The quality-of-life-to-cost ratio in Edinburgh was objectively better on paper. I convinced mysel…
T=0: The Decision
Twelve years in London. Good salary (£68k), Zone 2 flat at £1,650/month, and a growing sense that I was spending most of my income to live in a city I was too tired to enjoy. My partner accepted a lectureship at Edinburgh University and I faced a choice that I had been pretending was not a choice.
The quality-of-life-to-cost ratio in Edinburgh was objectively better on paper. I convinced myself of that and then, slowly, started to believe it.
Feeling settled by month 12. Not spending the next decade wishing I had gone back to London.
6 Months Out
The homesickness was visceral and nothing like I expected. I missed the density, the pace, the particular ugliness of the Central line. I had taken a remote contract at 80% of my London rate and the professional isolation made everything else worse.
“Get Edinburgh work before you arrive if at all possible. Working remotely in a new city from day one is loneliness at double speed.”