Who has flexibility over where they live?

I was reading the Brexit house price thread and it got me thinking – I would love to leave London (clue in the name), but it would require me to more or less find a new career as my current occupation doesn’t really exist outside London in any meaningful sense. Time to rethink that…

It makes me wonder, who does things that can be done more or less anywhere, and what are those jobs? And if you have skills mobility, how did you choose your current location? And are you going to stay there?

I work for an electricity company. Jobs all over the world.
Only problem is by the time you’re my level there’s about two jobs in each company I could do.

That said I like my job and living in York is good.

Career wise I’d likely be better moving into (commuting distance for) London. I’d almost rather be in “digs” in the week than uproot the family though.

The reason we are where we are is historic but it’s where our and our children’s social network is (the non online type) and my wife’s job.

If I could think of how to reuse my skills differently I would happily move North (if they would let me in) to the Lakes or Peaks or maybe to South Wales but I’d be worried about the disruption to the family.

butcher, baker candlestick maker.
Teacher, doctor, prostitute. There are hundreds. Have you ever considered the oldest profession? :-)

my current occupation doesn’t really exist outside London in any meaningful sense

Yeoman?

I only need to live near an airport.

How ever if I want to move job it’s probably a good idea to continue living where I do.

All over the world but not “anywhere”, rather anywhere there’s a decent university or suitable research institute.

At least that was the case until I started working from home :-)

I’m a mobile consultant. I could live anywhere, although my managers might not be pleased if I went to live on a remote island and it took me all day to get to clients.

Might be tied to Cardiff now though as my eldest is now old enough to really care about staying with her friends.

Pretty common working in IT, but most don’t take full advantage of the opportunity.

I need to go to London once a month-ish which rules out the north of Scotland, but that’s about it.

So… Wales it is. Half an hour to the coast and I can see a trail centre from my house. Which was my wife’s and my requirements covered respectively.

And yes, I’ll be leaving in a box.

I work in compliance (management systems). I could work anywhere as the standards I cover are mostly international. I could certainly find work in any area in the UK. I live in an area with good salary and low living costs (West Central Scotland) which leaves me with a high disposable income (as a percentage at least). I could move elsewhere in the UK and be roughly in the same boat or could move to a place (ie the South East) for slightly higher salary but much higher living costs. Due to my lifestyle though this will never happen.

are you a lifestylecoach @reluctantlondoner
I’m curious now .. haha

i wouldnt be surprised in my next company restructure, my job relocates to that place the office was based. having bought a house last year and showing my southern based colleagues, they said i’d be looking at 2.5x the price to move near the office.

no chance, id consider it, i’m long out of uni and my next career highlight will be redundancy no doubt.

even without this big elephant hs2, gods own county west yorkshire is only 2hr 20 away from the big smoke

I would say living in London and owning a property even with a mortgage would qualify you for moving elsewhere. For the price of a 2 bed terrace in london would buy you a 5 bed detached round here. London’s full of nutters, get gone.

Me given my experience and qualifications with the added effect of the dire state the NHS is in I could cherry pick.

Yeah, kinda.

Most work I do is limited to large Cities, well institutions based in large Cities.. t’is why I had a place there and a place where I call “home”. Though these days that’s changed, so only use “home” and stay over in Town when I need to .

Hoping that’ll change very soon though, and that may mean a complete change around.. We’ll see soon enough.

I am a nurse. Part of my reason for being so is the flexibility it offers.

I moved out of London a year ago and fled to Shropshire. Unfortunately by being way too specialised in my field I can only work in London, or A handful of companies elsewhere in the world. So I work from home 2 days and then 3 days in the office. Drive down on a Tuesday morning back on Thursday evening. Cost of rent on a 3 bed cottage, 2 nights a week in London and petrol is still less than renting a 1 bed flat in SW London.

This is where my partner has always lived ..and where my Dad has since 1969 ( North Tyne Valley)
When we decided 18years ago that we wanted to be together moving away from here was not an option ..and suited both of our lifestyles..
I am self employed and work mainly from home ..while my missus is a mobile Hair Stylist ..one of four in the village which no longer has a salon (having previously had two ) .
I certainly make less now than I did 10 years ago ..but don’t have half the stress when there is only this household to worry about and not another six wages to find for the folks I employed.
Time and health are way more important to me now ..( and getting out on my mountain bike pretty much when I want ) :-)

My mate works in Corporate IT and has to go to London about once a month. He lives in Aviemore.
Another mate worked for Oracle until recently and was going down more often than that. He also lives in Aviemore.

There are regular flights from Inverness and the sleeper for when that doesn’t work into the schedule.

