Moving To/Living In London Megathread - ALL QUESTIONS TO GO HERE

Terrontress

A Greedy Algorithm wrote: »

Can i just ask a few questions?

1. Do people find in 'hard' or 'tough' to live in London? With the large population, being so busy etc.

2. Is the tube always really, really hot and uncomfortable?

3. Would it possible to walk across London (North to South) in 1 day?

1, No, I love it. If you have lived in Dublin, the crowds are no different.

2. No, but it is in peak time. It is always really, really expensive and always worth avoiding if you can.

3. Yes.

Harps

Hate the crowds myself, it's not unbearable but I do try and avoid central London as much as possible. I'm from Donegal though so a bit different if you've lived somewhere like Dublin. Doesn't put me off living here though

The tube is hateful at rush hour but generally not too bad. Wouldn't say it's expensive though, I can get the whole way across the city for £2.70 which I'd call reasonable.

Walking, depends where you define as London but north to South circular I would guess about 6 hours. M25 north to South would take the best part of a day

BrokenArrows

A Greedy Algorithm wrote: »

Can i just ask a few questions?

1. Do people find in 'hard' or 'tough' to live in London? With the large population, being so busy etc.

2. Is the tube always really, really hot and uncomfortable?

3. Would it possible to walk across London (North to South) in 1 day?

1. Nope but I suppose you do have to make a bit of an effort to make friends. It can be harder to make friends at work, mostly because people commute a huge amount and you can end up working with people who all live 2 hours away.

2. I don't mind the tube but it can get very hot and stuffy on a hot day. 28+ degrees. But some lines are better air conditioned than others. And most importantly I don't use the tube at rush hour

3. Well if you count everything inside the m25 as London than its about 40 miles from north to south, so id go with no, you cant walk it.

Terrontress

I was thinking Croydon to Enfield. And I'd say 10 miles to town, 10 miles out. 20 miles is doable.

But I have made those distances up in my mind's eye.

Pigwidgeon

If people are wondering what the waiting time is like for national insurance numbers currently, I had my interview on the 1st of May and received my number in the post today. So not the 1 month they tell you it will be!

dave 27

Hi guys, im thinking of moving to London in the new year and just wanted to ask what the story is with getting a PPS number or whatever theyre called? thanks

theteal

It's a national insurance number

fat to ripped

dave 27 wrote: »

Hi guys, im thinking of moving to London in the new year and just wanted to ask what the story is with getting a PPS number or whatever theyre called? thanks

Walk in, show your passport, that's pretty much it. Couldn't be easier.

ballsymchugh

fat to ripped wrote: »

Walk in, show your passport, that's pretty much it. Couldn't be easier.

do that and be ready for the frustrating disappointment!

fat to ripped

ballsymchugh wrote: »

do that and be ready for the frustrating disappointment!

Well, bring the typical documentation you'd expect to bring too. All I needed was proof of address + this and that.

ballsymchugh

it's an appointment based interview. you can't just walk in and sort it out there and then. this has been done to death already anyway.

Grandpa Hassan

Isn't there a sticky on this?

Edit: ah, sorry...this is the sticky!

Pigwidgeon

I didn't need prof of address. Literally answered a few questions about work, gave them may address, showed them my passport and that was it. 6 weeks later and I got my number.

dave 27

Pigwidgeon wrote: »

I didn't need prof of address. Literally answered a few questions about work, gave them may address, showed them my passport and that was it. 6 weeks later and I got my number.

Is there an office in Ireland you can do it in? How do you actually go about getting it? I dont particularly want to have a London address and then have to wait 5 or so weeks to get it!

Fysh

dave 27 wrote: »

Is there an office in Ireland you can do it in? How do you actually go about getting it? I dont particularly want to have a London address and then have to wait 5 or so weeks to get it!

The FAQ has more details on the process, and a lot of other information and advice offered by various boardsies who've made the move. Spend a bit of time reading it - doing so will save you time and heartache later.

No, AFAIK you can't do it in Ireland or anywhere that's not the UK, presumably on the basis that they don't want to make it too easy for people who haven't already made the move.

The process itself is documented here:
1) Ring up/check internet to find your local JobCentre Plus address
2) Make appointment
3) Attend appointment, providing any required documentation & information
4) Wait for paperwork to be processed.

Things to note - you'll be asked to provide tedious details like "every time you've been into and out of the UK in the last n years". It wouldn't be a bad idea to have refreshed your memory on these dates before the interview, because while you might be able to just omit certain things like a weekend trip to go to a show in the West End, any discrepancies or information conflicts may cause delays in getting the application processed.

Bear in mind that not having a National Insurance number will not prevent you getting work - it simply means that until you receive it, you'll get taxed using an emergency tax code. You can get refunded any excess tax you pay later, but this will be time-consuming, so consider it an incentive to get your NI number sorted as soon as possible. As in, as soon as you make the move, find out what your local office is and get an appointment made for the interview. I was quite lucky when I applied for mine, but some folks have reported that recently it's taking around 6 weeks to get all the way through.

