent are perfectly nice places but they aren’t London.
If you can stretch to an hour then places likeFaversham are do-able. The rental is cheaper and the train station closer and the season ticket is cheaper as well.
As you might suspect, I live in that neck of the woods and I know of plenty of people that do commute daily into London for an hour but because they are getting on the trains first they tend to get a nice comfortable seat all the way there. Some people even take the high speed train from my own home town of Sandwich into London. I have done it myself for a short while but though it is no more expensive than the examples above, it is 90 minutes and not something I’d want to do long term. The town itself is lovely though. But then I would say that.
To give you feel for other utilities. I have a BT landline that also provides high speed (56+MB) internet and in total that costs me about £25 a month. TV is done via a standard aerial and it is totally free for about 100 channels (including all BBC services and HD channels) We’ve bought a PVR for about £150 which also can record these channels without any restrictions or subscriptions. For access to all of that you do have pay the TV licence fee which is about £10 a month. Other satellite and cable options are available for a fee but the above is more than plenty for us (we can never catch up with everything we’ve recorded anyway).
One great bonus for us UK people is the iPlayer. The BBC online service. Without doubt the best such service in the world. No ads, no payment. Download stuff to watch offline…brilliant.
Hope that helps. For an attractive slogan I’m reckoning on “Come to Britain, we’ve got many fewer things that will kill you”. I hope it catches on.
You don’t need to live and work in London. But it depends on what kind of life experience you are after. Do you particularly want to live in one of the capital cities of the world? Perhaps if you could tell us a bit about the kind of lifestyle you’re after, that would help us make good suggestions for you.
Are you doing this for experience/fun? I’m just wondering because I’m surrounded with people disillusioned with Europe and looking to go to Australia. I also have made moves against “economical good sense” and it has worked out fairly well for me. But I have to warn you that you’re moving against the grain here.
I grew up in Faversham, and will actually be there later today.
I hated it when I was younger, but as an adult it’s OK, but just so dull. I prefer cities. GreedySmurf, what sort of environment do you want to live in?
Also, it’s just over an hour from Faversham to Victoria or St Pancras (more expensive) but then more like 90 minutes in total if you include getting to and from stations, possibly approaching two hours if there’s an Underground journey.
A lot of homes seem to have fibre optic cables, which carry both TV and internet connections. Unless there’s something particular you want (like sport), Freeview is available for nothing through your antenna and is mostly the same as expensive TV, although I admit I don’t watch it much, so may not be the best judge. The internet fills any gaps left by my TV nicely.
Be aware that Marmite is superior to Vegemite, although you can get Vegemite here, if you really need it.
My wife, despite never having been there, feels a connection to the ‘homeland’, and has always wanted to spend time in England. She has family she’s recently got in touch with in Newcastle on Tyne.
For me, my reasons for going are more of a life experience kind of deal. For me having been raised and living in a country with little more than 200 years of ‘western’ history, the thought of visiting and experiencing buildings and places over a thousand years old is just mind-blowing. If I can do all that while still working in a professional capacity, sounds grand. Our initial plan is for a 5 year stint before coming back home. spending that time working in a UK bank isn’t going to adversely affect my career prospects when I come home.
In terms of our lifestyle, we’re not big into party’s. We’re both food buffs to a certain extent so like to try new restaurants and places to eat. We do like to entertain, which currently means a Barbie, I’m not sure how well that translates.
We plan on spending a lot of time sightseeing, getting out into the countryside and exploring a bit. Also, as I alluded to, hopefully fairly regular short trips over the continent. I’m big military history buff, so I’m ecstatic about the thought of going to The Somme, Normandy, Arnhem, etc, etc.
I’m not wedded to London, I just thought it would be the best option for a decent job in banking. I don’t mind the sound of Edinbugh or Glasgow. I actually want to spend a fair it of time in Scotland. Many many generations back my ancestry is with the McTavish highland clan. Would there be an issue with accents there? Or is the white collar world fairly ‘standard’ english.
I can’t speak to how easy it is to get a flat because we were transferred here by hubby’s employment and they did all the heavy lifting in that regard. Real Estate listings are fantastically detailed in the UK. You practically don’t even have to visit the place before narrowing down your search for a place to live.
We’ve lived in London 11 years and do not own a car. We’ve been pretty lazy about renting one on weekends and getting out of the city but it is certainly easy…plus there are car clubs on every corner. I hear people moan about the trains a lot but for the most part, I’ve found them to be very efficient.
Pubs are disappearing rapidly in the UK, not sure why because every one in my neighbourhood is always full! And if you’re so inclined, most will allow a dog and my local even has dog food on the menu in case pooch is hungry.
