Introducing WEXO (Work Experience & Internships)

WEXO has been set up as a matchmaking process between recruiters and those who are seeking work experience, internships and jobs.

Specifically designed for young people at the beginning of their careers, they’re perfect for graduates and young professionals who are moving to London for the first time.

As graduate unemployment has soared by 44% in recent years, 56% of recruiters are now saying that work experience is the most important quality that a job candidate can possess. With famous businessmen such as
James Caan from the Dragon’s Den using the WEXO system to hire, this is surely a trustworthy and well-regarded system that bridges the gap between job boards and social networking and is a bit like Facebook.

The way WEXO works is that companies post their profiles and job opportunities and candidates then browse this list for FREE. If you come across a position that you’d like to apply for, you’ll then have to part with a one-off life-time membership of £10. As well as applying for positions, this fee gives you access to membership benefits such as career events, discounts, advice and C.V guidance.

But why listen to our recommendation of WEXO, when you could read these glowing reviews from The Sunday Times, The Guardian and many more.

Interview with a newcomer in London

This week, we’ve caught up with a relative newcomer to London. Chris is 23 and moved to London after university.

Hi Chris, where are you from?
I’m from York.

How long ago did you move to London?
About ten months ago – I finished at uni last May and then chilled out for a bit, went travelling to South America for a month and then thought I’d better get on with finding a job!

Why did you decide to move to London?
I had a great time at uni in Liverpool, it’s a great city, but about half way through our final year, me and my mates realised that no-one who we were mates with was really going to carry on living there and the general consensus was that we’d move to London because that’s where most of the graduate jobs seem to be. Also, none of us had lived in London before and it seemed like the most buzzing place to be.

Do you feel that you made the right decision in moving to London?
Definitely. Like I said, no-one was staying back in Liverpool and I didn’t really feel like I wanted to go home to my parents house in York. Living in London is amazing. My friends are all here, I’m single so love meeting new people in bars all over town.
Moove2London says: – see our Dating in London page for great dating tips, London dating locations and online dating site reviews.

How easy was it for you to find work?
I applied for a graduate job towards the end of my final year at uni and after a million interviews, I got accepted in a graduate accountancy position. It took a long time because of the process, but my other friends all managed to get good jobs fairly easily. I’m not saying the recession doesn’t exist but it doesn’t appear to have hit London as hard as other areas of the UK.
Moove2London says: Give yourself a head start in finding a job before you even finish uni, by uploading your C.V for FREE to Monster.

Whereabouts in London do you live and what are your living arrangements?
I live in Balham with 2 other blokes – both from Liverpool University. We live in a large Victorian conversion flat. It doesn’t have a garden but we’re really near the Commons so it was great last summer for playing football and chilling out with a few bevvies.
Moove2London says: Not everyone who moves to London gets to live with their existing friends. If you’re moving to London by yourself, then visit Easyroommate to find a flat and flatmates.

How did you find your accommodation?
We called up a few estate agents and 2 out of the 3 of us came down to London one weekend and crammed about 10 property viewings into one day. The one who didn’t come and look at houses with us got the smallest room. Least effort equals box room!

Are you finding London very expensive to live in?
It’s definitely more expensive than Liverpool and York, but I think part of the problem is that as well as moving to London, we have also stopped being students, so student discounts and deals go out of the window. We’ve calmed down a bit now but when we first arrived there were so many different bars and areas of London to explore so we were out after work most nights a week. Then we realised that we couldn’t really afford to live like this, so tend to try and stick to the weekends now!
Moove2london says: Try reading out Affordable London page for tips on how to stick to a budget in London.

What do you love about London?
There’s so much to do, you can’t get bored. Any band you want to see will play in London. There’s loads of comedy, clubs, bars and girls!

Have you had any negative experiences since your move to London?
No, not really. Obviously I read the papers and am aware of crime and stabbings that have taken place in the capital, but luckily I’ve never witnessed or experienced anything bad myself. Touch wood.

How long do you imagine you’ll stay in London for?
I can’t promise I’ll be here until I’m a pensioner, but I’ve no desire to leave in the next 10 years or so.

How much money do I need to move to London?

Following on from our ‘How Much Does It Cost To Live In London’ post last week, we’re now going to answer the next burning question for those of you who are looking to move to London in the near future. That being - 

How much money do I need to move to London?

