I moved to London and lived off 24k a year, I guess it depends how much of a quality of life/expenditure you are used to and what rental properties. there is cheap stuff out there, i lived in a lovely 6 bedroom Victorian house in Herne Hill for £308 a month.

That's pretty good. I've only looked at websites with £350 a week!

The work will occupy my life and probably the gym. I don't drink anymore and just want my year experience and get fit again.

I guess it will be an experience.

Been down a year now, initially was paying £800pcm Inc council tax + utilities. It was tight, but that my only really expense, and I was on slightly less and living on my own.

Now paying £1300pcm and living with the girlfriend, lot of money but coping fine and loving it! 🙂

You don't want to get a room in a shared house - or be a lodger? I would.

You'll be fine on 26k, especially if you don't drink. Don't expect to be in your own flat in Kensington though, but you should be able to get into a nice flat share in zone 2 or possibly a 1 bedroom much further out.

Do it, London is awesome.

It's perfectly doable, you just need to have reasonable expectations of lifestyle choices.

26k-low wage.If you think thats low wage mate you should come and visit the Teesside job market.

£9k!?! what kind of a place and where are you trying to rent? Loads of nice places eve in central for much less than that.

Monkeycmonkeydo - thatd be some commute though to work in london - pointless comment of the thead goes to you

- 9k a year rent is 750 a month and thats easy on 26k if your single/no kids I was paying 550 a month on 11k a year - that was tight

Just have to be reasonable in your expectations

Echo above - if single flat share / become a lodger

to be honest 26k is not a low wage even with Londons inflated costs. It isn't a lot of money mind so don't expect to be pissing money up the wall, but with care you'll be fine. The question is do you really want to go to London, is the job only available there, are the prospects better, friends, family, assuming you ride a bike, are you willing to compromise the riding, etc, etc.

i'm on much less than that, working in a bike shop helps fund my bike addiction, but i rent my own one bedroom flat and live perfectly ok, I have a cat which needs feeding, internet, sky & a small car without sacrificing my social life...

you just have be smart with money and don't be too fussy on which neighbourhood you live in.

£26 not loads but it's doable if you're sensible and realistic.
London's a great city and IME more chance of a job here than anywhere else in the UK right now.
A £750 in rent is loads. I have a whole 2 bed flat in Sydenham for £1000, and if I bought it the mortgage would be £800.
You can easily get a room in a shared house zone 3 or 4 for 5-600. won't be a yuppie flat but will keep you out of debt. look at the less fashionable parts of SE london like Camberwell, Peckham, Denmark Hill, West Dulwich, Crystal Palace etc. Perfectly nice places if you get the right street but a lot cheaper than the trendy places cos you're not paying the trendy/popularity premium that Clapham, Wimbledon generate...

The average wage in London is about £28,000 so you'll be fine.

Approach it as "student life" and you'll be fine

Approach it as "student life" and you'll be fine

Squatting?

Live in Croydon. Your money goes further and ib London you DONT need a car.

youll LOVE it. Awesome place 😀

Been squatting in London for 8 years. I couldn't survive on my wages otherwise. 26k would be a dream for me.

Why not stand up straight? It must hurt your kness.

Live in Croydon. Your money goes further and ib London you DONT need a car.

youll LOVE it. Awesome place

croydon isn't london. you may as well live in the grim north, there is a seething undercurrent of chavness hidden by a veil of daily mail middle class respectability that is equally insalubrious.
although now you have left it's possibly a better place to live.

when i first came to london (a long time ago) i didn't have much disposable income but what nobody has mentioned is the amount of free stuff there is to see/do.

My nephew currently in Surrey on 15k per year renting a room at 100 per week. That's not living its called getting by

Mrs Windsor, and her family have quite a few spare rooms at buck house, she cant charge rent as she lives on benefits

26k-low wage.If you think thats low wage mate you should come and visit the Teesside job market.

