Potentially moving to London from US

Hi all,

  I (and my wife and 2 primary school age kids) am very likely going to be transferring over to London (for a duration of 2-3 years at least) with my employer right near London Bridge on the north side of the Thames. I am slightly overwhelmed at the prospect, but very excited. I have not hit the negotiation stage with my employer, but I wondered if anyone had advice for what types of things to consider expense-wise. Also, wanted to know if anyone had advice on neighborhoods if we want to avoid buying a car, but also avoid a long (over 30 minutes) commute. We're not going to have an extravagant budget I suspect for housing (we will be renting), but would like to be in an area that is nice for the kids and close to a good school for them. Schooling is a whole separate ball of wax, so any advice on that side of things would be helpful as well. Sorry for the wide-ranging post, but I'm just getting started here. Thanks all!

Cost of living increase
Moving expenses to the UK and back to the US when contract is over
Temporary housing while you look for a place to live (several weeks or more)
Tax preparation help (very important)
Visa expenses for you and your family
Trip home each year for your family
Upfront bonus to cover the cost of replacing small electricals

Those are some things to think about.  

To put things in perspective for you, London is about 659 square miles.  You might want to start by considering neighborhoods near stops along the tube lines that are closest to your office which I'm guessing would be the Central, District and Northern.  Things get cheaper the farther you get from Central London so you might want to consider things in Zone 2.

*edited to fix spacing.

Also, you mentioned schools -- it's not uncommon for packages to include tuition for your kids, especially if it is not a permanent move and the kids will return to US schools. 

And if that is included and you'd opt for an American school (a lot of "if" there), then that would help focus your location search.   

What kind of ballpark am I looking at for tuition? What's the opinion out there on schools? Should I be definitely looking at private schools? Should I be looking at an American school?

The American School in St. John's Wood is around £10,000/ year.  Like Ophinky said, if it's not a permanent move it will be easier for your kids to adjust.

If you're in the City, look at the train lines coming into London Bridge station. There are a lot of nice, leafy neighbourhoods in South London within 30min train ride of London Bridge. Or you could look east along the Jubilee line, too...

I know nothing about schools, though, sorry.

The American School in St. John's Wood is around £10,000/ year.  Like Ophinky said, if it's not a permanent move it will be easier for your kids to adjust.

Thanks so much for the replies. When you say it will be easier for my kids to adjust, do you mean adjust to a regular London school? I'm not optimistic that I will be offered tuition reimbursement in my ExPat package, and £10,000/ year (I'm assuming per child) is a bit steep for us.

Sometimes (no idea how common it is overall) when companies send employees somewhere for a short period of time, they'll cover tuition at an american/international school so that when the employee goes back to the US, the child can easily slide back into a US school system.  

But I just threw it out there since you were asking for suggestions -- it's definitely not a must by any stretch!  

There's a huge range in expat packages -- some cover stuff I can't even imagine, and others are more focused on basics.  If you know of someone else in your company who has made the same transfer, definitely track them down because they'll have a good idea of what you can expect, but I'd also bet they have a mental list of "things I wish I'd asked for."

Yeah, my take is they are going to cover the basics ... cost of living, taxes, moving expenses, broker fees ... but I am highly doubtful tuition is going to be in the discussion. So what's the general perception of what Americans refer to as public schools over in London? I heard something about sometimes having difficulty transferring credits back at the time of repatriation.

Hi,

Some good points raised on things to consider. I'd also suggest waiting a little while on a few aspects until you do get to the negotiating stage with your employer. If they include some aspects of what they'll cover and make it known to you at least you'll know. From there, you can start the process of evaluation. The most important factor will be to see just how much you'll actually be paid whilst in London - will they just continue your current salary and cover the increased costs ? or will they bump your salary up to help cover those expenses? until you find that out, it'll be a little pointless worrying about things at the moment as you might find they do cover them!

From that point also, you can then evaluate realistically your expenses and costs related directly to you and your family's lifestyle, only you know that!

Once you are at that stage, then this site has topics and discussions that probably cover everything you will think of already with direct experience from others, feedback and discussion as well.

To help you feel better, there's many Americans and Canadians here already! so you won't be alone as such! there's also plenty of Brits who like and don't mind USA people here too ! in my IT career, i've only ever worked for US software/IT companies in their London offices, and have met many many of the US staff who 'came over' in similar ways as what you'll have
 
Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Just so you know the reality...tuition at the American School is WAY more than £10,000...here it is folks:
Annual tuition
 
K1–Grade 4 £19,350
Grades 5–12 £22,550

There is financial aid, but a lot of companies do pay for our tuition.  I didn't want anyone thinking, wow, I can afford £10,000 and then get hit with the real tuitition.

Thanks, OneTiger. Yeah, I was thinking £10,000 was steep ... no way on this green Earth that I could pay double that. And I'm quite certain my company won't either.