Whether you will be saving this money yourself or borrowing from parents, or a bank, you’ll still need to budget a certain amount before you consider your move to London.

As with almost everything relating to moving to London, the answer to this question isn’t quite as clear-cut as perhaps you’d hope. It depends on that variable factor of ‘circumstance’, as in your own personal situation. Will you be working at a new job from Day 1 of being in London, or are you looking for work? Do you already have accommodation lined up, or will you require temporary accommodation whilst you look for something more permanent?

Either way, let’s take you through some general approximate costs, so you can work out how much money you’ll need saved up before you move here.

If you move to London without securing a job, then the first thing that you should do is upload your C.V FOR FREE to Monster, as you’ll probably want to start earning money as soon as possible. You can actually start looking for work before you arrive and you should possibly try and line up some interviews with recruitment firms for your first couple of days.

If you have already found your job and have the difficult position of having accepted a job, but have nowhere to stay, then unless you’re lucky enough to stay with friends or family for free, you should book yourself into some temporary accommodation. Dorms are often the cheapest option available for temporary accommodation, but they’re not always the most appropriate, particularly if you want a good night’s sleep the night before your first day at work. So, you could choose a private room at a hostel booked through Hostelworld. You can get a private room for as little as £17 per night. Many of the hostels are located in Central London, which is great because it means that you’ll be more likely to be nearer your workplace and you could even save money on transport at the beginning of your stay in London. If you’re looking for something a little less communal than a hostel, you might want to try Accommodation London who are able to offer an excellent standard of accommodation for as little as £48 per night for a self-contained studio apartment. The apartments are an open planned room with 2/3 single beds or double bed, TV, sofa, table & chairs. They’re fully furnished & fully equipped, everything you need is in the apartment, right down to linen. There is also a shared washer & dryer in most of the buildings.

Let’s say for arguments sake that you spend 2 weeks in temporary accommodation whilst making a real concerted effort to find accommodation of a more permanent nature, perhaps in a shared house. In this case, you’ll require between £238 (hostel room) and £672 (studio apartment) depending on your accommodation preferences. Even if you find somewhere you like on the first day of looking, you’ll often find that it can take a week or so for credit and reference checks to be done on you before you actually ‘get the keys’.

When securing long-term rental accommodation through an estate agent, letting agent or private landlord, it’s normal to expect to hand over 1 month’s rent in advance, plus a damage deposit of between 4-6 weeks. If you consider that the average cost of monthly rent in London is around £450 pcm, then this would mean that you’d be required to hand over £1125 upfront (if the damage deposit is equivalent to 6 weeks rent). Ouch! But try and remember that you’ll hopefully get most of your deposit back at the end of your tenancy so long as you behave yourself!

You’ll also want to budget money for food and transport. Try and budget £40 per week for food and ensure that you eat breakfast and dinner at home and make a packed lunch out of this budget. Transport is a more difficult thing to estimate upfront, as until you’re settled into permanent accommodation, you probably won’t want to commit to purchasing a travelcard yet. In this case, get yourself an Oyster card (see our Transport in London page for details) and top it up with £20 and see how long that lasts you.

Now you’ve got some ideas of how much you’re going to require for your move to London, based on your own personal situation, please make use of all the other resources that our site has to offer to help get you here. You might be interested in our Affordable London page, which has great ideas on how to save money once you’ve moved here.

How much does it cost to live in London?

Many graduates who are considering moving to London after university, worry about how much money they’re going to be able to realistically survive on in London. Of course, annoyingly there is no set answer to this question, as everyone has different circumstances. Some people will insist on living by themselves, which is always going to be considerably more expensive than sharing. Others will rent a room in a shared house, where bills can be split 4 or 5 different ways. Couples in a one-bed flat will be able to split everything down the middle. However, couples who choose to share a room whilst living with other people in a shared house, probably have the most affordable solution available to them – although unfortunately you’ll find that some people living in a shared house are unwilling to live with couples.

We’ve put together some estimates of normal costs in London. The numbers used in this article should be used as a rough guide only, do not use them as definite set-in-stone figures. You should tailor everything to your own situation.

