I must respectfully disagree on cost of living- again. You can't lump all of England together, just as you can't lump all of the US together. For me, the cost of living- moving from Massachusetts to England, would be much lower.
As someone who used to live in western MA for uni, and then eastern MA for work - those rents can be pretty darn pricey. I wouldn't be too surprised if the cost of living is lower if you are in a situation where you are moving from an expensive place to a more rural place in the UK. Having said that, I now live in London and MA seems super affordable compared to London - I never thought I would say MA was affordable; what has happened to the world?! (also, I miss nor'easters, and I'm not even being funny...)
For the most part; however, for a random person moving from the US to UK - living costs will be higher. I'm not familiar with the area of Leicester, so if you've done the maths and the cost of living will be lower - that's great because it's usually the other way around!
The reason the higher cost of living is brought up and emphasized so strongly is that quite a few people don't realize this (or appreciate it fully) - and it ends up being a nasty surprise when they move over and can have significant consequences. It could mean someone who is used to spending time with family and counts family gatherings as an important part of life can only afford to fly back to the US to visit said family once every 6 years, if at all.
I'm really not worried about salaries being lower because rent would be lower, etc. And I *should* eventually be able to get a decent job with a degree and experience. If you think salaries are 1/4 of what they are in the states, that's not true. I have looked at many many job postings all over England and have seen a lot for 30k pounds/yr.
While there are outliers, another thing we caution is that getting job in the UK can be difficult - a process that can take many many months. One thing about the UK is that they love their UK experience. Not experience, but UK experience. You can have a degree and experience from the US, but that won't be a UK degree, nor UK experience. I've experienced this, and it has been incredibly frustrating. But it is what it is. I think the only degree that the UK views with some kind of positivity from the start is a PhD or equivalent. By and large, I've found that the UK believes their degrees are superior to the degrees awarded overseas, including the US. It's not uncommon for people (already with US degrees) to get a higher UK one or load up on modules to satisfy certain job education requirements since the US degrees are treated with a bit of disdain.
Also, I don't think people are saying that the UK doesn't have high salaries. The point is that typically, your salary will be low relative to what you get in the US for doing the same job, and that might be important to you. The UK job postings that are £30k/year - in the US, you would probably be offered 3x times that for the same job. I've been working and living here for about 10 years now and have gotten a raise every year. My salary STILL is not at the same level it was when I left the US for doing practically the same job. And that's even with my now 10 years added experience.
Again, not to be argumentative or overly negative, but to caution. I love the UK and only retain my US citizenship for aging US family members (I expect that in the future, I'll need to return to the US to help provide care) - but there are certain things the UK does that drive me crazy and have been a total pain in the proverbial. It's why we advocate so much research - of course, nothing is guaranteed, but you can try and minimize surprise negatives as much as possible. An international move is stressful enough; we don't want little things to pop up to add even more stress to the pot!
