Why should I move to London?

[saras]

I'm currently working as a product manager in a San Francisco startup, but considering a move to London. I have an EU passport already, so at least for now visa isn't going to be an issue.

After looking at the London page on Teleport I learned quite a bit, but facts can only tell you so much. I would love to hear from both London/UK natives and expats why you would recommend me to move to London, or perhaps why not?

Sara

[Eva_Villarroya]

Sara,

London is an amazing city to live in. I am an expat and I love all the opportunities I found here, both work related and also when it comes to leisure. Does not matter what your interests are, for sure you will find something that suits you in this city. If you like people, rush and excitement, this is your place. But even if you like more relaxed life there are residential areas in the nearby towns inside the greater area where you can stay and still take advantage of the big city from time to time. Also London has a good startup scene!

I hope this helps.

[Mihai_Jiplea]

I'm an expat, living in London for 5 years. I've also briefly lived in Seattle for 6 months during an internship. I'll try to give you some pros and cons tailored to you.
Why move to London:
- Much more diverse city. Not only in terms of culture, but in terms of people you interact with, professions, interests, places. It's more like New York than San Francisco in that matter
- More welfare safety nets: In case you ever have huge financial problems, you can count on the welfare state. An added bonus in this case is that London doesn't have the homelessness problem that San Francisco does.
- Easier to live healthy: You don't have so many hills, so you can actually commute to work by bike. It's also easier to eat healthy in London and you'll find that everybody here is very focused on healthy living
- Better public transportation
- Cheaper and stress-free holidays: You are very close to a lot of tourist hotspots such as: Amsterdam, Paris, Ibiza, Rome, Egypt, Istanbul, Prague, Morocco etc. Europe and North Africa are very close so you can enjoy holidays and city breaks across so many culturally different places much easier that you can in San Francisco. In case you will still miss some of the places you used to visit, Mexico and US are 1 (long) direct flight away regardless.

Why not move to London:
- BREXIT: There's so much uncertainty in this that I don't even know where to begin. You mention you have a EU passport but it's important to know which one you have. The government is committed to cancel free movement of labor of all people coming to the UK after a certain date in time. No one knows where that date will be placed but the govt. said that when they'll announce it, it will not be in a time in the future to stop ppl from flocking in. So if they announce this next July and say that all ppl. coming before June 1st are excused, and you came on June 15th, you'll have a big problem. Also, no one has a plan on how to execute brexit and the govt. is pushed towards going on with it already. It's likely a lot of hasty decisions will be taken because of public pressure which will make the UK economy worse off. Because of this, you can't expect a lot of stability when you come here.
- Job market: It's not as good as San Francisco and it will never be. America is the 1st in terms of tech innovation and it's unlikely Europe will catch up soon. Don't be fooled by many local's subjective impression here. There are a lot of things in American culture and business environment that has helped startups and tech companies progress so much and a lot of that just isn't present in Europe. It's still a very hot market, but a far cry from what the US has.
- Houses: You're still not getting away from this, but moving form a housing crisis to another. Property in Europe tends to be smaller and more expensive, so you have to make sure to prepare for that.
- Overall, lower purchasing power in London, as stated by numbeo.com

Other stuff that can count as + or - depending on you:
- Tax rates: Around the same, really. London will be slightly higher with a margin of 3%, all things considered. You might not like it or you might just not care
- Healthcare: It's free in the UK, but don't expect the same quality as in the US. I've used both healthcare systems (general + dentists) and there are a lot of stuff that the US does so much better in terms of quality and service, even though it's expensive. You can still get good quality in the UK if you search online beforehand, see reviews and choose your GPs accordingly, but you'll never find the same quality of treatment and service as in the US. If you're a healthy person, this might be irrelevant to you though

Hope this helped. Best of luck in making the right decision and potential journey!

[jnnfrrss]

London is expensive, but then again so is SF Bay area. Wages are high for the UK, but low compared to the American counterparts. 20 days holiday minimum kills US 2-3 weeks. London is a cultural hub full of free galleries, museums and events but also these places can get crowded. Restaurant selection is good but price is high. Pub culture is fun, but if you're not into standing around drinking you might not be into that.

Weather is hit and miss. The city hasn't admitted that air conditioning is needed for hot summer weeks, so you might boil while everyone denies the heat will last long - and then it lasts a month. Public transit hits 40 C or hotter on some of those days. But it is great service. Complaints are still plentiful though because even if service is great compared to other cities, there are still insufficiencies and issues that arise.

London isn't a 24 hour city yet sadly. Shopping often closes at 5pm on Sundays. Bars close early too. Lots of places are only open until midnight even on a Friday or Saturday. I'd definitely rather have a night out in NYC over London. But day time pub lunches are one of the best things about this country. Can be a friends or family affair. You'll find a place that suits your needs for less than £15 a head.

It doesn't rain as much as they say, but it is grey often. Prepare for more of a constant drizzle than pouring amounts of water from the sky. Winter doesn't get too cold, but the damp causes mould in homes quite easily.

Overall, I am personally having a hard time thinking of leaving this city but it is definitely not have easiest place to live and I can't imagine starting a family here ever.