Average Graduate Salary in London

According to Salary Track’s data from November 2009, the average annual salary for graduates in London is £25,000. This is approximately £2,000 more than the average graduate salary in the rest of the UK. Assuming that you’re paying off a student loan (you will pay back 9% of everything you earn over £15,000, so in this example you’ll be paying £900 per year if you earn £25,000), you’ll take home £18,273.65 after tax and your loan deduction. You can use this really handy calculator to work out your tax based on a different wage.

So of this £18,273.65, how much of that will be going to bills?

Rental Costs

Again, speaking in very general terms if you budget £500 per month for rent, you can live in many areas of London very comfortably, if you’re willing to share accommodation with a partner or live in a shared house. You can often find shared accommodation quite a bit cheaper than this, but we’re using £500 as an estimate here. If you’re expecting to live by yourself, then  you’ll need to budget at least £600 per month and you’ll inevitably be stuck in a tiny studio flat. For an idea of prices of current properties that are available in London, check out Easyroommate.

Bills in London

Next up are bills. Whilst mobile phones, landline phones, broadband and TV packages could be considered by some to be optional, there are some bill payments that everyone needs to cough up for. Council tax and various utility bills all fall into this category. Wandsworth and Westminster Council boroughs offer the cheapest council tax in London. Westminster Council covers areas of Central London that aren’t particularly affordable to live in, in terms of rent. So if you’re looking to save money on council tax and still pay an appropriate amount of rent, then you might be better suited to Wandsworth council borough, covering areas such as Clapham, Balham, Streatham, Earlsfield etc. For further information, please check out our recent article on current council tax rates in London.  As for your utility costs, always shop around and look for the cheapest energy provider. Npower and EDF energy always offer really competitive quotes, so they’re a good place to start with. In general, try and budget around £2,000-2,500 for council tax and utilities and then adjust this depending on which council borough you live in and how many people you’ll be living with to help split the bills.

Travel Costs

Next up are travel costs. Again, this is going to depend on where you live and where you work. It’s also going to depend on whether you’re willing or able to purchase an annual season ticket, which will save you the most amount of money on your annual travel.

Let’s say that you work in Central London in zone 1, but you live in zone 3. If you purchase an annual travel card, this will cost  £1208 per year. If you purchase a monthly travel card instead, this is £116 per month (or £1392 per year). These costs would decrease to £1032 per year or £99.10 per month (or £1189.20 per year) if you live in zone 2.

Supermarket Shopping

So, now you need to think about supermarket shopping. You can read loads of tips on how to eat affordably on our Affordable London page, but if you try and concentrate on always eating breakfast at home and taking your lunch to work with you, then you should be perfectly able to survive on groceries that amount to £40 per week, which works out at £2080 per year.

Now we’ve got through the basic bills, let’s see how much of the average £25,000 salary there is left.

After tax and student loans deductions, there is £18,273.65 left.

After deductions for rent, there is £12,273.65 left.

After deductions for council tax and utilities, there is £9773.65 left.

After deductions for travel, there is £8565.65 left.

After supermarket shopping bills, there is £6485.65 left.

So this is how much you’d have left for going out, making pension contributions if you wish to and possibly putting something aside for savings.

It’s a really reasonable amount of money to be left with for whatever purpose you choose. If you expect to be able to go out every night in London, then you’re going to end up quickly getting yourself into debt. However, if you manage to be fairly well behaved during the week and then spend the weekend sinking some beers with your mates, or going for a restaurant meal once in a while, you’ll be able to live very comfortably on this wage and many people do manage to make the most of living in London on quite a bit less than this wage. For more tips on saving money in London, please read our Affordable London page.

10 reasons to move to London

Almost everyone that writes about reasons to move to London, trots out Samuel Johnson’s famous utterings –  ’when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’ as if that’s enough of an explanation as to why you should move here. They normally forget to mention the second half of the quotation, which is ‘for there is in London, all that life can afford’. Now the reference to affordability may seem laughable in these economic times, but the gist of London having everything is something we support. Let us prove to those of you with doubts exactly why you should move to London. 

Here are 10 compelling reasons ….

1. Meet new people – there are roughly just shy of 8 million people living in London, not including all of those who commute into the capital for work, so think about all the extra people that you could meet. With Londoners from all walks of life and from many, many different nations, you’ll get to meet some real characters from fascinating backgrounds who can open your mind to the world. London is an extremely sociable city and it’s not difficult to make new friends and settle in, so long as you put in the effort.

