How can you afford to live in LONDON? - Money, Salaries & Rent 

Help me reach 15K followers on Instagram

you can tell this is a 2015 video. the prices for housing. the only way you would be able to get a room for that now is if you commute for an hour each way into work.

I lived in London and I needed about 55,000 pounds each year to live and not suffer. I was shocked to find that most entry level jobs paid next to nothing and even with 15+ years of experience I could make about 35-40K. It just never added up - the crowds, the low wages, taking an hour or more to get anywhere on the tube, No. I came back to SF - which is even more expensive than London. The difference is that I can earn what I need to live well here in SF

I paid £240 a month for a single bedroom in Fallowfield, Manchester. With all bills include!!!

Living in London is my dream and I've always been worried about so many things regarding money and I thought it'll always be a dream, but thanks to you I gained some hope in moving there. Thanks a lot!

thanks for your tips! London can be your best friend or worst enemy, it depends on your mindset :)

A Lot of young people spent 70% of there wages on rent,Rents have got out of hand its crazy and at the same time train fairs go up along with everything else why your wages never go up the uk is in a right mess

I have a house in the country in the uk It's a 2 bedroom house with a big garden and garage for £800 a month including bills So that's really expensive for a little flat

This is how exactly we counted it with my boyfriend, we're gonna share the apartment which means 200 per person a month, and we found a job that was paying 20 000 per year and so that's great!

How is 20 000 £/ year enough for London? It does not add up at all.

I want to live in London too. But, I always remember about the expenses. thanks for this video!

the London job market is saturated, unless you are a doctor or a qualified accountant, you will never find decent work and be able to make ends meet. it's nice to live in London, but as far as earning money through a job, it's the last place on earth, even people with good, reputable jobs are struggling to make ends meet.

$20,000 a year living in London is still a hard penny-pinching life. At $20,000 a year, do you truly "live" in London? Or is that 'hustle', scrimping, shaving, and minimalism that ones limited wage in such an expensive place the reality of "living" in London?

Thanks for the tips! I'm planning to move to London for a while and share a flat with my mate, but she just told me the transportation costs - sooooo freakin' expensive! She has to pay £150 for every month + the ridiculous rent + the bills. Just woah.

Hackney is an awesome area with A TON of culture, music, art, farmers markets, etc 6 miles away from Downtown, and is quite a great value.

Nothing comes without a cost so, If you really want to go to London, prepare yourself and don't fool around for too much. Work hard, save money and handle it for a while. Everything is going to be alright, you've got plenty of time to have fun! I'm from Portugal and we have rough times right now. My country is made for foreigners and not for us alone, so all i can do is believe and follow my dreams, working hard so i can achieve it. I want to go to London really badly, i'm in the process of applying to a University there and i have faith it might happen. I just have to work hard and be myself. Life is brief, yes, but it's not impossible for you to do everything you want to! Anyway thanks for the video! Wanted something with more numbers but yours helped as well in a good way! Keep up the good work!

£25.000 as a starting salary is a good start, and you are correct. However, you didn't say that this salary will hardly increase over the next 10 years of your career. 10 years later, you'll have £35.000 and that's it.

Here's one for you ave salary take home per month 30k, £1,750 so work out if you can afford everything out of that salary and if not move out of London. Double bed in Tufnell Park years ago was £800 pcm so unsure about the £600 limit as Tufnell Park is not central London. Graduates these days are working in McDonalds so if you are a graduate do not get too excited. Imho choose a different city. London is overrated and expect rents to rise faster than discussed here due to the issues with house prices. You can get good salaries outside London.

When I worked in central London in 1986 , my semi professional salary was 20,000 pounds gross. My rent for a large bedsit in Ilford, Essex was 150 pounds per month . I guess it would be 500 pounds today .Taxes are lower now , but it sounds like its just been diverted to paying a lot more rent today. London's always been considered expensive .

You need a £100,000 per annum salary to live central London

These days if you are a programmer or website developer or a front end dev, then you can expect bigger salaries than the minimum even if you come from another country. A mid weight front end dev can easily request 40k/year in London if he/she knows how to request that amount.

actually I wish one day I live on London but I feel afraid after this video . here in Egypt the most expensive sandwiche costs only 1 p

London is a place where everything is at least twice as difficult to do as it is everywhere else. The people are miserable too compared to the surrounding counties. Having said that I miss London but I can only go back, briefly, or I'd go mad.

