Kiwi journalist Sean Nugent gave London a decent crack but he found the UK cost-of-living so high that he's leaving for Sydney and not looking back.
For many Kiwis, the London OE is a rite of passage.
For generations, we have packed our bags and headed across the globe for the experience of living in one of the world’s greatest cities, with easy access to travel continental Europe.
I left my job at TVNZ in Auckland for London in March 2024 as a 20-something eager for a new experience abroad while I still had the freedom. I spent just over a year living in London and Glasgow before deciding it wasn’t for me.
I came away feeling like the move is no longer as attractive as it once was. Cost of living, austerity and the after-effects of Brexit have taken their toll on the UK in recent years, particularly since the pandemic.
This is not to say there still aren’t major drawcards, but you need to be prepared for the move to eat into your savings, and fast.
Rent through the roof
The price of simply existing in London has gone through the roof in recent years. The cost of renting a room in a cosy four-bedroom flat in north London cost me £1000 (NZ$2275) a month; and that's before additional costs of power and council tax (rates) added £100-£200 (NZ$231-463) a month to the bill.
Even when I moved north to Glasgow, a freezing ground-floor room in a two-bedroom flat set me back around £800 (NZ$1830) a month inclusive of bills, still far more than I had been paying for a huge master bedroom and en suite in Auckland’s Epsom.
Property experts Rightmove recently announced that London had registered its 15th consecutive quarter of rising rental prices, with the average rental now an eye-watering £2712 (NZ$6170) per month.
Nationwide, rents have jumped 44% since 2020, well above average wage growth. A recent study by the Office of National Statistics showed the average Londoner spent 41.6% of their income on rent alone, over double what Aucklanders spend (19.8%) and nearly double the rest of New Zealand (22.1%).
The cost-of-living crisis us Kiwis have been dealing with also pales in comparison to that of the UK where energy prices skyrocketed by 54% in just one quarter in April 2022 and still remain 41% above 2021/22 levels. At present, the annual power bill is approximately 60% higher for UK households than those in New Zealand, with the average UK home shelling out a huge £1728 (NZ$4000) per year on power.
High energy prices have a knock-on effect to businesses too, who struggle to pay the extortionate overheads. The average price of a pint in London is £6.10 (NZ$13.90), a 41% increase from pre-pandemic prices. Food inflation is at an 18-month high, and up 37% over the last five years. You’d be lucky to find a cup of coffee for less than $7. And, just to top it off, London’s public transport recently became the most expensive in the world.
One hundred job interviews, no luck
But surely with such high costs, salaries must be high? Wrong. In fact, in many industries, they are worse than in New Zealand. This is due to the UK going through an extended period of austerity after the 2008 global financial crisis where wages stagnated for a decade and are yet to recover. A quick Google search will show the average wage in London is around £47,000 (NZ$107,000), but statistics can be deceiving. White collar sectors like finance, law and tech pay very well; however, salaries are far lower for most other professions, while competition for jobs is extremely high.
Despite years of experience, including at an editorial level, I struggled to get my foot in the door of the media industry, often just missing out on a role after making the shortlist. Having applied for well over 100 jobs, I gratefully accepted one in Glasgow simply to end the cash drain of just existing in London. While I had wanted to remain in the English capital, I had been open to moving elsewhere in the UK, which I think was a good mindset to have when the London dream wasn’t so forthcoming.
A more formal work culture
Work culture is also much different to what most of us are used to in New Zealand. We tend to be much more laid-back and open, whether that is workplace attire, interactions in the office, or forming friendships that extend outside the workplace. I found it difficult at times to adjust to a more insular, stricter environment. Where in New Zealand I could have fun on occasion at work, I didn’t have any such days in the UK.
However, casting aside the doom and gloom (and I didn’t even mention the weather), the pros that continue to attract thousands of Kiwis to the UK every year still remain. The ease of travel to and from Europe is insane. In 15 months I was able to visit around 25 countries, with some flights costing less than NZ$50 one way. One weekend I could be skiing in the French Alps, the next riding a camel in the Moroccan desert.
And London itself is an incredible city – in one day you can be in one of the world’s best art galleries, watch some sport at a 500-year-old pub, and see top musicians perform in a hidden venue for NZ$50. Life moves at a fast pace but a hugely enjoyable one.
The London OE is by no means dead, but given the current climate it requires more careful planning and the means to support yourself through tough periods than perhaps it did 10 to 15 years ago.
I have recently returned to our little corner of the globe to take up a job in Sydney, and so far have found life here to be much more my style. Blue skies, warm weather, laid-back attitudes and cultural similarities go a long way. I don’t regret moving to the UK, but my advice to those seeking to move abroad is that, at this point in time, Australia is the easier and more enjoyable option.
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