2. Eat wonderful food – as mentioned above, London welcomes people from many different countries around the world and therefore, the choice of cuisine is immense. If you’re after a curry, head to Brick Lane; for Italian food, go to Little Venice; for something sweet and sour head to Chinatown; for authentic Persian cuisine, walk down the Edgware Road. This list could go on and on and on…. but you get the idea. We’d go so far as to say that you can find traditional food from any nation in London. If you want to test this theory, leave a comment and we’ll try and find something for you. In the meantime, read the Time Out Eating and Drinking guide for amazing eateries to tempt your tastebuds.

3. Culture – if you’re a culture junkie, then London is the place for you. If you want free museums, art galleries with the latest exhibitions, classical music concerts, theatre productions, poetry readings, then you’ll find it all in the capital. From the Tate to some random function room above a pub, there are a huge selection of art forms for those who enjoy the finer things.

4. Entertainment – whilst there are some excellent venue facilities in other parts of the country, such as the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, or the MEN arena in Manchester, you can’t deny that London attracts the biggest and best names, productions, concerts and sporting fixtures. Tickets may be expensive, but there’s always something going on at the O2 or Wembley to entice you! Visit Viagogo for details of current events.

5. Celebrations - London is always up for a party and enjoys to celebrate the traditions of other countries. We celebrate St Patrick’s Day on March 17th, Australia Day on January 26th, the Chinese New Year, Diwali (often in October or November), Notting Hill Carnival on August bank holiday, as well as our own national days such as St George’s Day on the 23rd April, Christmas and an amazing New Year fireworks display overlooking the Thames. Few places in the rest of the UK could boast that they honour all of these dates in the same way that London does, often with parties in Trafalgar Square.

6. Shopping – Again, there are some wonderful shopping centres and locations in the UK in places such as Leeds and Manchester, but every woman dreams of shopping with a limitless credit card in the boutiques and departments stores of London town. Whether you want to head to an area such as Knightsbridge, Oxford Street, Bond Street, Regent Street or Kensington, a department store such as Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Harrods or a shopping centre such as Westfield, then you’ll love living in London (although your wallet might not!)  

7. Lack of boredom – you can’t be bored in London,  you just can’t be. If you are, then you suffer from a lack of imagination, because you can do anything here. If you wake up on a Saturday morning with no plans for the weekend and think to yourself, ‘I really fancy… going bowling, ice-skating, singing karaoke, going for a riverside walk, taking a boat down the Thames, going paintballing, taking  a trip on the London Eye, watching some comedy, listening to some jazz….’ you get the picture, you can do all these things at the drop of a hat in London. For great ideas of things to do in London, read TimeOut’s 1000 Things to do in London.  

8. Public Transport – ok this may seem laughable, because as with all public transport systems, London’s goes wrong. A lot. However, if you don’t drive and can’t afford to take lessons, have failed your 5th driving test, feel that driving is bad for the environment, or just don’t have any desire to hold a driving licence, then the beauty of living in London, is that there is absolutely no need to have a car. Would it be nice to drive to the supermarket? Yes of course. But is it necessary. Definitely not. The majority of Londoners, even those who drive, use public transport to get to and from work.

9. Move to London for work – thousands of you move to London every year, with work cited as the main reason for the relocation. As with all capital cities, there is an extremely broad selection of industries to choose to work for in London. Many (but not all) will choose to have at least a branch office, but more likely, their company HQ in London. Admittedly if you’re looking for a job in agriculture, then this won’t be the place for you, but industries such as journalism, television, investment banking and global relocation (to name a few) have the majority of job opportunities in London. Read our Working in London page for further details.

10. Love – finally, if you’re looking for love, then why not try finding it in London? There are many, many more single people than in your home towns and a whole host of opportunities to meet a potential love interest. You could try online dating with sites such as Lovestruck London or Single Solution, meet people through friends-of-friends or at work, go speed-dating , or try meeting likeminded people at an event that you’ll be interested in, such as a wine-tasting evening. Read our Dating in London article for tips on meeting someone in the capital.

Specialist Recruitment Agencies in London

If you’re moving to London and are looking for work, one of the first things that we would advise you to do is register with several recruitment agencies to maximise your chances of finding a job. However, there are hundreds of recruitment agencies in London and it can sometimes be difficult to choose the correct agency to approach depending on the industry that you want to work in. Whilst there are many ‘general’ recruitment agencies in London, that will have a wide range of office jobs, there are other, more ‘specialist’ recruitment agencies, catering for specific industries.

