Moving from Belfast to London - Help!

Hi

Just looking for some advice/help... Im a 22 year old from Belfast that has dreamed of moving to the Big Smoke for a few years now. Applying for a job and hopefully will at least get an interview in April,if successful (fingers crossed) possibly moving in May/June time. Can anybody advise the best way to go about getting set up with accomadation. The job is based in Covent Garden area, so where would be the best areas for me to look at living in?I would want to share a house and have a budget of £400 a mnth, is this visable? How much roughly would travel cost me a month, I have heard around the £150 mark?I know absoultey nobody and am bricking it, but its now or never!Also, if I dont get this job, can anybody advise the best way of getting work?It would be admin. I have heard people say to try Agencys but trying to get it set up from across the pond is proving difficult!

Thanks in advance

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I moved from The Isle of Man in September. I've got to say, the jobs market is tough right now - but it depends on your skills and experience, of course. My background is in banking and customer service admin, nothing particularly advanced, and the vast majority of jobs that gave me any kind of response seem to be telephone sales. Competition's tough so don't pin your hopes on one role with one company. But that aside...

You'll get places for that kind of money, but generally further out from the city centre. This ties in with travel advice - London is divided into 'Zones' so the City (Covent Garden in the middle, Paddinton West, Liverpool Street East) is Zone 1, then you have a ring around that (Zone 2) going into the smaller towns and the Docklands; Zone 3 starts to get a bit suburban, then there's Zone 4 and Zone 5 is generally areas that are only vaguely London (like Hayes and Bromley, which is sort of Kent).

You're likely to get a room in a house share in Zone 2 and outwards, with it getting progressively easier the further out you go.

If you live in Zone 2, you need a weekly or monthly Oyster to get around as it's not really practical to pay for each and every bus or Tube trip. A Zone 1/2 7 day card is about £26 a week; a monthly one is £99 so if you can afford it that's actually a decent discount if you buy monthly upfront. Zone 3 weekly cards are about £30. If you end up living in London and on a full time course of education, you can get a Student Oyster, which gives you 30& discount.

Good luck!

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thanks!

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That's some good advice. Stuff in there that us resident Londoners wouldn't have thought of mentioning.

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Ta :)

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