I live in London. I am not a teacher. Some thoughts:
London is a special case. Teacher salaries in London are higher than outside of London to reflect the higher cost of living. I don’t know if your research has factored this in. I am not personally very knowledgeable on the subject of teacher salaries, but know a few. Teachers themselves are, for obvious reasons, highly knowledgeable about teacher salaries.
“London” covers a large area. All of it is relatively expensive compared to the rest of the UK (and the world), but £26,000 would get you a lot further in, say, Croydon than one of the more central boroughs. Also a lot of places get called “London” by faraway folk when they’re not. If your job is in Basildon or Reading or some other orbital town, those places aren’t London, either culturally or expense-wise, and you’d want to adjust your queries accordingly.
£24,000-£26,000 does seem startlingly low to me (a software developer in his thirties who solves problems by throwing money at them), but by way of comparison, a starting police officer earns ~£22,000, so it’s presumably not an utterly ludicrous amount.
We have different rates and brackets of income tax to the US. £26,000 translates to £20,634.72 take-home pay. Your first £10,000 is untaxed, 20% thereafter until you hit the mid-thirties.
The biggest expense of London by at least one order of magnitude is rent. The second is transport. Minimising these expenses is an obvious way of stretching your budget, but there are sharp trade-offs in terms of location and travel costs. Public transport in London is expensive but a lot cheaper than running a car, and actually very good compared to every other town and city I’ve lived in (sample size 5, all British). We have a lot of cyclists, but it’s not really a city optimised for cycling.
If you were to join the Less Wrong London group, we have a pretty good track record of advising people considering moving to the city.
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll work out a new post and put it up in the London group later. For now, I’ll clarify a bit more here:
Since I have not yet been offered a salary, I’m going by what I can estimate from casual research. I am hoping that, given the school’s decent reputation and area, I can expect a higher than average salary. But until the offer itself comes, I keep my estimates within the average. I should clarify that the position is not a teaching job but a librarian job.
The school itself is in Barnet, in North London. Given the fact that the school is located there, I already expect the average cost of living to be on the higher end of the scale, but I do not know.
The position is entry level. Basically, the necessary degree (Masters in Library Science) and some work experience. Hence the low range.
Rent and transportation have been my biggest concern. I do not know what sort of situation Barnet is in as far as housing and transport, but I have already decided that, if possible, I will attempt to find shared housing and leave my car behind. I’d like to be able to bike to work, but I already suspect finding housing that close is outside of my pay range. So I intend to bus if possible.
I lived in Barnet for several months in 2013, it’s a reasonably affluent area, green leafy suburbs. High rent, for the most part. From quickly looking at income data, the surrounding areas are relatively heterogenous though, so you’ll most likely find a cheap place nearby. There’s plenty of bus services to and from the town centre and the fare doesn’t scale with distance so living elsewhere might work very well for you. As I recall there were plenty of cycle paths, so biking might work too if you’re at that kind of distance. If you end up living to the south of Barnet, don’t be tempted to use the Tube just because it’s there—even an annual pass just for Zone 4-5 is more expensive than an annual bus pass for the whole of London.
I’m glad to hear that! I was worried all around Barnet would be too affluent, but if there is a mix of income brackets, I might have a chance to live comfortably without wrecking my income.
Thanks for the advice on the Tube. If at all possible, I’ll prefer my own feet to others’ wheels, but if it comes down to bus vs. Tube, I’ll keep your advice in mind.
I live in London. I am not a teacher. Some thoughts:
London is a special case. Teacher salaries in London are higher than outside of London to reflect the higher cost of living. I don’t know if your research has factored this in. I am not personally very knowledgeable on the subject of teacher salaries, but know a few. Teachers themselves are, for obvious reasons, highly knowledgeable about teacher salaries.
“London” covers a large area. All of it is relatively expensive compared to the rest of the UK (and the world), but £26,000 would get you a lot further in, say, Croydon than one of the more central boroughs. Also a lot of places get called “London” by faraway folk when they’re not. If your job is in Basildon or Reading or some other orbital town, those places aren’t London, either culturally or expense-wise, and you’d want to adjust your queries accordingly.
£24,000-£26,000 does seem startlingly low to me (a software developer in his thirties who solves problems by throwing money at them), but by way of comparison, a starting police officer earns ~£22,000, so it’s presumably not an utterly ludicrous amount.
We have different rates and brackets of income tax to the US. £26,000 translates to £20,634.72 take-home pay. Your first £10,000 is untaxed, 20% thereafter until you hit the mid-thirties.
The biggest expense of London by at least one order of magnitude is rent. The second is transport. Minimising these expenses is an obvious way of stretching your budget, but there are sharp trade-offs in terms of location and travel costs. Public transport in London is expensive but a lot cheaper than running a car, and actually very good compared to every other town and city I’ve lived in (sample size 5, all British). We have a lot of cyclists, but it’s not really a city optimised for cycling.
If you were to join the Less Wrong London group, we have a pretty good track record of advising people considering moving to the city.
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll work out a new post and put it up in the London group later. For now, I’ll clarify a bit more here:
Since I have not yet been offered a salary, I’m going by what I can estimate from casual research. I am hoping that, given the school’s decent reputation and area, I can expect a higher than average salary. But until the offer itself comes, I keep my estimates within the average. I should clarify that the position is not a teaching job but a librarian job.
The school itself is in Barnet, in North London. Given the fact that the school is located there, I already expect the average cost of living to be on the higher end of the scale, but I do not know.
The position is entry level. Basically, the necessary degree (Masters in Library Science) and some work experience. Hence the low range.
Rent and transportation have been my biggest concern. I do not know what sort of situation Barnet is in as far as housing and transport, but I have already decided that, if possible, I will attempt to find shared housing and leave my car behind. I’d like to be able to bike to work, but I already suspect finding housing that close is outside of my pay range. So I intend to bus if possible.
I lived in Barnet for several months in 2013, it’s a reasonably affluent area, green leafy suburbs. High rent, for the most part. From quickly looking at income data, the surrounding areas are relatively heterogenous though, so you’ll most likely find a cheap place nearby. There’s plenty of bus services to and from the town centre and the fare doesn’t scale with distance so living elsewhere might work very well for you. As I recall there were plenty of cycle paths, so biking might work too if you’re at that kind of distance. If you end up living to the south of Barnet, don’t be tempted to use the Tube just because it’s there—even an annual pass just for Zone 4-5 is more expensive than an annual bus pass for the whole of London.
I’m glad to hear that! I was worried all around Barnet would be too affluent, but if there is a mix of income brackets, I might have a chance to live comfortably without wrecking my income.
Thanks for the advice on the Tube. If at all possible, I’ll prefer my own feet to others’ wheels, but if it comes down to bus vs. Tube, I’ll keep your advice in mind.