Possible move to the UK?

Love, love, love "the north" and would recommend Yorkshire or Manchester as well.  Manchester City Council has recently committed some serious cash to upping the bike-friendly nature of the city, and the whole area has loads going on and is much more affordable than many parts of the UK.

Cambridge is a bit bonkers. It's lovely, but really, really really expensive and crowded. As far as I could tell, it was bike friendly mostly because there were SO MANY people riding bikes (in traffic! without helmets! with headphones!), not because it was necessarily set up to be bike friendly. But that might just be my stress levels talking as it always made me terrified of driving/walking around there as I was always nearly being run over or nearly running over someone on a bike.

Yeah, think about space & how important that is to you. A friend who took holiday in Sweden remarked how much more spacious it seemed - ratio of available land to population density.

This island is crowded! London, Bristol, Cambridge - a lot of southern places, super crowded! I like to visit, but...

You'd get more spaciousness in Wales or The North, alongside the town or city things you are seeking.

On the other hand, if you really like crowds - go south!

Would finding a job being an issue? Are there any particular fields you work in that different regions of the UK might specialize in? Or is that why there needs to be a local university? 

Cambridge is a bit bonkers. It's lovely, but really, really really expensive and crowded. As far as I could tell, it was bike friendly mostly because there were SO MANY people riding bikes (in traffic! without helmets! with headphones!), not because it was necessarily set up to be bike friendly. But that might just be my stress levels talking as it always made me terrified of driving/walking around there as I was always nearly being run over or nearly running over someone on a bike.

I would agree. It isn't very bike friendly in terms of infrastructure.  Although, it is getting better.

I know we aren't focusing only on Cambs here, but I live in London, have lived in Cambridge and regularly cycle/commute in both.   

Cambridge really isn't that expensive.  There are tons of options on housing, the city is really easy for transportation, and most people don't have cars, and I don't only mean the students.  It has a decent variety of things to do, though there is definitely a town vs gown thing going on.  The pubs are really good.  It is a minimum of 50 minutes from London King's Cross (they always quote 47 minutes on the timetables but this is BS), and about 80 minutes to London Liverpool Street. 

As for density, I only find it's a bit packed in August when everyone and their monkey shows up to be tourists.  Rest of the year is fine.  Same thing with cycling.  Most days it's A-OK, but during August or in the beginning of the uni term, watch out for those deadly confused cyclists.

There is a good variety of work for a small city and Stansted Airport is pretty decent.

However, if you are a city person, this is NOT a city.     

C

Hi,

Good luck with your plans to move! there's plenty of choices and recommendations as you can see

I'll be 'boring' again, and say that much of your move will come down to various things and one aspect, given the spread of the places you've thought about moving to will involve the usual thing. Funds. Only you will know the depth of your purse/wallet and it will be a deciding factor for you and if you are going to be needing work then it would be best to look for a location with the best chances of finding one. If you have a specialist field in which you work, then perhaps you'll need to search out the places which offer potential roles for you and have the location preferences above be a lesser priority.

There's many people who do indeed love the north of the UK as evidenced above, however, there is the UK's infamous 'North South Divide' and economically only, the South has always been better in that regard. Here's an article about it for instance

http://msn.careerbuilder.co.uk/Article/MSN-458-Job-Search-The-Economy-and-the-North-South-Divide/?lr=int_ukmsn&SiteId=int_ukmsn_a458&sc_extcmp=int_ukmsn_a458+

Good luck wherever you do decide to settle, most likely there's going to be at least a few UKY members nearby!

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!