Screw that! I'm a qualified doctor and I only earn £22800 (before tax). I was thinking about working in London for a year or 2, or maybe to study again with some weekend work, but if I'm only going to be able to just survive it seems pointless. God knows how I would survive if I am studying again. I'll stay in Wales 😩 it rains a lot & is not exciting & busy like London, but at least I can afford to eat comfortably and go on holiday abroad 4 times a year 😍 thanks for this info (and shattering my dreams 😂)

All prices in this video are way too low! I earn £25k and I live nowhere near London and can't rent a flat alone on this salary because a flat is at least £1000 per month😂 (I have a car to pay for too)

Good thing I went to London on a vacation before moving there to study 😅 I gave up quickly after that

well I live in Frankfurt its not expensive as London but..for a tiny flat out of city just one room I must paying 600€ every month.the guarantee for this was 2000€.the transportation cost for a year card is 1000€.

Every German city is a village compared to the size of London. 35 miles from east to west and 33 miles from north to south and that is a lot of kilometers. Camden town is small and the London Borough of Camden is one of the smaller of London's 33 boroughs. From HIghgate to the north to Holborn in the south.

if I buy a house in London ill put a room up for 50 pcm if you cant pay ill wait amonth ut you have to pay double u can do anything

From the renting norms in southern California, those London rates aren't high. Expect to pay around $1500(>900 British pounds) for a single bedroom in Orange County. It's New York and San Fransisco that have astronomically high rent rates.

Okay, this is maybe a real weird question but you can do a hair care routine? Because you hair looks so healthy and shiny and I'm so jealous! I'm going to work for a host family in April btw and I'm so excited!

Depends what job you’re doing and where you want to live. For example my friends rent a 2 bedroom flat with his family in zone 2 south west London and pays around £1400 while I live in suburbs and pay the half of that for 2 bedroom as well. I don’t think is worth living close to centre unless you have a over 50k job

i live in a one bedroom flat £400 pcm, futher north of england you go the cheaper the rental prices, i reside in somerset its cheep here and steeped with more tradition value.

Sandy If I want to visit UK do u help me and can u tell me tourist visa for 14 days available or not

SHARE A BEDROOM?! : 0 never!

You need to go to less fashionable area. Plumstead, quick, because it’s about to get the best transport links in London.

Thank God I live in the Netherlands. I pay 400 Pond for my house and has 4 bedrooms. Plus I get paid at my Work Operator 2500 pound. Feel very said for the people working hard in uk and living in a small room .

So if you make 20,000£ how can u pay rent and all the other expenses like car, insurance, food , internet , cellphone service etc I'm really confuse right know I make around 30,000 in us and barely make the cut living on my own paying a rent of 660

I'm currently applying for jobs in London with my partner and although I have a friend who lives in Woolwich I found this video to be very useful indeed. It is quite daunting to even be trying it but I am so excited by the prospect at the same time so I just wanted to say thank you for your informative and interesting video. I've subscribed as well so I'm off to watch some of your other content! =)

20 000 pounds minimum leaves you with 1666 pounds a month, is this the minimum wage in London?? By the way, living in London in dorms ( for university purposes) is so expensive :( it is about 400 pounds PER WEEK!! this is if you want to share a room with another person and in a safe place.

Property and rent prices have rocketed since I was there in the 90's. An option for a tourist or student is a hostel that provides breakfast and supper :)

Vielen Dank für diese Video, es hat mir extrem geholfen eine Vorstellung von den Preisen zu bekommen. Für mich gehts in zwei Wochen auf unbestimmte Zeit nach GB und da helfen mir deine Videos wirklich sehr. Vielen Dank dafür!

I live in S. California US, your prices are very low in comparison. I am located 45 miles east of Los Angeles. If I'm correct (maybe not) I pay approximately 1,700 dollars a month which is 1390.48 £. monthly. This total does not include my utilities. My salary is moderate for US standards. I wish I had all of that culture, and close proximity to other countries for travel. Thanks for the information!!

Do you think I'd be cheaper if you lived outside London but in a place with a good train connection?