I persuaded my previous company to let me relocate from London to the North. In practice this meant working in London 2 days a week but work funded the travel. I enjoyed that for a while. I moved jobs and then companies but would still have flexibility to be based around the new companies core offices in Yorkshire, Midlands or Co. Durham.

This seems to be relatively standard from companies that have a national operational footprint IME

my current occupation doesn’t really exist outside London in any meaningful sense

Same here.
…but..

I live 160 miles away from London. Work from home 3 days a week, train down, stay overnight, train back again. Its far from perfect, but I earn a London wage, swapped a 2 bed London flat for a 4 bedroom house in a great location and can ride my bike offroad from my door.

I could do my job (event production) outside London, but I’d either have to halve my paypacket, or work my ass off in a way that would be unsustainable in even the mid term.

The advantage I had was that I’d made myself a pretty solid niche in the company and had been there 14 years, so when we decided to move up north and told our respective employers “this is the deal, take it or leave it” (we were both fed up of London), they went. “errrm. Ok…”

Reasonable flex globally but within the UK it’s really just London and maybe Edinburgh. Have tried timinstart my own business a couplenof times with one key desire not to be in central London

As an aside I have two mates who work from home whonpreviously wouldnhave been London based. Managed to convince their employers they don’t need to be in the (London) office all day. Winnwin for them as they live in cheaper and bigger propertied and have a much better quality of life, save on a commute too in both time and money

I work at home for mainly foreign companies, so I could move anywhere.
I’ve been to a few places though and thought seriously about it and feel very comfortable where I am.

Always tempting to move somewhere where the income would go further though.

WFH, but need to be able to get to Heathrow, and occasionally Gatwick fairly easily. So, fairly fluid.

ads678 – Member

my current occupation doesn’t really exist outside London in any meaningful sense

Yeoman?[/quote]
If we’re guessing, I’m going to suggest he works in a cyclery.

My mate works in Corporate IT and has to go to London about once a month. He lives in Aviemore.
Another mate worked for Oracle until recently and was going down more often than that. He also lives in Aviemore.
There are regular flights from Inverness and the sleeper for when that doesn’t work into the schedule.

That was what I was getting at. You can be two hours north of Inverness. Scotland in general was a possibility.

I could pretty much live anywhere in the UK (it’s completely up to me) but I live in Surrey and go to London a couple of times a week, then travel or work from home. Lots of flights from Heathrow / Gatwick means living close to the airport is a bonus. Contart to this thread I like living where I do in the south east. Good riding (road/MTB) and good friends, family close, so no intention to move for quite a while.

My manager lives in Glasgow. For our team it’s more about personal inconvenience than corporate, because we’re the ones who have to do the travelling. My manager is ok because he can get to Glasgow airport easily and much of our work is in the SE. Because it’s an American company they are happy for people to take regular internal flights as it’s normal to them. Another colleague though has it worse in York because he has to drive or take the train all over the place. He’s been in Swindon for a year commuting weekly.

I could work from home and live pretty much anywhere, but I quite like being in the office, so come in every day. We have staff who have left and WFH all over the world as it’s cheaper to let them work remotely than hire someone new….

I’m probably limited to capital cities (and world cities at that) or a commutable distance from one, I could live further out and have a pied à terre but I like it here (london) and not in a hurry to leave.
We have 2 properties between us in london so we might look at having a weekend place in the future, I know plenty of people who do this.
About the only other citiy I could find work at my level would be Manchester but there is no reason for me to move there away from family and friends just so I can have a bigger house.

Moved from Scarborough to Lichfield and then on to Kendal possible move to Scotland soon maybe, probably the best job to transfer around on :-)

Just learn a new language move somewhere else, piece of piss :-)

Assuming I could get a visa I could live and work anywhere with a fast and reliable internet connection. My work comes in from all over the place, I rarely have to attend meetings (last one was over 2 years ago) and I don’t need to work with anyone else.

I’m living in West London as I have an elderly parent living a few miles away who’s generally very able but occasionally needs a bit of assistance.

I can work anywhere pretty much. It’s been a key factor in choosing jobs and developing my career (such as it is). I occasionally have to work somewhere specific but usually somewhere nice, currently on the west coast of Ireland working at a national park.

When I was finishing my phd I was offered a job in the outer Hebrides and one in Reading. I chose poorly!

I could work anywhere in the UK. I’ve ended up somewhere where the lifestyle suits me and my family very well, although promotion opportunities are minimal. But I don’t really care about that anymore.

anagallis_arvensis – Member
When I was finishing my phd I was offered a job in the outer Hebrides and one in Reading. I chose poorly!

I know someone who went to Mull as part of their Geology PHD, fell in love with the place and ended up living out their life there – as a lobster fisherman.