Renting a house while looking for a job

So if all goes well, I'll be starting a new job in January. However, it's a 6-month contract ending in July, which means I'll be job hunting for something permanent around late May/June.  My current lease ends July 1...so I'll also be house-hunting at the same time! I'm a bit nervous as to how this is all going to work.  Staying put is not an option, as my fiance and I are desperate to move out of our shared house and into a place of our own.  Complicating matters is that FH will be finishing uni this summer, so he may or may not have a job lined up by May/June...he could very well be temping or something like that.

How in the world do we go about getting a new house if neither one of us has a source of permanent stable income to fall back on?  Are estate agents just going to laugh us out of their offices?  We may be able to get his mum as a guarantor- would that work for both of us (as we're not married yet?)  We should also have quite a bit of savings by that time (I'd say 4-6 months rent) so would that work in our favour? And then of course there's the fact that I have no credit history here in the UK..sigh. Forgive me, I'm more than a little clueless when it comes to these things.  Any insights appreciated

You might be able to pay six months up front though not everyone will let you do that. I had to have a guarantor to rent a place when I wasn't working and that's even though all of the rent was coming out of dh's account (though we weren't married at the time).... You might have a struggle if neither of you have a permanent job. Start building up credit now if you can (open a Next account or something). What are the terms of breaking your lease where you are now? If you're working full time now it might be a tiny bit easier.... Otherwise you may just have to suck it up and stay where you are until you both have jobs.... 

What are the terms of breaking your lease where you are now?

Not sure, actually, I'll check my lease. I know I could get out of it *if* I could find a replacement tenant (but not sure how likely that is, to be honest.)  My rent (FH and I have separate leases even though we live together since it's a shared house) is really, *really* low so theoretically we could afford to pay double rent for a few months if we absolutely needed to....but that would blow through a lot of our savings.

Otherwise you may just have to suck it up and stay where you are until you both have jobs.... 

That's the thing, though- where we live now requires a 12-month lease, and I absolutely don't want to be stuck for another year...not to mention it's likely that our current group of housemates will all go their separate ways after this lease is over.  (And did I mention we have pets? Argh.)

Some will take reference letters and if you have enough cash, just show your bank statements.

update.  we got a really nice place.  all we needed was one reference letter from a police officer and that was it.  No job needed.  Of course we had to show our bank statement.  only had to pay the initial one month rent.

Use a private landlord.  A) You don't run into the nasty admin fees & credit check fees of lettings agents; B) They tend to be a lot more flexible, especially if you can offer to pay x months up front.

You know my boy is an estate agent and even HE refuses to use agents to rent!!

Use a private landlord.  A) You don't run into the nasty admin fees & credit check fees of lettings agents; B) They tend to be a lot more flexible, especially if you can offer to pay x months up front.

You know my boy is an estate agent and even HE refuses to use agents to rent!!

I don't think we paid any of that..it wasn't private.  Although if we didn't have references they wanted 2 months up front, which isn't bad at all.  You're going to pay that two months rent regardless.

I don't think we paid any of that..it wasn't private.  Although if we didn't have references they wanted 2 months up front, which isn't bad at all.  You're going to pay that two months rent regardless.

You're lucky if you went through a letting agent and didn't have to pay any fees, most of them charge through the nose!

update: FH and I are currently negotiating with our current housemates and landlord to possibly rent the house we're living in now on our own in July so that a) we could keep our same awesome private landlord and b) we could have our own house and c) we wouldn't have to move and can avoid this whole issue altogether!  The landlord's on board with this but the housemates haven't made up their mind as to what they want to do....fingers crossed!