I rent studio flat in east London for 650 Its brand new flat so I guess I am lucky

I find it interesting to see so many people say London is expensive. The only things that can be seen as expensive are rent, travel and possibly restaurants depending on where you go. Personally, most people I know that lived outside of London and live below the midlands/south of England, pay about £650 pm for a room plus bills. They drive a car, which they had to buy, insure, pay for petrol and pay parking costs. Restaurants are the same price pretty much. I actually calculated it was cheaper for me to live in London than anywhere else in the south of England. To put this into perspective , I'll give you a breakdown: Rents for living in zone 3 over a 5 year period (2015-2019) all in modern well-maintained shared houses and including bills and cleaning products - £325 pcm , £350 pcm, £500 pcm. Travel card zone 1-3 about £135 pcm (probably gone up now) Food, phone bill, misc expenses and going out/eating out expenses - same as anywhere in the South of England unless you decided to go to really posh places or you drink a lot of alcohol. For example, a pint is about £5 (but in South of England you would expect about £4 anyway), cocktails in central London could be £8-15, a posh meal out with 3 courses could be £35-50. For all my my time in London I bought pretty much all my lunches out and ate out 2-3 times a week for dinner or equivalent in takeaway. I pretty much lived on under £1000 when I calculated it, I was surprised how little I was spending. The BIG thing you need to do is make sure you get the ideal location of your rental property, I got such low rents because I researched areas, decided how long I would be happy for my commute to be, and acted quickly when I saw a room I wanted to rent so I could get the low rents. I also must say that my rooms that were around the £300 mark were tiny one beds, but I lived in a house with 2 lounges, a big kitchen and a garden at that time, and only shared with 3 others.

Danke Dir für dieses Video. Das hat mir sehr geholfen, da ich bald meine Praktika in London machen werde, wo natürlich die Unterkunft nicht mit drin enthalten ist. Viel Erfolg weiterhin! :) Im Übrigen bin ich auf Dich über Deine Schwester gestoßen :D

the rent isn't that bad in london, in Hong Kong you need 1000 quid for a 250 square feet flat. very difficult

Hi Sandy! Would you recommend to move from Germany 🇩🇪 to England? To move to Cheshunt?(It is about 30 Minutes tube ride)or should I move to London instead Yours Marc😊😊

So helpful! :) And I freaking love your hair! Haha

Thank you, this sounds very accurate and is very helpful.

i am indian i will be come to london how much i have get a salary credit and i was working in car production company....

I am lucky, I am over 60 so I bought my subsidised flat in West London outright

I earn 30k a year and I am still struggling with bills and rent

Last summer I lived in zone 4th and I paid 100 pounds per week for one bedroom :D So I guess I was lucky!

A £20,000 sounds pretty good for an entry-level job, but no, I don't fancy living in London. The rent, the crime, the traffic, the noise levels and the pollution are among the worst in the country. I'm renting large-ish a self-contained one-bedroom flat in a quiet area for £550 per month, and for the same money you can rent a small two-bedroom house in a slightly busier area of the same town if you wish. I'm about 80 miles from London so it's easy to visit if I need to. I don't work in London, but if I did I'd probably look for somewhere a little closer but still well away from the M25; maybe somewhere like Chelmsford or Southend-on-sea.

why is wages so crappy in England? its a developed nation ..

I am getting 60000 pounds a year. How much can i save and what about taxes?

How many people, especially young folk, go on the game to "make ends meet"?

are you serious? London is way cheaper than my current living place. I pay 470€ rent for 1 Bedroom and get 23.000 Euro per year.

I am happy that I ll live in London with my brother and his fiancé since we all three already have jobs there... About 65k a year and all expenses in three is quite good

Not worth it for me. My disposable income is higher in Australia or New Zealand.

For a foreigner in my last year in uni in Newcastle that is hoping to move to London this was so helpful! :) Thank you! Xxx

I regret moving to London. It's miserable.

hi .I m gonna london for holidays can you tell me which is the best place in London where I get a room in best price ?

wow this is tooX3 much here in jordan u need 1k to live normal life and if rent home cost 500 Pound (this is the maximum) u need 1500k to live on the clouds

hello sandy .i am from mumbai , maharashtra, india .........i am doing graduate last year ... i am deciding to do my post graduation in london . so i want room rent so what will be the cost if my father and i stay for 2 years ..........? if you suggest me i am very thankful......

Honestly it doesn't sound bad. That's about how much people pay in my town and our minimum wage is $9

Lol. In Austria, you pay the same for a room in a student home, where you also get shared facilities like a shared bathroom and kitchen. Here in Iceland I pay for my student dorm room 750 Euro. And I also share my kitchen XD

Average London House Price is now £ 600,000 !!!!!!!!!!

Get salaries in London just to survive!!! We don't call life. Come on!!! why we need to live in sharing bedroom or flatshare. Those prices are still too high even one bedroom apartment or tiny studio. Other countries we can get the whole house or a large modern apartment.

how much is a good amounts of US dollars to move to London and the best time in the years. summer spring, winter. ...