I've been living in Teesside the past year, previously I was in Reading, assuming you want to live somewhere reasonably nice (so not Eston or Whitley Wood in TS or RG respectively) then house prices are about 1/3 of south east prices (£90k Vs £250k for 2beds in a nice street), rent's not so good(I'm paying £500 for what would be ~£850 in RG), but still about 2/3rds.

what nobody has mentioned is the amount of free stuff there is to see/do.

you can keep your natural history museum

that's for grockles like you. and madame taussauds/carnaby st/camden lock/harrods/covent garden 😛

I started in London on less. That amount is fine if you're house/flat-sharing, which is cheaper and generally gets you more space. Shop sensibly, cook your own meals most of the time, make your own lunch instead of spending £5 a day at Pret, etc and that will give a fair bit of disposable income to enjoy yourself with.

Ride to work if you can, if you were going by tube and buying travelcards that's £112 a month (z1-2) gone straight away. Likewise it means you don't feel such a need to live near a tube station and that opens up quite a few pleasant and cheaper areas that aren't so well connected to transport.

Or am I better off looking north instead?

maybe, have a look at sheffield/manchester/leeds, they're ace. lots of jobs too.

+1 for Croydon, you could go and see the Palace 🙂

APF

North? I sorely miss the south. Ive always said try London once in your life.

you would have to give me a gold pig each week to make me live in London

and yes I've tried living there

You guys live in fairyland.In most of the towns in the North,Scotland and Wales low pay or no pay has been the only option for generations.With the south-East Bullingdon shit in charge and planning to introduce regional pay,this situation will only get worse.

Yes but the thread is about London, not everywhere else.

In 95 I started on less than 1/3rd of that. It was fine, but then I didn't eat out 5 nights every week, I didn't own a car, I didn't feel that I had the right to have to go out every night, or buy expensive clothes every month, or live in a fashionable area.
£26k is perfectly doable, as long as you manage your expectations.

I'm visiting London right now & I can tell you that all the benches and doorways have been taken.

Very sad 🙁

In 99 I started on 12k. I also had my student debts etc but my God did we love it there (even then).

You guys live in fairyland.In most of the towns in the North,Scotland and Wales low pay or no pay has been the only option for generations.With the south-East Bullingdon shit in charge and planning to introduce regional pay,this situation will only get worse.

Either you're a southerner with a perjudiced view of the north, or a northerner with a heck of a chip on his shoulder!

I missed that. Why not hop onto a train then and work somewhere else?

People in India travel thousands of miles for a better life.

You'll be ok on 26k but your money would go much further elsewhere obviously. I wouldn't expect to run a car or live anywhere decent unless you plan on renting a room in a house though. London is a great place, enjoy it.

i have a room to rent in my house in shepherds bush FYI, £560 pcm +utilities if it's of interest?

Describing £26,000 as a low wage does display a lack of awareness about lots of people's situations, and is borderline insulting to those who earn a lot less.

An income of £26,000 (assuming no kids and council tax around £1000 a year) makes you better off than 83% of the population, according to the IFS calculator.

Figures on average wages are massively skewed by how much a few at the top earn, so don't reflect most people's reality. Of course STW is full of IT consultants on at least £500 a day so probably not the best place for some perspective.

The thing about london (and other big cities) is that there's lots of shared accommodation available and its possible to cycle everywhere you'd need to go so your transport costs will be zero.

Other than accommodation, most stuff isn't really much more expensive then elsewhere.

The biggest pain will be flat hunting. But thats the same whatever your budget.

I moved to London back in '98 when I was on a low wage (£13,500) and lived in a shared house in Ealing.

Absolutely HATED it!!! 👿 I ended up driving back up north to Sheffield and Leeds every weekend to be with my mates and go biking in the Peaks and Dales.

The upside was that I learnt what I wanted from life and that was that I didn't want to be in London, living in the rat race, just for my career. My job pays for me to have the lifestyle I really want for me and my family and living in a grey, noisy, dirty, miserable part of the world (like west London) certainly doesn't give me that!

Ever since then I've been determined to live and work in the North so that I can enjoy an outdoor lifestyle in an area near my friends and family and so far it's worked out really well :-). However, I do have to work away from home fairly regularly, but that's a price well worth paying for me.