Nursing and Medical is a healthcare consultancy, based in London, that recruits registered specialist nurses and allied medical professionals into permanent jobs. They recruit at all levels from junior healthcare assistants to senior management level positions. Their specialist healthcare recruitment includes candidates from the following areas: Cardiac, Neonatal and Paediatrics, Midwifery, Intensive Care ICU/HDU, Orthopaedic, Trauma & Surgical, Theatres/Scrub/Anaesthetics, Oncology/Haematology, Renal, Biomedical Science, Hospital Pharmacy, Physiotherapy, Hand Therapy, Radiography and Radiotherapy.

If you’re looking for a job in broadcasting, you should contact the Career Moves Group broadcasting division. With high-profile clients such as Sky and MTV, they’re able to place candidates into a wide range of roles in the following areas: Broadcast (operations, on-air, branding, scheduling, traffic and programming), Research & Marketing (broadcast and non-broadcast marketing at all levels including CRM), Production (independent sector from production assisting to executive producing for long form content or promos), Post-Production (library, tranmission and editing) and Distribution (programme sales, material distribution, rights and clearance.

London is the base for many charities – if you’re interested in working in the charity sector, you’ll need to use a site such as Charity People who recruit for some of the best NFP’s in the country across all job categories. In 2001, they also launched forum3 which is Europe’s largest recruitment fair for the not-for-profit sector.

If you are looking for a job in childcare, you might want to contact Greatcare who are based in Battersea, South London. They work  with individual families and employers such as First Choice, Club Med, Virgin Active, Bright Horizons, Thomas Cook, Thomson and Tinies. As well as searching for jobs on their site, there is the option to upload your CV to the Greatcare database.

Those of you with experience in the hospitality industry, will want to contact the People Tree, who recruit managers and chefs for branded and themed restaurants, gastro pubs, style bars, brassieres and boutique hotel operations. Some of their clients include Frankie & Benny’s, Cafe Rouge, Bella Italia, Vodka Revolution Bars, The City Inn Group and the Living Room chain of style bars. You can search some of their current jobs online, or alternatively attend one of their monthly recruitment open days.

If you’re struggling to find a specialist recruitment agency for your chosen industry, then please feel free to email contact@moove2london.com and we’ll try and assist. In the meantime, you should all definitely think about registering with top recruitment site Monster, where you can search for jobs and upload your CV and cover letter for thousands of potential employers to read.

You Know You’re a Londoner When…..

• You say “the city” and expect people to know which one you mean.
• You have never been to The Tower or on the London Eye, but you love Brighton.
• You can get into a four-hour argument about how to get from Paddington to Elephant & Castle, but you can’t find Yorkshire on a map.
• Prostitutes and the homeless are invisible
• You use the correct name of the tube lines, rather than call them colours.
• Your door has more than two locks.
• The most frequently used part of your car is the horn.
• You consider eye contact an act of blatant aggression.
• You call an 6′ x 11′ plot of patchy grass a lawn and complain about having to mow it.
• You consider Kent the “countryside”
• You think Regent’s Park is “nature”.
• You’re paying £1,000 a month for a studio the size of a walk-in cupboard and you think it’s a ” bargain.”
• Shopping in suburban supermarkets and shopping centres gives you an attack of agoraphobia.
• You pay more each month to park your car than most people in England pay in rent.
• You haven’t seen more than twelve stars in the night sky since you arrived.
• You pay £4 without blinking for a beer that cost the bar 28p.
• You scoff at people who live in Transport Zone 4, even though you were raised in a farm town with a population of 77.
• You actually take fashion seriously.
• Being alone makes you nervous.
• You have 18 takeaway menus next to your telephone.
• The UK west of Heathrow airport is still theoretical to you.
• You’re wary of strangers who are actually nice to you.
• You haven’t cooked a meal since helping mum last Christmas with the turkey.
• You take a taxi to get to your health club to exercise.
• You don’t understand what people outside of London do for work.
• Someone jumping underneath a tube isn’t sad or horrifying, it’s dreadfully inconsiderate.
• Your idea of personal space is no one actually standing on you.
• £50 worth of groceries fit in one carrier bag.
• You have a minimum of ten “worst cab ride ever” stories.
• You don’t hear sirens anymore.
• You’ve mentally blocked out all thoughts of the city’s air quality and what it’s doing to your lungs.
Going to church on Sunday means getting wasted with a bunch of Aussies in Clapham.
• You live in a building with a larger population than most market towns.
• You’re starting to wonder where the Sinners Winners guy went.
• Your cleaner is Korean, your grocer is Russian, your deli man is Polish, your landlord is Israeli, your laundry guy is Italian, your favourite bartender is Greek, your favouriterestaurant owner is Irish, the watchseller on your corner is Slovenian, your last cabbie was Indian, your newsagent is Pakistani and your favourite falafel guy is Moroccan.
• You wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, until you get married.

