That London.

[tokyochojin]

So after pretty much 13 years and almost half my life in Japan I am going to be moving back to the UK in the New Year. I am currently looking at translation (Jp>Eng) and other Japanese related positions and it seems like most of the work is in London. I've been contacted by recruiters about work, and I am not motivated solely by cash but having been away for so long (and haven't been back at all for 4 years) I have no idea about how much is a decent wage, especially for somewhere like London. I'm 31 so obviously I want to start thinking about things like mortgages and so on soon. Anyway, if anyone could give me any advice about London, places to live, things I should be doing to prepare, and general work competitiveness then it would be very much appreciated.

Cheers

[charlesr]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-34404651

Do you actually need to be at the place of work or could you live somewhere else and do the translations from home. Or is it real time in-person stuff?

You can have a 1 bedroom flat in london for ?325k http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-...-50675255.html
Or a 3 bedroom house with a garden in Chichester http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-...-51653725.html

[tokyochojin]

Well, to be honest freelance is not enough to support me fulltime at the moment so will need a main job. People say Tokyo is expensive but rent averages around 100,000 yen (550 pounds) (p/m) for a reasonable one bedroom place, but I guess by the sound of things London is more. Anyway, thanks for the comparison.

[charlesr]

Or a 5 bedroom house in Orkney for ?315 http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-...-44416825.html Great views. Bit of a long commute. To anywhere.

[charlesr]

That rightmove site has rentals too, so you should be able to get a good idea of what your quality of dwelling will be for any particular salary.

[wakka]

Wait, you can get a 1 bedroom flat for ?550 p/m in Tokyo?

BRB moving

[Colin]

I lived in London for over a decade, I hope I never have to again. As a city it has a lot of attractive qualities, but they are far outnumbered by unattractive ones in my opinion. I've always been mystified as to how anyone is still managing to live there who isn't on a good wage, the last flat I rented was about ?15k a year before bills and was well outside the city centre. (And that's going back a few years now)

[Dogg Thang]

I have never lived there but I know some people living there on very good wages and yet they share with housemates. In their 40s.

[tokyochojin]

Wait, you can get a 1 bedroom flat for ?550 p/m in Tokyo?

BRB moving

Easily, tons of unrented apartments means prices have frozen and things like key money, are finally dissapearing.

Colin> Unfortunately, most of the work is around London. I guess the thing will be to try and find positions just outside the city itself.

[Decider-VT]

I work in an office full of software developers, whose average salary is ?52,000. Most of them are getting mortgages on the outskirts of London because they don't want to live in shoeboxes. What's quite telling is that the only ones that live near me are the system architects, who get paid small fortunes. Rent for a two-bedroom flat in my part of North London is around ?1500 pcm, so in many ways it's much cheaper to get a mortgage after you've cleared the initial hurdles.

Competition for any job is going to be cutthroat too. It's an employer's market, sadly. If the the translation jobs are all in London, the translators will be too. I'd suggest looking for an outlier that's well paid for the area, as your job security would be improved too.

[Wools]

I love visiting London and go on a shopping and sightseeing trip every Christmas. Looking forward to this years outing!

But living there would do me in. I worked briefly in Kingston but that was on the outskirts, it was nice but venturing further north would have been a no go for house prices, flat prices and quality of life.

If you want to live there, a decent salary is required to afford rent or food but then at least you won't have to use public transport as inner city Lodon is surprisingly easy to walk around if you're able bodied. A ex partner of mine lived and worked in London for years and caught the underground everywhere. When I went to visit, I always walked to her flat and it took around 20 minutes, she only realised when we once walked back to the station together and I started to walk past the underground stop!

If you're thinking of commuting in, the money you save on location will be spent on public transport.

Actually the more I think about it, I would only work in London if i was paid a lot and could live there. And because you can't buy a house in central London for under a million, I never would.

It's a beautiful place to visit, but would no longer love to live their with a family.

[wakka]

Easily, tons of unrented apartments means prices have frozen and things like key money, are finally dissapearing.

Colin> Unfortunately, most of the work is around London. I guess the thing will be to try and find positions just outside the city itself.

That's very interesting indeed. Just looking and I can't believe you can get private flats in centralish areas for 80k a month, that would get you precisely feck all in London.

You would need to live pretty centrally to walk everywhere I think Wools - certainly zone 1. And that's ?2k pcm for a small 1 bed.

[QualityChimp]

Student commutes to University of London from Poland

London is the third most expensive city in the world to live in


Reasons Why London Is the Worst Place Ever


?500 per month London room turns out to be a cupboard under the stairs

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/house-prices/11899080/New-London-Underground-map-shows-how-expensive-it-is-to-rent-stop-by-stop.html

The 10 most expensive places to live in London



The 10 least expensive places to live in London

[wakka]

TBH, as everyone is piling in on London as is fashionable (and tbh, not unwarranted either), I would just say that I love living here, and wouldn't want to live anywhere else in the UK. It's the bomb!

[fuse]

I'm rapidly creeping up on a decade in London, and I would agree that there are attractive qualities but also a huge number of unattractive ones. If you've the taste for big cities (13 years in Tokyo suggests this may be a possibility) it feels like a bit of an inevitability though, and it's certainly not just the one industry you're looking at that suffers from London-centrism either. How long you'll stay is another matter - as much as I do love it, I must also admit to recurring daydreams of the day I can have a home with actual space.

But yes - it is very expensive, and it's certainly not for everyone. That ?550 PCM rent figure for Tokyo has certainly framed things in a very interesting (read: heart breaking) light.