This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kira West, a Brooklyn native and lifestyle content creator who relocated to London in January. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I work in marketing and the travel tech industry. I’ve also long considered living overseas.
Having professional experience internationally is valuable, and luckily, I work for a global company, which is partly what attracted me to moving from Chicago to London. Still, it didn’t just happen overnight: There were years of conversations, months and months of paperwork, and lots of approvals required to make this happen.
Once I finally moved to the UK in January, I also had to adjust to some big changes between life here in London and life back in the US.
I knew that moving from Chicago to the UK would lower my annual income
I make less than what I made in Chicago, which is a common reality. On average, people in the US make about 50% more than people in the UK.
I was also surprised when I heard that I’d get paid monthly. I thought, Come again? My American mentality was definitely showing. It hasn’t been a major adjustment for me, though, because I pride myself on saving and budgeting, and the UK feels more affordable.
While London is a major city, which means it generally has a higher cost of living, I found that compared to the US, at least, expenses associated with housing, groceries, and other services are way more affordable.
Healthcare costs are significantly lower in the UK compared to the US
Here in the UK, I pay about £300 a month for national insurance (tax based on my income), which helps fund public services like the National Health Service (NHS). This converts to about $405.
Since moving to London, I’ve easily connected with my general practitioner twice — once virtually and once via phone — and I’ve gone through the NHS three times, for a total of about five medical visits. I’ve also had a few private appointments for physical and mental health as well as acupuncture, and they’ve been great.
I never pay out of pocket when I rely on services through the NHS, but I also opt for a private healthcare plan through my company, which is typically helpful for booking faster appointments.
My company pays the medical bill, and I pay the taxes. I’ve also made private appointments without applying my insurance, and the services are still affordable. Plus, I always know the cost up front.
In the States, I paid more than $125 a month on insurance plans, and then I’d go to the doctor and still always have a copay, or I’d have to pay for something that my insurance didn’t cover — a $74 cleaning bill from the dentist, for example. Also, roughly $88 toward Medicare and $378 toward Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance, neither of which I actually used, were deducted from each paycheck.
My husband and I moved away from our friends, family, and comfort zones, which is really tough
You can’t replace people, and that’s definitely difficult.
In general, the laws are different in the UK. Getting a bank account here and all of the logistics around moving have been tricky. It’s hard to know where to begin, and there’s a lot of paperwork needed to start an account.
I got lucky moving for work — I was able to get in contact with HSBC Bank. It works with a ton of expats, so it’s used to laying things out and shipping things overseas, like a bank card. I was set up with the basics of my account before we got here.
The credit card application process was really complex. I went with Amex because I have an Amex card in the States, so I knew it would be easier for me to get approved to start building credit in the UK.
While I worked on my credit in the States, and it’s in a solid place, it doesn’t matter here. It can be both humbling and exciting to start over. I’ll go back to the US, perhaps, one day to make sure my US credit is in a solid place, but for what I’m doing daily in the UK it’s irrelevant.
When it comes to housing, references are really important — where I’m currently living, they called my landlord in Chicago to see how I was as a tenant, which I’ve never had in the States. The market moves very quickly in London, so we had to be prepared to make quick choices and, in the absence of credit, they did more than a standard criminal background check — they also confirmed my employer, and there was much more paperwork than I’m used to.
Politics is one of the things I’m very grateful to have left in the US
I think it’s refreshing to be in a place where conversations around politics don’t feel as tense.
Politics isn’t a topic I choose to delve into openly because of my mental health. Also, since I moved after the election, the topic hasn’t come up for me as much.
On another note, there’s a big conversation happening in the UK right now about immigrants, which is what I’m considered, and proposed changes that could make living here as an immigrant harder. I think there’s also some trepidation around the long-term plans of expats.
I’m used to conversations about immigration, but it’s interesting to be on the other side of it as an immigrant versus someone who is settled, like I was, in the US as a citizen.
Ultimately, I’m choosing to see how it shakes out and enjoy my time for now. If the rules around settlement in the UK change, then I’ll address it as it becomes more real.
Work culture feels more accommodating
Work-life balance as a concept isn’t a fallacy here; it’s a very real thing.
It’s been refreshing not to have a life that’s centered on work, but a life that includes work. It also feels easier and more affordable to go somewhere epic for a weekend. On bank holiday weekends, I’ve been doing Friday to Monday trips — I recently went to Greece and could really unplug.
I definitely feel more comfortable taking time off in the UK. There are also more family-friendly benefits like maternity leave and statutory sick pay, which help to keep everyone more focused on their boundaries.
It’s been a really welcome change. The older I get, the more I realize there’s just so much more to life outside of working.
If you relocated to a different country for work and would like to share your story, please email this editor, Manseen Logan, at mlogan@businessinsider.com.
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