Ryanvec

Hi guys,

I'm moving to London from Wexford at the end of August with three friends of mine. We are going over to meet and live with two other friends of ours who have lived there for the past 3 years.

The main thing (obviously) that I am starting to get worried about is not being able to find a job which will result in me having to come back home.

I have my safe pass which I know can be transferred for a cscs card when I get there so I'm hoping to get a job doing some labour work. I was wondering if anyone knows how hard this will be for me to get or roughly how long I'll be waiting to find some work.

Any other advice about job centres and that sort of thing would be helpful to me.

blindsider

UK unemployment is half ours - 6.6% there - 12.6% here.

I would expect that you'll find sth fairly quickly.

IMO don't be too fussy to start with. If you work hard, there are plenty of opportunities in a large city like London.

You'll need to be punctual - an 8am start means 0755 and ready to go. Watch your commute times - an hour each way gets to be a pain after a short time.

Mind your money carefully until you get paid!

Don't forget your shovel! :-)

danthefan

Watch your commute times - an hour each way gets to be a pain after a short time.

Definitely.

I don't know how familiar you are with London OP so you may know this anyway, but the city is absolutely huge. You can get most places on public transport but yeah, commuting from one side of the city to the other would not be feasible imo.

Maphisto

danthefan wrote: »

Definitely.

I don't know how familiar you are with London OP so you may know this anyway, but the city is absolutely huge. You can get most places on public transport but yeah, commuting from one side of the city to the other would not be feasible imo.

Unless you are already familiar with London it would be worth taking a little time to understand the geography. Depending how you define its boundaries there are 3 times as many people living in London as the Republic.

These might help

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/
https://www.tfl.gov.uk/maps/?cid=fs069

Whereabouts do your friends live?

Good Luck

Mrs OBumble

Moved from Work and Jobs

joegdoyle

Join up with an agency there is loads of building work in London

http://chanton.co.uk/tradelabourrecruitment.aspx
http://www.agencycentral.co.uk/agencysearch/construction/countysearch/england/london.htm

look online for others maybe get in touch & see if you can register before you get over there.

Also theres plenty of work on the rail lines
http://www.cleshar.co.uk/home.html

Fysh

As always, take a look at the FAQ - there's an awful lot of useful information in there that will help you get set up.

melodies

There is always work in London! And building work is definitely picking up that's for sure.
Check out a few Irish pubs as well as landlords can sometimes put you in contact with people. Also, joining the GAA can be helpful and going out to the games at Ruislip - you might meet someone in the bar out there after the games.
Gumtree.com is invaluable - for finding accommodation and also has some jobs. If you rent a house - try to do it from a private person on gumtree rather than through an agency as the agencies charge a bomb and have all sorts of requirements.
Ask your Irish bank if they can set up an account over here for you to get your wages paid into.
You will need a national insurance number - look it up online to see if there's anything you can do to get it before you come here.
Clapham is one area now where lots of young Irish go - good for nightlife, but expensive to live - a few stops down the same tubeline is Tooting - multicultural - looks a bit rough at first but it's cheaper for rent, and there's loads of cheap curry places and while it looks rough, there's a large university hospital nearby so the areas also has lots of med students.
Hope this helps.

A Greedy Algorithm

If one was to move to London for the summer, does anyone think it would possible to pick up work in construction for a few months?

Harps

Do you have any experience? It helps a lot if you have experience and/or know someone in the industry who could get you a start somewhere

A Greedy Algorithm

Harps wrote: »

Do you have any experience? It helps a lot if you have experience and/or know someone in the industry who could get you a start somewhere

I do not know anyone over there but i do have experience and a trade qualification.

callaway92

A Greedy Algorithm wrote: »

I do not know anyone over there but i do have experience and a trade qualification.

You have a CSCS Card, Bank Account, UTR No., NI No.?

Would recommend having all of the above if possibile before coming over.

Can take up to 8 weeks (took 6 for me, but luckily family member living there set it up to be done for when I got here) to receive UTR number which you can't get paid without having.

RiseToMe

Guys will opening a Northern Ireland bank account with Bank of Ireland in Newry be a good suggestion before I move in two weeks?

Woden

I still have a BOI UK account from when I was living up North and before I lived in London. When I got here though I went for something with high street presence and more competitive current & savings account offers.

I still use it though for when I'm back in Dublin as if memory serves it has no fees to withdraw (or perhaps more likely it is being buried in the fx rate) and you can still see your sterling balance at BOI ATM's down south fwiw.

djpbarry

blindsider wrote: »

UK unemployment is half ours - 6.6% there - 12.6% here.

That doesn’t tell the whole story though. Unemployment rates in London and Dublin are lower than the respective national averages, but even then, difficulty in obtaining work is going to depend heavily on what you do. For example, finding work in construction is probably easier in London right now, but Dublin’s a pretty good place to be if you’re a web developer.