[Johan_Lajili]

Hey there. I'm a french expat living in London. I never lived in the US, not to mention the bay Area so it won't be entirely relevant to you, but I'm sure at least some will apply:
- London is a world city. If you want to live in the UK, don't go to London because that is not "in the UK". Technically 40% of the population is foreign in London, but that's a general average. If you go to a tech company, it will feel more like 80%. British, Americans, French, Germans, Spanish, Portugueses, Chinese, Taiwanese, Indians, Japanese etc. For me that's really the selling point number 1 of the city. You'll make friends from all over the world. Also you'll find a lot of restaurants of real foreign cuisine for about every country in London. Now I've never been to the US but I heard it's sorta like France for that matter: foreign restaurants are heavily westernised. In London it is not the case. You'll find amazing world food everywhere.
- It's freaking expensive. I guess for you who comes from the valley it will seem normal, but be reminded that salary in the UK is way less what you got in San Francisco.
- It's really small and concentrated, even though a lot of local don't know that, you can easily walk from one side of the city to the other. You'll use the tube (subway) for most of your transportation. Forget about owning a car, it's too expensive (well, you can but it will be a luxury, not a necessity. And I would discourage using it to go to work).
- You're 2 hours by plane away from France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland etc.
Well I can think of a few more stuff to say but I'm need to go back to work. Maybe I'll update it.

[Daniel_Csonth]

Hi Sara,

Very happy to help. I am a Product Manager working for startup in London and am actually not English. Do you want tell me a bit more about what you are currently doing, what inspired you move/interest to move, what are you looking for over here, what are your preferences in terms of lifestyle, what kind of job you will be looking for here? That way I can make sure to tailor my answer for you which will sure be way more helpful.

Best Regards,
Daniel

[Jim_Kosem]

I'm a US/EU citizen living in London for 12 years now. Currently I'm still allowed to live here on my EU passport, but thing is nobody knows what is happening with Brexit or when. In terms of residency you can still live here no issue and after Article 50 is invoked (which starts Brexit officially) there is two years for the legal negotiations to take place. This will not likely take place until next autumn. So basically you for sure can live here in London without any visa until roughly 2019.

It really depends on how long you want to be here and why. Depending on what sort of industry you are in and if it was for longer than a year or two, I would suggest looking elsewhere on the continent. Loads in the design and tech fields seems to be moving already as the UK is an extremely uncertain place right now and many international and multinational companies are looking for options in more stable EU countries.

[matejhargas]

I'm an EU citizen and have lived for 2 years near London (not in London proper, I could never afford that), now relocated to Spain. I have also lived in the US for a bit so hopefully I can dd my two cents with a bit of proper perspective.

London is a city that is booming in an economy that - although damaged by Brexit - is still in pretty good shape. It's a world city, with lots of expats so you should not have trouble finding your community pretty quickly. It also prides itself on a startup scene, although, as Mihai mentioned above, it is nowhere the size and coolness of the Silicon Valley one.

What speaks for London is:
- fantastic public transport, especially when compared to West Coast US cities. You don't really need a car if you live in London, I would even go as far as to say you would be a fool to get one as you'd only be stuck in traffic instead of bypassing it in the subway, overground, trains etc.
- there's always something going on; if it's not an exhibition, festival or concert, it definitely is a market or something similar. There's great parks in and around the city, if you feel like connecting with nature. And there's an endless selection of restaurants, bars, pubs, coffee shops so you will never be bored by your food unless you really want to be
- welfare state with free health care, a proper social security system, a lot of protection in the workplace with mandatory paid vacation etc...
- connections to everywhere, meaning you can travel Europe and a big chunk of the world. London has 6 airports, with at least three of them mostly serving low cost airlines so you can get to most places in Europe for cheap. A train ride on the Eurostar gets you to the center of Paris or Brussels in about 3 hours. And the British rail network is very good too, so you can explore the country comfortably (back to my point about not needing a car). Also, London has a great network of bike lanes and a lot of people actually use them to commute

The cons of London would be:
- the weather. It's not as rainy as I have expected it to be (most of the time you get your rain in the good old English drizzle format) but it does tend to be gray and gloomy for a good chunk of the year. Proper sunshine is rare outside of the summer, to the point where people open the roofs on their convertibles everytime the sun is shining, irrespective of the outside temperature.
- expensive housing. Appartments in London are expensive and small and you need to get ready for that. Unless you are really rich and can afford some of the great appartments in expensive neighborhoods or around the river, you will need to make a choice between expensive and small in London or bigger and cheaper in the suburbs. I have actually lived in a small town in Surrey, where the price of a 1bed closet-sized flat got me a pretty little 3bed house with a small garden. It will all depend on whether you are willing to commute and the coolness factor you want to project (anything outside the M25 ring road is uncool to the cool crowd )
- expensive entertainment. If you do want to go out, you need to pay quite a lot of money. That said, I don't think that would be different to the Bay Area at all.
- Brexit. Covered before by many who understand it better.

Overall, my suggestion would be to do the move. London is great and if you don't like it, you can always move again - with an EU passport to basically any other European city, town or village. Have fun deciding! (