after getting made redundant here in cambridge i'm looking for work. most work in my area is based in london area. just wondering what is a survivable/livable/average as i may have to take a pay cut.

does this sound correct, i'm not talking about drinking 1996 dom perignon more newcastle brown

survivable 14k

livable 18k

average 25k

God knows where yo're going to live for 14k a year, outside the M25 probably.

I'd personally say 25k plus, but thats just me

Commuting or living in town? That can make a massive difference. Oddly, licing in town can be a little cheaper if you play it right!

**** me i worked out 14k was only JUST livable in aberdeen ….in a small 1 bedroom flat and ditching my car …. would not like to be living on that in London …

£14k??

Is that possible??

I'm living in London on about 14k. Just about gets me by. I'm sharing a house with my girlfriend, not really drinking, and not buying any bike upgrades.

Then again, I usually only have to work 5/6 hours a day and 4 days a week so I get to ride my worn-out bike a lot.

£14k??

Is that possible??

i know of someone who is on 12K in london god knows how.

Commuting or living in town?

not to sure or really that bothered, no where to scummy. it's quite likely i will be on less in london before it goes up as thats what my industry does.

So we reckon 18k upwards, don't want a 6k paycut but better than giro cheque.

if its not too rude what is your situation. me being single and just looking for flat/fun weekend life/exotic yearly holiday. i'd prob live with mate or go get a lass.

Average wage in London = about £24k

Living in London on 20k is doable, especially if you're happy to share a house with someone. 25k should be pretty easy, 30k would be comfortably off. There'll always be people earning a lot more than you, and it is nice to have a bit of money in London.

Joe

sorry aidan i read yours as 114k, so it is possible even if thats worse case scenario.

I was on 26k and it wasn't exactly the lap of luxury (!). I'd budget £850/month rent & bills, £150 travel (though i quickly gave up tube and cycled everywhere) then obviously as much as you think you'll spend on food, entertainment, bike bits etc.

cheers joe thats what i'm talking about, i was on 24k and have about 10k in accessible cash to fall back on a bit, just design industry are cheapskates unless you go solo and i'm not ready or competent enough to do that.

thanks for the replies.

I reckon at £14k you may as well be homeless – that equates to less than £1000 per month (assuming no pension contributions) which has to be close to impossible to live on unless you are then eligible for some state handouts?

£18k is still less than £1200 per month which seems barely better – but you could probably just about get by from month to month.

£25k is £1600 per month – you could probably live quite a comfortable single life in shared accommodation on that providing you have no longer term plans for saving etc.

This would seem to concur with Joes comments

Rent is the killer. Most of our young ones at work complain bitterly about only getting 22 – 23k but they tend to have expensive taste and expect to live in Clapham and have a couple of foreign trips a year, gym membership, do eff all cooking for themselves and so on. If you can live somewhere modest, forsake a car, designer clothes, michelin restaurants etc £25k should be enough.

£25k should be enough.

might as well get a lass up the duff couple of times and go on social.

I lived there no 22K but paid half rent – didn;t manage to save much, didn't go out much really once travel/rent/living all added up.

cycling every where will save loads of money (just invest in a decent lock)

cycling every where will save loads of money (just invest in a decent lock)

if i do live there my chameleons only sight of london will be on the way out, i'd buy a rat bike unfortunatly, and i'd still use a lock. i'd kill for my chameleon haha! or should that be mwahaha.

you wont be able to afford to leave london un less you cycle LOL!!

all the best mate and i hope you survive! i used to rent a room for £250 in croydon (south london) was a room with a kitchen at the end, had to share a toilet and showers. but it wasent that bad to be honist

What kind of design do you do?

I've no idea what the average is, but I'd say your survivable and livable figures were about right.

You'd have to be fairly careful about where you lived, and where you spent your money, though. Doubt you'd manage to save anything either.

Hope you'd manage to do better for yourself, though! 🙂

£25k sounds about right for a wage where you could get by and still actually enjoy London a bit

Also, it should be noted that it shouldn't be too hard to find a job paying more than 14k. 🙂

(I believe that we've recently had someone in on a sandwich year for about 20k)

What kind of design do you do?

I'm trained in furniture and product design and have worked as an exhibition designer.