The thing I really wanted to mention, mostly for your wife is that the Australian Women’s Club is a great way to make contact with like-minded Australians, find support and get out and about in your new home. My walking group is about half Australian and they all know each other from AWC
Finally…downtown London to downtown Paris 2 hrs 25 min. You could go for lunch.
The Edinburgh Morningside accent is very thick and guttural.
Nah, just kidding. Actually, except for a few places in the lowlands, not so much now, every Scot will understand you and you them.
Glasgow is a special case, with a number of different accents, but I’ve never had any difficulty in understanding glaswegian, even from ancient Scots variety stars still on record [ think Francie & Josie ]. For more contemporary Glasgie, you could watch a few episodes of Still Game.
Still, although no mean city, I can’t see why you’d choose Glasgow.
Clan McTavish is Highland, and like most northerners, the Highlanders have higher pitched voices.
As for London, it might be cheaper to live in the counties north of the river. I live near the Suffolk-Essex borders and trains take about an hour to Liverpool Street station, which is near the financial district anyway.
Ha, that’s funny, do you have any idea how many Australians are living in London? And for someone working in banking, London vies with New York for top spot, so going ‘against economical good sense’ doesn’t really figure.
45-60 mins is standard door-to-door, once you have allowed for walking to and from the tube stations. The options on where to live are huge, so we’d need to get a better idea of your likes/dislikes to advise further.
It might be worth contacting a local estate agent to get some guidance on this. Foreign workers in London is hugely common so they must have ways to cope with this.
In London, easily, and very common. I have a number of friends who have never bothered to learn to drive. You can also join a car club (zipcar) where you can rent a car or van by the hours which is great when you need to go to Ikea and stock up your new home.
Elsewhere, more tricky.
There are many options for getting a gazillion channels. Freeview (built in to modern TVs) gives you 100 odd channels for free (licence fee excepted). Then you could get either a satellite, cable or broadband TV service for a load more. Here’s a comparison website: Compare TV Packages - Find Cheap TV Deals & Bundles. Also easily available.
It’s easy, and a common past time. London-Paris by train is a mere two hours. Heck, you can do it in a day trip. Hundreds of places in Europe are 1-3 hours away by cheap flights (see Ryanair and Easyjet).
You mean it isn’t in Oz? The pub is our social hub, for people of all ages. It’s where you go after work with your new colleagues, it’s where you take your Mum for Sunday Lunch, it’s where you meet your friend before going to the theatre, it’s a handy spot for a casual weekday lunch. It takes children, and dogs, and doesn’t care whether you’re drinking coffee or downing shots. The pub is our world. It won’t take you very long to realise this when you get here.
Forgot to add, rightmove.co.uk is your portal to practically every property on the market in the UK (for sale or rent), so it will give you a good idea of what you can get. Brace yourself for London prices…
Also, in banking and law, alongside London, both Bristol (in the west of England) and Edinburgh have strong sectors, with strong representation from big firms.
Barbeques are the definitive aspect of the Aussie lifestyle. ( well, that’s what I’ve learned from watching soap operas )
But keep in mind that the weather in England is less conducive to barbies :
Rain. Drizzle. More Rain, cloudy, followed by more drizzle. And no dependable sunshine. Ever.
I thnk that’s why the Brits love their pubs…you stay indoors the whole time you get drunk.
Hmmm, if you say so. Perhaps if you have that particular financial skill the OP mentions the jobs are there, but I wouldn’t just "bank"on it without researching it first. I used to live in Brighton and know London fairly well. I like it, but I wouldn’t even consider moving there to without being very sure of a decent income, especially not if I was used to a nice living standard, as rent really is very high. If the OP is asking for advice on “how to get a job” I would say, look at that bit first. If you have that sorted, the rest will fall into place. I know too many people who saw “Notting Hill” and dreamed of a nice London life and ended up in grotty basement flats, miles out from anywhere nice. Now the OP seems more grown-up than those folks, but I think it’s dangerous to walk into London without a good financial plan.
What kind of banking? Lesser UK cities may have offer roles in retail banking, back office and middle-office operations, but if your business is investment banking or corporate lending then you will probably need - and want - to be in London. Besides, if you are making an effort to uproot yourselves and experience life in the UK, then I cannot recommend living any place other than London. This is a heavily centralised country and the heart of it - economics, culture, arts, finance, media and politics - is London.
Depending on your job, if you can afford it, then live in Central London or one of the inner districts. There are huge lifestyle benefits to being able to easily get from home to work and to being able to choose between dozens of restaurants and pubs within stumbling distance. You won’t need a car unless you live out in the sticks. The public transport system is very comprehensive and not nearly as unpleasant as some may think. Black cabs are everywhere and Uber is now ubiquitous and dirt cheap.
)