Me and my best mate used to buy a few tins or a bottle of vodka and two plastic cups and sit in central London watching the world go by. After we were merry we'd then hit the pubs. Eeee the days of still living like a student whilst being in fulltime work 8)

You'd have to double my wages to get me to move to London <shudder>

Before anyone points it out, on my last post I forgot to take tax off so 26,000 a year would only make you better off than 67% of the population. The point still stands though.

grum - Member

Describing £26,000 as a low wage does display a lack of awareness about lots of people's situations, and is borderline insulting to those who earn a lot less.

Exactly. Fancy having to manage. At the [i]bottom[/i]. On 26k. For a whole year.

Before the flame war goes into overdrive, the OP did say 26K [u]in London[/u]. I was under the impression that it was generally recognised that it costs a fair bit more to live there (though god knows why...), so the 26K probably isn't that much...

Confused from Manchester here. Apart from the rent I don't understand what you'all think makes London that much more?

The OP isn't going to be shopping at Fortnum & Mason for his food and wont be buying his clothes in Selfridges.

Yes beer is more however it aint exactly cheap up here and how many folk on 26k in the north drink out every night and go coke-crazy at the weekend?

If you have no commitments or dependents, a 26k salary in London is not going to condemn you to a hand-to-mouth existence, especially if you're not planning on staying there long-term.

There must be several million people in London getting by on that kind of money, or less, who are in no hurry to move anywhere else.

Hora in his younger metropolitan heyday

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Assuming say 10% pension contribution, 26k equates to what, £1700 a month net? From this deduct rent,council tax, food, utilities, travel/transport, debt servicing, phone/internet, clothing, insurance policies, savings....

It might be ok if you're young free and single I suppose but there won't be much left in the pot. Certainly not enough if you have dependents I shouldn't think, unless you qualify for benefits.

Bike to work, will save you £112 a month minimum.

Like a few others have said. if it's just you you'll be fine on that. if it's you and a partner (on similar wage) then you'll certainly be fine!

I saw some research that suggests London is about 23% more expensive than Manchester.

I'm not saying £26,000 is loads, but it's not a low wage either. In fact it's almost exactly the median uk wage (much more useful stat than the average).

My brother is a groundskeeper at a school, works really hard and gets around half that. What do you call that if 26,000 is low and at the 'bottom'?

i think it's known as a subsistence wage

No it's called a low wage and is the reality for lots of people in this country. Not asking anyone to feel sorry for him, he does fine - I'm just suggesting people should have a teensy bit of perspective.

The median uk salary is not a low wage.

I saw some research that suggests London is about 23% more expensive than Manchester.

I'm not saying £26,000 is loads, but it's not a low wage either. In fact it's almost exactly the median uk wage (much more useful stat than the average).

So what would be more helpful would be a stat showing the median wage of someone living in London. That way you'd be comparing apples with apples, as opposed to apples and oranges...

My brother is a groundskeeper at a school, works really hard and gets around half that.

Genuinely interested to know how he can survive on that, 13k is about £950 a month after NI and tax. Free accommodation? Living off savings?

I don't know about his finances TBH but he seems to do ok. If you are sharing rent/mortgage/bills/food and have no kids why would you not be able to live on £950 a month? He doesn't have a fancy MTB to pay for/maintain either I suppose.

Again, this is the ordinary reality for much of the population - its not easy but neither is everyone living in misery. Someone needs to do jobs like that - I think we should pay them more and those at the top end less, but I guess that's just the kind of crazy commie I am.

I saw some research that suggests London is about 23% more expensive than Manchester

In real terms (excluding rent/property) I doubt that very much.

How is excluding rent 'real terms'?

binners on a Fri or Sat night we used to sit on the canal wall in Camden drinking (to lessen going out costs) and had soo many 'unusual' conversations with alcoholics/drug users and dope sellers 😆

...then there was the time we sat on the tube drinking from a bottle of vodka whilst nubile girls glanced at us in disgust

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Ive always said try London once in your life.

Being 'invaded' with a cucumber is higher on my to-do list.

- I think we should pay them more and those at the top end less

Genuine question; why?

