My son is studying Architecture at Loughborough uni, next academic year he has a placement and has been offered a job in London, near Farringdon. Any pointers for how to find somewhere to live on a tight budget?

No longer young but I was broke when I left and the cheapest is still SE or NE. Zone 3 will be a significant saving. Not being near a tube, maybe mainline only a further saving. Over 10 min walk from any station another saving. Do some cycle training and get comfy cycling and you can save big money. I lived in Woolwich and Plubstead for about 5 years and it took 1hr 15 min on public transport to Euston. 40 – 55 min on a bike (depending on my energy levels). London changes rapidly and what was once a no go 15 years ago is fine now so don’t listen to people who have not been around for years. In general London is pretty safe if you follow basic street smart rules.

Croydon… or specifically South Croydon. Fast Thameslink trains into the city, relatively affordable, not as dreadful as people say. Also a brutalist wonderland if he is into that kind of architecture.
Also, you might need to define tight…. especially coming from Loughborough it might be a shock to the system! Farringdon is an interesting part of the city, great pubs and some good eating but also sodding pricey.

There’s biking from Croydon and excellent transport to everywhere.

I echo all what TheBrick said – having a longer commute will save a great deal of money. South East London in particular is still relatively cheap and due to Crossrail not getting completed on time there is a significant amount of surplus accommodation available.

House shares are invariably much cheaper than one bedroom flats – Has your son not got any friends who are Students in London that he could share a house for the year? that is usually the cheapest option

East London is cheapest imo. But not as nice , again imo.
Room in a shared house is “popular”.
We started off in bloody Lewisham , which was stupid as we come from the north ,making going home a proper schlep. So basic geography is at least worth considering.
Every where has rough with smooth and to be totally honest I’m more frightened walking home after a night out in Cumbria than N1 or N2!
I’d be asking the placement for advice or at least if anyone there has a room to rent. Best of luck.

Thanks for those replies, some useful tips and pointers there.

Has your son not got any friends who are Students in London that he could share a house for the year? that is usually the cheapest option

Not sure if he has but I’ll suggest that too.

you might need to define tight

I think 18k was mentioned

I built him up a bike to take to uni in the first year but Loughborough is all on one campus so he didn’t use it and I returned it to the parts bin. I feel a singlespeed project coming on 🙂

Beckenham/Penge/Crystal Palace in south London all relatively cheap. My sister rents a nice room in a stylish and massive flat with two flatmate in Beckenham for about £750 a month I think.

Ok so Croydon may be only a half hour train journey to farringdon but total journey time likely to be at least 45 minutes if not an hour. And Croydon isn’t central London it’s greater London. Beckenham and south East London pretty long journey too.

I would look at Hackney especially Victoria Park area. 20 minutes cycle to farringdon. Maybe a bit more expensive but you can often find some good house shares. It’s a nice area, I have a friend near there. I grew up in greater London and went to uni in central London.

£18k only just meets the UK Living Wage but not the London Living Wage.

Living wage depends a lot or your situation. As a young single person of 20 it’s a lot less than someonr with a family and 40.

If he doesn’t have friends moving to London to live with, then spareroom.co.uk is the place to look for flatshares. It’s worth starting to look on there a couple of months before he needs to move, but most stuff is put up with a month to go.

At an architecture practice he’ll probably be doing a few late nights, so schlepping back to Croydon won’t be much fun, so only do that if he really can’t afford elsewhere.

Hackney / Victoria Park is pretty expensive as it’s so trendy. He could probably find cheaper places closer by looking at less desirable areas like Holloway Road, Caledonian Road or up towards Finsbury Park. You can find rooms for about £650 a month within 15-20 minutes cycle of Farringdon.

Faringdon is also on the overground rail network so you can commute in from quite far outside of London. Have a look at the network rail map.
A friend is subsidising his son who is doing a work placement in London and giving him about £700 a month, it’s an expensive city and there aren’t any real ways around that in terms of accommodation.

Not young any more but work in Clerkenwell/Farringdon and I cycle in daily from Forest Gate which is just out past the Olympic Park. It’s definitely cheaper living out East (we moved after years living in Camden in order to buy a house) and my ride in is very pleasant. Through the Olympic Park, over a footbridge on the A12, through Victoria Park, then a “quietway” route most of the rest of the way. There is also the option of picking up the canal for a lot of it. Not sure if it makes any difference but Loughborough University have a campus in Hackney Wick so would have that available too.

Forest Gate will be a Crossrail stop too but obviously that will now be too late arriving for him. But we do already have the new trains running to Liverpool Street via Stratford which only takes 11mins. Stratford is very well connected too for getting elsewhere.

Farringdon is the main area for architects in London. With so many clustered together I would have thought there’s a good chance of there being some kind of meetup group for young architects which might be worth trying to find to get advice.

Just be aware that looking further out often isn’t as much of a saving for a renter as it is for a buyer.

Also, factor in commuting costs. A monthly travelcard is £135 for Zone 2, £160 Z3, £190 Z4 etc. Big savings there if he can find somewhere he’s happy to cycle to/from.

i worked in Farringdon for a while, this website was my goto… https://www.spareroom.co.uk

I experienced a £650 room in a shared housed 9 years ago – I wouldn’t wish that on anyone let alone a kid

I’ve experienced the level of expertise of London Architects and ‘building professional’ on a daily basis and I find them all to be pretty crap.

If its cache of working in London I’d say forget it, it doesn’t exist.

Far better off finding a small practice elsewhere where he’s going to be thrown in the deep end and made to work like a dog but with a reasonable standard of living out of work

Also… maybe let him know he doesnt have to work stupid hours….. Architecture has a bit of a reputation but it can be a bit self fulfilling…. My wife worked for an top 10 AJ100 practice in London Bridge for two years and rarely worked past 5:30. We have since moved to Chichester and a much smaller practice, and once again doesnt work late at all. This is under the caveat that if its Foster & partners or something yeah he is screwed.
If you can get within a 20 min cycle that’s awesome. What people are saying about the cost of transport is true. Although if you can do overground & london terminals it can be cheaper.

Don go further out than zone 3 as he will night busses etc become less available and take forever. Also you miss out on the good points of London and just end up in a massive suburbia. As I said in my first post I lived zone 3 / 4 boarder SE18. About as far out as you can get while still getting some real London advantages. Better to be 2/3 board ideally. Hackney stopped being cheap 10 years ago.

Nothing useful to add but I knew London was expensive but £650 a month for a room in shared house is cheap? 😮