Q: How can you afford to live in London? A: You can't, unless you want to live like a rat, feel left behind and have your entire life on hold while your friends in Manchester and Glasgow are getting married, having kids, buying houses and cars. London is a fake bubble which is all about treading water while keeping up appearances. You miss out on so much of "the real world" by living there and you will soon realise that career isn't everything. What's the point in POSSIBLY earning more (not everyone does!) just to be working so hard you can't enjoy it and not have anything to show for it? You still can't afford a house and this ridiculous house-share merry go round gets very boring by the time you're 28 or so. You say you'll never leave London - trust me, you will. Everyone eventually does and even multi-millionaire CEOs all live in wealthy suburban towns like Weybridge. Those who actually can afford to live comfortably in London almost never do. That £600-650 per bedroom you quote? Go just 30-45 minutes outside of London and you can have a proper one bed flat for that money - and live there alone. 45-60 minutes out and you get a 2 bed flat. Go to somewhere like Glasgow? That's a three bed flat with balcony just 20 minutes walk from the heart of the city and in terms of your salary compared to London, it's only about a 15-20% pay cut. That's really not bad considering how cheap everything else is.

Haha. Is she insane? £600 ? More like £750-£900 for a room luv

In Canada a room is 300$/month that's mean 175,65GBP for you... That's insane how it's expensive there...

I have full 7 bedroom house in Birmingham for £700 per month. is it worth it to leave this 7 bedroom house and live like 4 rats in 1 small room. Birmingham is much cheaper option. Can I get £40,000 per month job at entry level . If no then with £25,000 is really hard life in London and plus you have partner and kids.

question is who will take the living room ?

Will they provide salary for year not for every individual month in a year ??

about the shared rooms - i can rent them and live together with a friend there or i have to live with the landlord ? please can someone answer ?

love your hair!

Honestly, that is the reason why I want to go to Manchester or Liverpool to live in. As, London is so expensive.

question... I live in Mexico and i studied for Dentistry. How hard would be to take a master degree and work at the same time? and how much would they pay?

First second into the video: You look so pretty! *_* That's such a great look for you. ... okay now back to watching the video :D

Some great Advice! We need to catch up soon! :D

Hello fellow German Londoner :D Could totally relate. London rent prices are CRAY!!! I know people who live in literally a room the width and length of a single bed and they still pay their 500 quid. Mad! Whenever I come back to Germany I can only laugh when people complain about their 300 Euro rent for their 3-bedroom apartment in the city centre.... HA! x

This is a very warped opinion. I live in London and have many friends here too, and it's not that bad. Obviously it's not as cheap as up north, but prices are no different to living in bigger cities like brighton. Plus no one would ever pay 450 for a shared room, I have plenty of friends who have their own room for this price.

Hi, I have a question a I am a Network Engineer what if a company requires an Engineer with Salary 45k£/year what about taxes how Companies deal with that I hope you explain that for me Many thanks in advance Regards , Khalidology

1 tl =4.35£. ohh this is so Expencive for me.

Nice video, and I really like your accent

Your hair is freaking beautiful!

Hey meinst du als Friseurin kann man in England normal leben? Habe auch an work and Travel gedacht wo man in einem Hotel etc arbeitet. Würdest du eher raten es erstmal mit einer Organisation zu probieren? ^^

hey;) thank you for this video, it was very useful. I wonder in which neibourhood of London you live? Maybe you could name a few which you recommend and a few you would suggest to avoid. Thanks! :)

If you can't get a job for at least 20k in London, time to turn to benefits and queue up at dole office

with £40,000 do you think it will be ok?

Is the rent more cheaper staying outside of London .

london is expensive for people who legally work and pay tax but is free for the hordes of immigrants who now live for free in all the council flats and have loads of kids and use the schools hospitals for free,just take a walk around a council estate in london and you can see the facts,

Thanks for great informative video.

How much a software engineer or an IT professional earns per year in London ? Is it enough for living decent life? I was planning to move to London but honestly saying after watching this video feeling sick :(

Hi there, I'm moving to London in a few days. It's a last minute opportunity so I'm still trying to figure out plenty of things. When you talk about a 20000 salary, is that after or before taxes ? I'm being offered a good salary, I would even say extremely good compared to what I hear in your video and read in the comments, but I'm afraid I'm missing something here so I don't want to be happy too quickly

Hey i would like to know what is considered to be an expensive flat or home to buy in the UK in cheaper areas not London i checked them out pretty high lol thanks :)