Throwing a house party in London

House parties are always a popular social event in London, particularly in these credit-crunchy times! If you’ve recently moved to London, they’re a great way to expand your social circle, particularly if all of your flatmates invite a few ‘new’ people who the others don’t yet know. In order to throw a good party that’s talked about for all the right reasons, but allows your house not to look like it’s been involved in a nuclear disaster, there are some top tips that you should follow:

1. You and your flatmates could stock up on cheap bottles of booze. You can get Majestic Wine to deliver in bulk to your house. Stick to wine, fake champagne and beer to make it more affordable for you.

2. Talk to your flatmates about how many people you’d ideally like to invite. You might all want to invite workmates, friends of your girlfriend/boyfriend, friends from home, friends from your sports team etc etc. So you definitely need to work together on your guest list so there are no nasty surprises.

3. Decide if you’d like your party to be themed. Fancy dress/costume parties are really popular in London. There are plenty of fancy dress stores in London. Angels is an amazing store on Shaftesbury Avenue that does also do mail order if you’re too busy to visit.

4. Send out your invitations via email or Facebook. Invitations through the post are a bit ridiculous for just a simple house party. You could send out the email 2 or 3 weeks in advance (people get booked up quickly in London) and then send out some reminders nearer the time. Maybe follow up with a text to people who haven’t RSVP’d.

5. On your invitation, request that everyone brings a bottle. If you’re particularly worried about your carpet getting trashed, then you could have a ‘white drinks only’ policy to ensure that everyone steers clear of creating dreaded red wine stains!

6. On the day of the party, make an Ipod playlist (or similar) and try and cater for everyone’s music tastes. If your guests want to change the music, let them!

7. Make sure that you hide all breakables away somewhere safe, so that your house is party-proofed!

8. Invest in some plastic cups (you can even get fancy plastic champagne flutes these days) so that smashed glasses are kept to a minimum.

9. If you’re worried about upsetting your neighbours with loud music, the best thing to do is go and see them a couple of days before, let them know about the party and invite them to come along. Most neighbours won’t turn up, but will be grateful to receive an invite.

10. Move your furniture around a bit to make a large space for dancing and mingling.

11. Make sure you have some burly blokes around to chuck out any potential ‘gatecrashers’.

12. If the worst happens and you end up running out of booze, contact Just Eat, who should be able to organise a late-night booze run for you.

Property Guardian Schemes in London

Property Guardian Schemes are a great idea for people moving to London who require affordable accommodation. The schemes have been in operation for years throughout the UK and Europe, but they’ve recently seen a huge increase in popularity due to the recession.

The idea behind property schemes is that empty buildings, that range from large houses to former office blocks are put under the watchful eye of a ‘property guardian’. The scheme benefits both the building owner and the guardian. The guardian gets a roof over their head, sometimes quite a spectacular 5 bedroom house in Central London, for a shockingly low amount of rent. The owner on the other hand, gets the assurance that their building is being occupied and looked after by a guardian whose presence is likely to deter potential squatters. Using a property guardian is also a much cheaper option to hiring a 24/7 security guard and installing all kinds of CCTV equipment.

The types of building that a property guardian could occupy include the following: offices, schools, shops, village halls, police stations, castles, hospitals, swimming pools, flats, town halls, fire stations, retirement homes, barracks, sports halls, theatres, cinemas, family homes, churches, farms, mansions, industrial sites and monasteries.

