What to spend on a flat?

Thanks for the replies. The reason we'd like to keep the housing at around the ~25% mark is because we've had some financial struggles in the past when I lost my job 2 years ago, and we do not want to find ourselves in the same situation again. We don't want to live beyond our means (again), but we do want to be able to enjoy life a bit as well as pay down these pesky student loans before we retire.   

Hence, I'm just not sure what we should budget for a flat, as I'm not quite sure how much other things will cost until we are there for awhile. But I guess if we budget more for rent, we're just going to have figure out what to cut from another area.

My suggestion would be to give yourself a budget of up to £700, because the last thing you want is to be in a crappy part of Glasgow. In that budget, try to keep yourselves in a flat that is in a council tax band no higher than C (£1428 a year). That way you'll have a total rent + council tax maximum of £820 a month, and you'll almost certainly find something under that that you'll be happy with. A lot of 2 bedroom flats are council tax band B in most councils, and that would bring you down to £805 a month or so. For that size of flat, with gas central heating and double glazing (highly recommended, or your energy bills will be sky-high) I would expect to pay around £50-70 a month on gas and electricity combined (assuming equally-spaced direct debit through the year), +/- depending on your usage of course. Depending on what phone, internet and telly options you wanted, anywhere between £20 and £50 a month for those things. Does that help at all?

When I do a search on rightmove for flats in Glasgow West under £600, I receive plenty of results, Beccarose. What type of search parameters are you using?

You're right, I don't know how I came up with nothing... I'm finding plenty now, maybe just a funky search error for me last night? Looks to be doable in that price range and some of them look really nice too.