Is it worth moving to London?

The raise is real — and so is the rent

The new job pays £10,000 more, which is about £545 more a month in the hand after tax and National Insurance. But a one-bed that's £950 in Manchester is more like £1,900 in London, and the commute climbs too. Put your take-home next to what each city actually costs, and the picture turns over:

A £10k raise, and yet £550 a month less to actually spend or save. The London take-home is genuinely higher — £3,538 against £2,993 — but £1,095 more rent and a pricier commute more than swallow it. The headline salary was never the number that mattered; the spare at the end of the month is.

Then there's the cost of getting there

Moving isn't free — removals, a deposit, the first month's overlap. Call it £4,000, spread over the three years you'd reasonably stay before reassessing: about £111 a month. Add that to the £550 you're already down and the steady gap is £661 a month. Over three years, the whole move comes to roughly £23,800 out of pocket versus staying put — that's the money axis at −2.98, firmly toward staying.

And the half money can't show

This is where a city move is more than a spreadsheet. London might be a bigger career stage and a more social, more alive place to be — but it's smaller space for the money, a longer commute, and further from family. Greener scores both sides. In this example the life axis lands at +0.37 — leaning gently toward the move, because the career and social pull just edges out the lost space and roots — but it isn't enough to overturn the money. The verdict settles at −1.39: the grass is slightly greener where you are. It's your weights that move it, though: if the buzz of London is what you're chasing and you'd happily trade square footage for it, turn the social and space dials up and the answer can flip. The move was never just the salary — it's what's left after the rent, and what the city does to the rest of your life.

One thing people miss: the tax border

If your move crosses into Scotland, the maths shifts before you've paid a penny of rent — because Scottish income tax is set separately, and it follows where you live. On a £60,000 salary, becoming a Scottish taxpayer costs roughly £1,750 a year more in income tax than the rest of the UK — even on exactly the same pay, even working the same remote job. It can cut the other way at lower salaries. Greener models this automatically: set the two cities' tax regions and it shows the difference, so a same-salary move never looks deceptively flat.