The rent or management fee payable in guardian properties, is extremely cheap and you could pay as little as £50-100 per week. There are some downsides to becoming a property guardian though. First of all, the situation is always only on a temporary basis. You could be guardian of a building for as little as a few weeks or as long as a few years. However, as the situation is temporary, you will find that when the owner wants their building back, they will expect you to vacate in as little as 2 weeks time. Often though, the property agency will attempt to rehouse you.  Whilst you have the opportunity of living in an extremely spacious building, the facilities will be extremely basic although you can often ask permission to have a phone line fitted. Most of the properties you live in will be unfurnished. There are also often restrictions on how you use the space that you’re living in. You shouldn’t expect to be able to have any large parties or to be able to use the space in a commercial capacity. Finally, as affordable as this accommodation is, for those who are scared of the dark or have a fear of watching ‘The Shining’, you should really think about whether you’d be suited to living in an abandoned building!

If you’re willing to sign up to the adventure of living in an unusual property, you’ll need to gather up various references before you sign up with an agency. Typically, you should take an employers (or client if you’re self-employed) reference, 3 months of bank statements, passport and proof of address. You should have no dependents or pets.

Contact these property agencies if you’re interested in becoming a property guardian. For keyworkers, students or freelancers, they could be the perfect solution to your housing needs!

Ad-Hoc Property Management

Camelot Properties

Safe Estates

Ambika

London Pass

Our site aims to help newcomers to London discover the ‘real’ London. With our residential area descriptions and advice on settling into life in the capital, we try to show people who are moving to London that there is life beyond the tourist hotspot of Leicester Square, the busyness of Oxford Street and the hustle and bustle of our financial district in the City. However, we realize that people who have just arrived in London, might also be desperate to visit the tourist destinations that make our city famous, particularly if you’ve only ever been to London a handful of times, or possibly never!

Now, whilst many of London’s top museums are free, there are many famous attractions that cost an arm and a leg. So in the interest of saving money, we’d like to recommend the London Pass.

By purchasing the London Pass, which looks like a credit card, you’ll get FREE entry to 56 top tourist attractions such as Tower of London and the Tower Bridge experience, London Zoo, Hampton Court Palace, Cabinet War Rooms, Windsor Palace, Royal Albert Hall, St Pauls Cathedral, Chelsea FC Stadium Tour and the National Gallery. The pass is described as being ‘a bit like an all-you-can-eat buffet’. The more sights you see, the more money you save.

As well as the sights, you can also opt to purchase the pass with a travel extra thrown in, which will give you free travel between zones 1-6 of London’s transport system on the days that you’re visiting attractions.

Another bonus of purchasing the travel card is that you get to skip the queue at the busiest attractions. You just need to look for the London Pass signs, show the attendant your card and you will be swiped through, leaving the rest of the queue wishing that they’d have bought the pass too!

When you purchase the London Pass, you’ll receive an accompanying free guide book with details of all the possible attractions, complete with directions, maps and opening times. You’ll also receive over 40 additional discounts including meal deals at top London restaurants.

So, let’s talk costs. The London Pass is available over a range of different durations – e.g 1 day, 2 days, 3 days or 6 days with or without travel. The prices are displayed below.

• 1 day adult pass £39
• 2 day adult pass £54
• 3 day adult pass £65
• 6 day adult pass £89
• 1 day adult pass with travel £46
• 2 day adult pass with travel £68
• 3 day adult pass with travel £85
• 6 day adult pass with travel £131

These prices might look expensive, but remember that the whole point of getting this pass is that the more sights you visit, the more money you save.

So if you think that a normal public adult ticket to the Tower of London is £16.50, London Zoo is £15.40, Windsor Castle is £14.80 and Chelsea FC Stadium Tour is £15, then if you add all those things up, you only need to do 3 of them to save money on a 1 day London Pass, do 2 per day on a 2 day pass and so on. The longer the duration of pass you buy, the more money you’ll save, but obviously there is a larger initial outlay of your money.

In short, if you’re going to spend the weekend sightseeing either by yourself, with friends, or visitors to London and you want to

• Save Money
• Jump Queues
• Get extra discounts to things
• Have your travel costs thrown in

… then the London Pass could be a great idea for you. For further details and to see how it could save you money, visit London Pass.

 

 

 

 

Tags: discount sights in london, London pass, london sightseeing, moving to london, tourists in london
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