How hard would it be to find a retail/bar/minimum wage job in London?

bowsandarrows

I'll have a degree next year. I've 6 years of retail experience and good recommendations. I was planning on working full-time next year, and I'm reasonably confident that I could find a retail/bar/minimum wage job in Dublin. How hard would it be in London? What would be a smart way to go about this? I was planning on saving up enough money to live for a month or two while looking and if I can't find anything move home.

djpbarry

bowsandarrows wrote: »

I'll have a degree next year. I've 6 years of retail experience and good recommendations. I was planning on working full-time next year, and I'm reasonably confident that I could find a retail/bar/minimum wage job in Dublin. How hard would it be in London? What would be a smart way to go about this? I was planning on saving up enough money to live for a month or two while looking and if I can't find anything move home.

A minimum wage job in Dublin makes far, far more financial sense than it does in London, simply because the minimum wage is higher in Ireland (€8.65 versus £6.08) and the cost of living in London (the cost of housing in particular) is far higher. You'll also pay more tax in the UK. Personally, I don't think it's feasible to live on the minimum wage in London, unless you're working an absolutely colossal number of hours.

Fysh

djpbarry wrote: »

A minimum wage job in Dublin makes far, far more financial sense than it does in London, simply because the minimum wage is higher in Ireland (€8.65 versus £6.08) and the cost of living in London (the cost of housing in particular) is far higher. You'll also pay more tax in the UK. Personally, I don't think it's feasible to live on the minimum wage in London, unless you're working an absolutely colossal number of hours.

UK minimum wage for over-21s is currently £6.08. Combining this with the 48-hour week, you get an annual salary of £15,175. That's before tax, assuming you can get a full 6-days-a-week job where you're not being messed around and made to take holidays as unpaid leave.

Yes, you could opt out of the 48-hour working week, but still...There isn't a hope in hell you can live in London on that, iny my opinion. £25K or more is what you need, realistically, to live in London if you're working full-time, which on minimum wage is about an 80 hour week. So either 11 hours a day every day of the week, or 14 hour days and 1 day off a week. If you want to be working reasonable hours (ie 8 hours a day or less, 6 days a week or less) you need to be looking for at least £10 an hour.

That being said, if you've 6 years of retail experience you shouldn't be aiming at minimum wage jobs - aim for something like assistant manager roles, partly because it makes more sense in terms of job progression and partly because the money is more likely to be something you can feasibly live on without working 60+ hours a week.

bowsandarrows

Ah, thanks, a lot of food for thought there. I've heard it was near impossible, but I've heard people say the same about Dublin and I've lived practically in Dublin City on a bit above minimum wage and had a great time--guess that's not the case for London. Is there a huge difference between Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and London?

At the moment, I'm on €11.50 in my part time retail job here, and I'm not a supervisor or anything. I guess I'm very lucky.

My degree is a media one, so I don't think I could head over to the UK right now and be guaranteed anything well paying, or paid at all. A lot of my friends who have gone over had either a) gone over with a lot of money and done internships, b) gone over to well paying jobs, or c) gone over and come back three months later.

I think the easiest thing for me to do would be to get some good media experience here then move over, but I'm dying for a change of scenery. At least I know now working full time in retail/bar would be a waste.

djpbarry

bowsandarrows wrote: »

I've heard it was near impossible, but I've heard people say the same about Dublin and I've lived practically in Dublin City on a bit above minimum wage and had a great time...

Living on the minimum wage in Dublin is definitely easily doable.

bowsandarrows wrote: »

guess that's not the case for London. Is there a huge difference between Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and London?

Yes. The big difference is the cost of housing. For example, in Glasgow or Manchester (both very cool cities by the way and well worth checking out) you’ll pay less than half the rent you’ll pay in London, but your income will probably be similar.

Fysh

bowsandarrows wrote: »

Ah, thanks, a lot of food for thought there. I've heard it was near impossible, but I've heard people say the same about Dublin and I've lived practically in Dublin City on a bit above minimum wage and had a great time--guess that's not the case for London. Is there a huge difference between Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester and London?

At the moment, I'm on €11.50 in my part time retail job here, and I'm not a supervisor or anything. I guess I'm very lucky.

My degree is a media one, so I don't think I could head over to the UK right now and be guaranteed anything well paying, or paid at all. A lot of my friends who have gone over had either a) gone over with a lot of money and done internships, b) gone over to well paying jobs, or c) gone over and come back three months later.

I think the easiest thing for me to do would be to get some good media experience here then move over, but I'm dying for a change of scenery. At least I know now working full time in retail/bar would be a waste.

It may be possible, but you'd want to do a fair bit of research into available positions and what you can get into with your experience before making the move. Alternatively you can always make a plan to move in a while, and see if you can get some supervisor-type training in your current job that might help you towards that.

Scarinae

Would your retail experience be in a shop that is also in the UK? When I first moved over here I was able to pick up a retail job fairly quickly, because the shop that I'd worked for while in college was a UK company. I was able to go into one of the shops and show that I already had all the product knowledge, till codes etc.

It was still rubbish pay though, so I'd agree that aiming for a supervisor or assistant manager job would be a good idea.

djpbarry

djpbarry wrote: »

Living on the minimum wage in Dublin is definitely easily doable.
Yes. The big difference is the cost of housing. For example, in Glasgow or Manchester (both very cool cities by the way and well worth checking out) you’ll pay less than half the rent you’ll pay in London, but your income will probably be similar.

I should have also echoed what others have said - there's absolutely no way you should be looking at minimum wage jobs when you've got 6 years of experience behind you, even if some of that was part-time.

bowsandarrows

Thanks everyone. Maybe it's not as common in the UK as it is in Ireland for retail jobs to be minimum wage?

If there's such a huge difference between the cost of living in London and Manchester, maybe I would be better off checking out some other cities.

OS119

bowsandarrows wrote: »

...maybe I would be better off checking out some other cities.

if you looked at Glasgow as an example, you could get into a 2 person flatshare in the westend - the media/uni/professional area - for £350pcm. you'd be on all the transport routes, and 30 minutes walk from the city centre. you chances of getting that in London for £350 are, err... limited. the southside of Glasgow - Langside, Battlefield, Shawlands, Pollokshaws - are almost as nice as the westend, just as convenient, but quite a bit cheaper.

Bristol would be much more expensive than Glasgow but still cheaper than London. Birmingham - a major retail and media centre - would be cheaper than Bristol, its wider economic 'basin' also has a greater population than all of Ireland...

ChRoMe

bowsandarrows wrote: »

If there's such a huge difference between the cost of living in London and Manchester, maybe I would be better off checking out some other cities.

Certainly, I wouldn't recommend anyone coming to London unless they can earn 30k absolute minimum.

djpbarry

OS119 wrote: »

if you looked at Glasgow as an example, you could get into a 2 person flatshare in the westend - the media/uni/professional area - for £350pcm. you'd be on all the transport routes, and 30 minutes walk from the city centre.

Glasgow's west end is really, really nice. Were it not for the abysmal winters, I would quite happily live there.

Playboy

You are an educated person so why limit your ambition to minimum wage? Apply for an assistant manager role in somewhere like Pret a Manger where they will train you and provide a decent salary. Would be a good foundation for you while looking for a job that matches your degree. There is lots of opportunity in London in comparison to other cities