British people - Thinking about emigrating...

[Regina]

If you're going to come to the UK, I suggest you move to London or if not London then Liverpool or Manchester.

Every other place is the UK isn't even worth visiting, let alone living in.

I hate this country tbh. I don't like to go deep into why too much because I know it gets a lot of peoples' backs up. For me it's more than just "shit weather, no culture, unemployment" it's also an identity issue. My family come from all over the place and, despite being born in the UK, I really don't now who I am. I've never felt British, this just doesn't feel like home to me.

I've always had a "grass is greener" mentality. I know, no place is perfect and I don't expect anywhere to be, but one of my main goals in life is to get off this fucking island and never return.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Dys there are several cities that have both burgeoning economic profiles and high levels of economic output, from Yorkshire cities like Leeds, down to Bath and Bristol, through to Birmingham and up to Edinburgh. Job markets are tough, true, but that's not exclusive to any particular place anywhere in the world.

I'd recommend the OP look at what they want to do and match vacancies as required, whether it be London or not. Having visited and lived in various cities in the UK I'd say there are pros and cons to all of them, just like every other city in the world .

And as for non-city life there are several places to go, from the Highlands, to the lake district, new forest, Cotswolds etc etc. Plenty to see and do, plenty of history to soak up, plenty of opportunity to take advantage of.

[Dystopia]

If you're going to live in London, you better prepare yourself if you don't think you'll be earning too much money in the short term. The cost of living in London is ridiculous, and as a someone who was born there and visits family frequent, I'd never want to live there. If you're going to rent (inevitable), living in even the shittest part of London is likely to set you back around £1000 a month as a minimum.

There are plenty of other cities in the UK where you could move and live more cheaply albeit with perhaps fewer opportunities, but it depends entirely on what you want to do.

I'll say now that for the 'haves', the UK is a great place to live with very high standards of living and a vast array of services to spend your money on or invest it. For the havenots, it can be difficult. Like Portugal, youth unemployment is a problem here, and there is a growing sector of employment that offers relatively low wages with very little security (zero hour contracts as an example). Welfare services are also under strain in many areas, especially London boroughs, where cuts to the public sector have reduced staffing levels and growing populations have added burden, so increasingly the have nots are seeing it become more difficult to live.

Would you be looking to study here? Or get a job in law? If so its rewarding if you can get on the employment ladder, but again, competition is high.

I assumed the cost of living in London was high as a relative of mine working there has told me - he lives in a urban area whose name I don't know and works as a barman at night shifts for a fancy expensive club, he does earn a pretty good amount for what he does. If I did went there I could stay with him but unfortunately this person I'm talking about is struggling with drug addiction and so it is a bad option for now.

London was just an idea, but I'm open to pretty much anything that allows for a decent living. Can I ask how is minimum wage and what I can do with it? Also, if I have a drivers license do I need to take a full license in the UK as well, considering you guys drive on the left side of the road? 

Studying isn't something I considered unless it's a small course to do something productive, but a law degree in Portugal or any other country with a legal civil system is useless in commonlaw countries, the system is profoundly different and works in a very weird way to us.

Dys there are several cities that have both burgeoning economic profiles and high levels of economic output, from Yorkshire cities like Leeds, down to Bath and Bristol, through to Birmingham and up to Edinburgh. Job markets are tough, true, but that's not exclusive to any particular place anywhere in the world. 

I'd recommend the OP look at what they want to do and match vacancies as required, whether it be London or not. Having visited and lived in various cities in the UK I'd say there are pros and cons to all of them, just like every other city in the world .

And as for non-city life there are several places to go, from the Highlands, to the lake district, new forest, Cotswolds etc etc. Plenty to see and do, plenty of history to soak up, plenty of opportunity to take advantage of.

Thanks a lot for the replies, I appreciate the input - This is just an idea, not a decision - To some degree, anglo-saxon culture looks peculiar from an outsider's perspective and it is highly influential with the process of globalization (Hollywood, etc.) so I have some natural curiosity to know how it's like to live there, but that's not the primary reason I'm immigrate to the UK. 

[Minimalist]

I've always had a "grass is greener" mentality.

The problem with the grass being greener is that generally all it means is that something shit there.


As far as the OP goes, make sure you stay out of those muslim-only zones that FOX insists exist.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

If you're going to live in London, you better prepare yourself if you don't think you'll be earning too much money in the short term. The cost of living in London is ridiculous, and as a someone who was born there and visits family frequent, I'd never want to live there. If you're going to rent (inevitable), living in even the shittest part of London is likely to set you back around £1000 a month as a minimum.

There are plenty of other cities in the UK where you could move and live more cheaply albeit with perhaps fewer opportunities, but it depends entirely on what you want to do.

I'll say now that for the 'haves', the UK is a great place to live with very high standards of living and a vast array of services to spend your money on or invest it. For the havenots, it can be difficult. Like Portugal, youth unemployment is a problem here, and there is a growing sector of employment that offers relatively low wages with very little security (zero hour contracts as an example). Welfare services are also under strain in many areas, especially London boroughs, where cuts to the public sector have reduced staffing levels and growing populations have added burden, so increasingly the have nots are seeing it become more difficult to live.

Would you be looking to study here? Or get a job in law? If so its rewarding if you can get on the employment ladder, but again, competition is high.

I assumed the cost of living in London was high as a relative of mine working there has told me - he lives in a urban area whose name I don't know and works as a barman at night shifts for a fancy expensive club, he does earn a pretty good amount for what he does. If I did went there I could stay with him but unfortunately this person I'm talking about is struggling with drug addiction and so it is a bad option for now.

London was just an idea, but I'm open to pretty much anything that allows for a decent living. Can I ask how is minimum wage and what I can do with it? Also, if I have a drivers license do I need to take a full license in the UK as well, considering you guys drive on the left side of the road?

Regarding minimum wage, I believe the standard is around £6.50/hour though it's sort of complicated depending on the type of worke, age, and how you're paid: https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates

In London you're likely to get more, a so called 'living wage' exists which is supposed to match inflation and the cost of living which the minimum wage doesn't meet (especially in London), though even with that wage what you could do with it in London is realistically limited. It's hard to explain to people who haven't lived there but it really is quite difficult to get by if you're not earning more than the minimum because the cost of living is so high. Where I was born (Hackney) in the 80s you were lucky if you lived in a flat which didn't have a drug problem in the neighborhood, now you'd be lucky to pick up a property for less than a million pound. Things in London just cost a lot more, but it's still doable:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/...15576.html

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/cit...ity=London

http://www.workgateways.com/working-in-t...-of-living

As far driving goes I believe you can drive on a valid EU license, though if you were in London there'd be no point as there's no point In having a car. I don't believe you need to sit a UK driving test though if you brought a car over you'd need to register it under UK rules after 6-9 months (MOT, tax and insurance).

If you need anything else let me know mate ^_^

[I_am_not_mafia]

For me success in life is proportional to how far away from London I am.

[Napoléon]

As far as the OP goes, make sure you stay out of those muslim-only zones that FOX insists exist.

I've said this before Min, Fox are actually near right on that one.