Computer Hardware Engineer

Q: My husband and I are considering moving to London in the near future from San Francisco, California. Might I ask you about living in England, particularly London? How much are rents there? We'd be interested in a one or two bedroom apartment. How expensive is food per month? Clothing? How is public transportation? Reliable? Expensive or not? My husband is a computer hardware engineer and I am a screenwriter and novelist. Are there a lot of computer engineering jobs? Any idea what the base pay might be? How about movie making? Is there a lot of that in England? Publishing? Lots of publishers? What about safety issues? Is it safe to live there? What's the income tax rate? Are there local taxes in addition to basic income tax? Do you like living there? Why or why not? Sorry to ask so many questions everyone, but we're really excited about this move and we'd like to know as much as possible before we do it.

A: -According to your "news" media, don't forget the body armour, guns & guards as we brits. are likey to endanger your life with acid sarcasm. -You might find that uk.local.london is a more appropriate newsgroup for most of your questions. The short answer to most of them is "err, well, it varies, really". Better still, fly over for a week-long vacation. This way, you can get a feel for the place, see if you like it, and find the answers to most of your questions. Rent is likely to take up about 50% of your income. Try www.loot.com , the online version of London's most popular classified ads paper. Not surprisingly, it varies a lot from area to area. There's a lot of it, some excellent, some less so. It is usually the most sensible option for accessing Central London; private cars often have the edge for travel from one suburb to another. Bus services are often unreliable due to traffic congestion. Rail services are not perfect, but (ducks for cover) are actually pretty good. A lot of people moan about them in this forum, because we expect perfection and don't get it, but they're fine (well, better than Muni Metro, anyhow!); the booming economy has led to a lot of overcrowding, though. The Underground runs a much more frequent service than "National Rail" (still commonly referred to by its pre-1994 name, British Rail) - on the former you just turn-up-and-go, whereas on the latter you often need a timetable. Public transport in London is is more expensive than in many other world-class cities, (it is probably about twice as expensive as you are used to in the US), but it still won't break the bank. Rents will do that for you... I'd guess that you still have a lot of research to do... You were watching CBS last night, weren't you? Generally, less crime against the person and more crime against property than the US. While CBS reported a high level of street robberies, etc, they failed to report the much lower level of rape, murder, etc. Probably the fact that you can't pop down to your local Wal-Mart and buy firearms and ammunition has something to do with this.

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