How to choose?

I posted this same question in the sister forum, but thought I would post it here too and see if I can get a better idea.

How does one go about choosing where to begin looking for the best suited place for themselves (run on sentence, eh?  ) and family to live? I know jobs is key, but what if place (schools, crime, activities, size, character, etc etc) can be thought about before jobs? I'm not saying it can, but in order for the job search to begin we need to narrow down the places we could see ourselves. How do we go about that?

We have 4 kids, ages 18, 14, 11 and 8. My husband is a graphic designer. I have done it all backwards and am just now at the point in life where I need to figure out what I should/want to be doing- career wise. My kids are into sports and I want to be where that is still a possibility. I want to be where schools are good and I have been looking at the Ofsted reports for schools all over the place and know how incredibly much schools vary even from one neighborhood to the next. And crime is another thing. I don't want any part of it. I know that would generally mean aiming for a smaller town and that's fine.

But taking all of the above into consideration how should I go about figuring out where to start looking? And can anyone offer any suggestions on places? I know (think?) we'd like to start on the lower half of England, but that's about all we know.... 

Do either you or your husband have connections to England? I think most people decide based on where their or their SO's family is or where their job is. 

If you dont have any connections to England, have you already determined your visa eligibility?

I'd actually not find a place to live first, I'd first look to see if there are jobs available in different areas (unless your husband usually works from home) as that may make the decision for you.  If you want to be in the South of England, you will likely see that a high percentage of jobs will be in and around London. If this is the case, then you will want to live somewhere with good transport links into London.   Luckily, this will still give you a lot of choice.  This website may be of help to you - it can give you housing prices and the commute time into any London station.

If your husband works from home, and job location isnt important, I would say to come visit, rent a car (if one of you is comfortable driving here) and explore. Go into some pubs, talk to local people.  One person's perfect place is another's nightmare, so it would be very difficult to advise.

Hi and thanks mirrajay,

No, we have no connections to England. Yes, we know what our visa eligibility is (dh is an EU national).

You mention looking to see what jobs are available in different places, that's what I am starting with but how do we go about figuring out what those places are? Meaning how does one go about deciding where to start looking? It all sort of has to fall together nicely and I'm hoping for ideas from other people as to where to begin the search.
I realize people will have very different opinions of differing places and that's alright, I'm just looking for ideas to start the search and go from there. One person may recommend Hertford and another person may say Hertford is awful, that's fine, at least it gives me an idea as to how to go about this.

Honestly, you could find a community with good schools and low crime in just about any part of the country.  You might want to look into house prices, since that can vary widely in different parts of the country - you might be able to afford a nice house in a lovely village in the North East, but not in a lovely village in Oxfordshire, for example.  Of course, wages will vary to some extent in the same way.  You might also think about your lifestyle and hobbies, for example, do you like the outdoors?  If so you might want to be close to somewhere you could go hiking etc, like the Peak District.  Or are you interested in culture?  Then you might want to be close to London, or maybe a university town.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/may/26/foreign-born-uk-population

http://www.upmystreet.com/local/article/best-and-worst-crime-areas.html

http://www.mouseprice.com/area-guide/heatmap

Hi,

The first thing will be to look and evaluate your realistic income level. So looking at the industry you and/or your partner are in and being honest at the level you are at, you can look at job listings and see what the range of salary is.

Once you know that, you can then go onto the next steps which is to see which areas better match your income levels and then move to the steps of looking at housing that matches and then of course all the rest of the considerations you have.

If you look through various similar threads in the housing and money matters section, you'll see alot of information over those posts.

Keep in mind, that economically, the country is in a pretty bad place overall, a significant amount of what previously was considered 'disposable income' by many is now going towards paying for the basics of housing, utilities, groceries and other mandatory costs, you'll be most likely left with less money left over each month. These mandatory costs are only predicted to rise over the next few years as well.

If the level of income you have is large enough to cover all your costs and leave you enough disposable income then all great for you!

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Chosing place first would be ideal, but in this economic climate, I suppose one has to go where the work is. Good thing for your spouse is the amount of graphic design jobs out there. Not to get your hopes up, of course.

On that note, I would say if you have the ability to do so, visiting an area is the best way to decide if you like it. So perhaps you do a trifecta:

1) check out job ops for your spouse; there are loads of graphic design/creative artworker opportunities in London, as I imagine there are in other media cities like Brighton and Bristol.
2) from there take you ofsted reports and make a list of possible commuting areas to said employment ops.
3) get out there and take a look!