Hope you'd manage to do better for yourself, though!

i was doing well but the recession bit, i hope so too

why london has expensive housing yet normal UK wages is anyones guess.

(I believe that we've recently had someone in on a sandwich year for about 20k)

where do you work aidy, gisa job 😉

No need for a car and unless you must live on your own, rent's not that expensive either. As CF alludes, living more central can work out better – you can save a fair bit on travelcards so you can afford to pay slightly more for accomodation.

My rent is still £475/month in zone 2, inc council tax and TV licence – my gf and I rent two rooms between us in a shared place. Little bit more for bills. Zone 1-2 travelcard is just under £100 a month, or cycle everywhere instead. Food £100-120/month if you're living economically and taking your own lunch each day. Add a fairly generous £200/month for everything else – entertainment, booze, clothes, bike bits. That's about a grand a month, for which you'd need to earn a salary of about £16.2k. Forego the travelcard and cycle everywhere and that's more like £900/month, or a £14.7k salary needed.

Obviously the more you earn, the more comfortably you can live and afford new bikes, holidays, gym memberships, sandwiches from pret for lunch, posh coffees and all that other stuff.

thanks simon thats very precise. I'm happy to put the hours in for my £ but just looking at the job market is very disturbing, companies are offering intern positions (so unpaid) and i read them now and then, and they are essentially advertising what should be a paid job. 😕

Average wage in London is £34,500…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/apr/20/regional-variation-tax

If you are going to cycle look for accomodation away from a tube station. You'll save tons. I had a room in Wandsworth when I lived there for about £250/mo (and I do mean room – box in a small house sharing with a girl who was never there, a musician and the mad woman owner who was just like the black housekeeper from Tom and Jerry.. "Thomas!" 🙂 ), that was 2000 tho so who knows what's happened since then 🙂

When I first moved to London I got £900 a month (after tax etc) and survived on that for a couple of years.

Ah yes, the good old NHS!

Mind you, I have been cycling to work for 7yrs – give or take the odd lazy blip.

PeteT… is that the median or the mean?

I suspect it's the mean, and therefore will be massively skewed in favour of all the city boys and the actual median wage, which gives a far better view of what actual wage levels are like for the majority, will be significantly lower than that.

You all make London sound like a case of survival. Why not move elsewhere so that your £££ goes further? If you have a house, rent it out and move to a cheaper location so you are actually earning money from it. Move further up north, i would expect £14k is a low wage for a skilled person even up here in northern england.

Do you want to live or survive because from the responses i have read above you aint gonna be in a good position in London.

You have to factor in that when you move to London you will want to go drinking in bars where the waitresses are topless, every lunchtime and evening. Then the women you chase will be very expensive, and you will probably develop an extremely expensive coke habit.

Your gonna need at least 30k

I reckon at £14k you may as well be homeless – that equates to less than £1000 per month (assuming no pension contributions) which has to be close to impossible to live on unless you are then eligible for some state handouts?

What?! When I was a student I lived on about £450 a month. That wasn't that long ago, and I had plenty of cash for booze and bike bits.

did that include rent and bills? unlikely…

Take a look at Moveflat for an idea of housing costs (the nice thing is one of the things you can filter is on bike-friendly places). As molgrips says, if you can live a bit further from the tube they get cheaper – there are some nice areas that would involve a bus ride then tube for most people to get to work so people prioritise ones close to tube stations.

eg. near where I live – http://www.moveflat.com/c/310853.htm – £408pm double room, can't see bills being more than £40 each between 5 people. Depends on your personality but I've shared flats and houses for the last 6 years and it's worked fine for me – better than paying a load more to live in a studio, that's for sure.

The biggest drain on my finances in London was the fact that I only knew people from work (having moved down there) and their mates, and they ended up in the pub across the road from the office almost every evening.

That cost a lot!

tails – surely living on Cambridge has prepared you for a life in London, most of the city centre pubs are eqivalently expensive, especially if you drink in the Fort/Spring at any point in time!

I suspect it's the mean, and therefore will be massively skewed in favour of all the city boys and the actual median wage, which gives a far better view of what actual wage levels are like for the majority, will be significantly lower than that.

I wouldn't count on it….. in the grand scheme of things there aren't that many city boys and the ones on mega bucks tend not to pay much tax anyway.