Salary expectations - leaving London

Lizling

Hi,

I'm planning to relocate from London to Manchester.

I've had an interview for a job there that pays about 5% less than I get now, or exactly the same if I count bonuses. If I'd instead been looking for a new job in London, I could realistically expect about 10%-15% more.

Given that London salaries tend to be higher than elsewhere, do you think that's is a reasonable offer? Or should I keep looking?

SueC_2

If you feel the salary is fair reward for the job you would be doing, would be able to exist on that salary, think the job sounds like one you want to do, and it facilitates your move from London to Manchester, then yes, the offer is reasonable.

I don't think anyone on here can answer those questions for you though.

Any

Well, are there better paid jobs for the same position in Manchester??

Once you have the job and are settled you can always change again.

Don't forget to compare rent/mortgages to appreciate the difference in outcome.

As Sue says it is difficult to tell you what to expect... especially as we have no idea what you do.
But the same salary, for the same job in less expensive area... doesn't seem a rocket science?

Lizling

Will rephrase: Are Manchester salaries typically 10-15% lower than London salaries?

InsideInsurance

London weightings tend to be in the region of £3-5k on most job listings but in my opinion this in no way compensates the living cost difference. Some companies will give a more generous base salary in London irrespective of what the official additional salary is for the weighting

You really need to do what the others have suggested in terms of looking at the cost of living differences, subtract these from your current salary and then you know what you need to achieve to stand still

Pete111

London salaries do carry a premium - though it is hard to say exactly how much without doing a detailed benchmark of your indistry and role.

You will find that lving costs are lower in Manchester - most likely by more than 5% - so you will probably be getting a decent net increase when you factor in outgoings like rent, council tax, travel etc.

relic

Lizling wrote: »

Will rephrase: Are Manchester salaries typically 10-15% lower than London salaries?

Yes, I would have thought that would be quite obvious.

There are plenty of salary comparison sites around as well that give you a general idea.

xxmatt1980xx

Depends what you're earning of course, but as someone who has lived in both Manchester and London, you'll have a much better standard of living earning 30k in Manchester than 33k in London.

scheming_gypsy

It depends who's recruiting to be honest; some are the same and some are higher in London and some higher in Manchester. But as already mentioned; your money goes further up North so even if it's 3k less, in reality it's a payrise.

Lizling

relic wrote: »

Yes, I would have thought that would be quite obvious.

Not having lived there before, I only know that average salaries will be lower, but I have very little idea how much. The most up to date survey I've found so far is 4 years old and I don't trust the recruitment agency's word on it.

relic wrote: »

There are plenty of salary comparison sites around as well that give you a general idea.

I haven't found any that do regional comparisons across all industries, which is what I need.

InsideInsurance

The problem is you lose the detail when looking across whole regions. If you look at project managers in insurance then 70%+ of insurers head office in the south east. Whilst they may have PMs in other regions these TYPICALLY are looking after smaller scale regional projects where as TYPICALLY those in a head office are handling larger national/ international work in addition to regional. Naturally this in itself attracts a higher salary which goes above the south east salary boost.

Compare a HO PM in London with a HO PM in Manchester and you are then getting closer to a like for like comparison but all the tools I have seen dont go into anywhere near that level of detail and when the sample sizes get that small its statistical relevance will be tiny - CIS is the only insurance company (not broker) that I know of with a HO in Manchester and so that then becomes as much are CIS below or above average payers as much as what is the differential in Manchester.

As I previously said, for most large organisations I have worked for the weighting for london was between £3-5k on top of basic but it is questionable if basic was inflated or not and if it was was it due to the same job title having more responsibility in London or an additional amount of london weighting