With the exception of those born into money, everyone* get's the same opertunity to do GCSE's, then if they've shown some aplitude for learning A-levels, then a degree if it suits them and their plans. So at some point allong the line everyone through judgement or luck** has made a set of decisions which landed them where they are today.

* yes going to Eaton means more GCSE's, but plenty of comp kids get all A*
** good or bad

DBW well I wouldn't say you should try Halifax at least once! 😆

Its like the Paris of the north Hora 😉

I stand by my cucumber comment though. I was in London for a week just before Christmas with work - hated it.

Genuine question; why?

This is just getting into a basic left vs right argument, but essentially....

Because nobody needs to be rich and society would be a better place if there wasn't such massive disparity between rich and poor.

There are plenty of jobs that are necessary and they should pay a decent living wage. And as a society we could easily afford it if the people at the top weren't intent on hoarding ever increasing amounts for themselves.

A new index of pay, based on 500 companies across key sectors, shows that even in industries hard-hit by the recession, including construction and manufacturing, middle managers saw their salaries increase by as much as 11pc in the year to March 31.

At the same time, The Daily Telegraph & Croner Pay Index, published today, finds that junior workers based in office jobs or on the shop floor have put up with modest rises or pay cuts over the past year.

There are plenty of jobs that are necessary

and they should pay a decent living wage. And as a society we could easily afford it if the people at the top weren't intent on hoarding ever increasing amounts for themselves.

But then there'd be no incentive to get to the top. Why would I bother flogging myslef through A-levels and 4 years of uni if the job at the end of it didn't pay significantly more than the school caretaker?

Why would I bother flogging myslef through A-levels and 4 years of uni if the job at the end of it didn't pay significantly more than the school caretaker?

A question lots of recent graduates will be asking themselves probably.

I don't have a problem with some jobs paying more than others, it's just that the balance is massively skewed, and getting worse at a rapid rate. More equal societies are better societies - healthier, happier, less crime etc etc - there's lots of research that shows this very clearly.

What grum said.

Unless you have family and kids and want to run a Land Rover or something then £26k is plenty. Get a room in a houseshare (will help find where the good places are in the area too) and you'll be fine. I moved to that London after uni for work (originally from Yorkshire, uni in Edinburgh) (can't be too picky about location when getting your first job in my industry) in 2005 and started on £20k, only got to more than £26k in 2009 and managed to survive while having a pretty good time.

With the exception of those born into money, everyone* get's the same opertunity to do GCSE's, then if they've shown some aplitude for learning A-levels, then a degree if it suits them and their plans. So at some point allong the line everyone through judgement or luck** has made a set of decisions which landed them where they are today.

Problem is people don't have the same chances in life, if your born into an environment where you are expected to do well and are pushed you have far more chance than someone born into a different environment.

In the current climate with ever increasing us of interns, being born wealthy and living in london places you at a huge advantage over those born to northern working class parents. If you want a career at the bar try funding it without money, why are so many doctors children of doctors?

I am not saying you can't make it but anyone who thinks background is a minor detail is very naive.

There are loads of people from working class backgrounds where I work, some even come from the NE! I suppose I come from a privileged background so I must have failed somewhere really.

I struggle with long sentences, but I think you can live on that in London. We pay our grads £30k a year and they seem to manage to live in nice areas.

Other than accommodation, most stuff isn't really much more expensive then elsewhere.

I think this is wrong. Eating/ drinking out, transport, entertainment, hospitality, services, manual labour, call-outs, car hire, etc. all cost more in London.

I think this is wrong. Eating/ drinking out, transport, entertainment, hospitality, services, manual labour, call-outs, car hire, etc. all cost more in London.

Who do you think you are, coming on here, spouting well reasoned arguments 🙄

Thanks Guys, sorry I didn't reply sooner (been flat out in current job).

I was a bit worried, been on a better wage and my own place for ages since Uni.

I'm going into a different field, starting from the bottom, no family to drag with me.

Looks like I will be flat sharing or a lodger.

Have not confirmed, but job hopefully confirmed starting from July.

Shop at Next and Tesco for food. Drinking days are long gone for me except for red bull.

I love visiting London.

Thanks for your inputs - I'm not so terrified and it sounds like you all had fun there.