Hey everyone and welcome to the Understandable English Podcast.
I'm Oliver and we're going to be talking today about a very much requested topic by so many people, and that is how expensive is it to live in the UK?
I often get asked this question because people think that it's very, very expensive to live or work in the UK.
But as you'll see today, the answer is not so simple.
Of course, when we think of the UK, we often think of London and we think wow, London is so expensive.
It has very expensive restaurants, very expensive apartments, but in reality, is it that expensive?
Let's find out.
So, since a lot of our listeners are from Russia, I thought today, since I live in Moscow currently, I will compare the cost of living in the UK and London to Moscow, since it's the most expensive city in Russia.
Or at least I think it is.
It's at least one of the most expensive cities in Russia.
So how would I begin to answer this question?
Well, what I would say is that in the UK there are two different costs of living.
The first is if you live in London.
Of course it's more expensive but, unlike a lot of countries, the cost in the capital is very, very different from the rest of the country.
I would say almost everywhere else in the UK it is significantly, so a lot more cheap than London.
London, even in the UK, is known for being very expensive.
This expense, so the cost in the city, is only bad if you're visiting.
So people that work in London have much higher average salaries than the rest of the UK.
I mean I think it's almost double the rest of the UK.
And of course if you visit as a tourist you will think it's quite expensive.
So I thought first to give some context.
We can compare the average salary in London versus the average salary in Moscow.
So the average salary in Moscow is probably, from what I've seen online it's a little under 100000 rubles a month.
So probably between 80 to 100.
I could be wrong.
That seems to be what I found online.
And to compare to that figure, even if it's not entirely accurate in London the average salary is 334000 rubles a month.
So it's more than three times the average salary in Moscow.
So, even if London is three times more expensive than Moscow, you will live the same quality of life as you live in Moscow, in London.
But of course, these are just averages.
There are a lot of people that earn much, much more and much, much less in both of these cities.
But if we look at the cost of living in terms of pure statistics, so the data or the numbers, we can see that London is 188 times more expensive than Moscow.
So London is ranked as the 34th most expensive city in the world.
Whereas Moscow is ranked as the 5,433rd most expensive in the world.
So it's a lot cheaper than London.
I think this podcast will be very good practice for understanding numbers because there are a lot.
One more very interesting statistic is that in London the average tax salary or sorry, the average after tax salary, so once you've paid your taxes, it is enough to cover or to pay your living expenses for 14 months in London.
Whereas in Moscow, the average is one month.
So that means that people in London, even with the more expensive lifestyle they are able to pay for more.
So their money lasts for longer by almost 50% more, which is quite a big difference.
So, enough about London.
We know it's expensive to visit, but if you live there it isn't so bad if you're earning a London salary in a good job.
But now I'd like to speak a little bit about my own experience from living in other parts of the UK.
So of course I grew up in Northern Ireland, just outside of a city called Belfast.
And Belfast is actually the cheapest city in the UK to live.
So as you can tell, there is a huge difference from Belfast to London and even to Moscow.
If you live in Belfast, I can tell you it is well.
To me it is much more expensive to live in Moscow than in Belfast.
In general, I think that in many parts of the UK, a lot of food is actually cheaper than in Moscow.
So, groceries in most main shopping areas Food stores.
I forgot the word supermarkets.
That's the one.
So a lot of supermarkets in the UK I actually find are cheaper than the likes of Peregristok Ili Dixi in Moscow, especially for healthy foods.
So in the UK?
Well, in Northern Ireland, I find that fruit and vegetables, especially exotic fruit and vegetables, are much cheaper than in Moscow.
And another great thing is, although the average salary in Northern Ireland is much lower than London, for example, it's still about 200000 rubles a month.
So about 2,100 pounds a month.
And with this, because it's cheaper to live, families can save more money.
So a lot of families are able to have bigger houses, maybe a couple of cars.
And in general, in villages and small towns, I think the quality of life is actually quite high.
Of course there are still a lot of people in these areas who have low paying jobs.
Maybe they don't have a high level of education and for them the cost of living is still very high.
But for trained professionals it is a very cheap place to live.
For me moving to Moscow.
A few of the things that I noticed which are more expensive in Moscow than they are in Northern Ireland or even in Edinburgh in Scotland, where I lived before are, for example, clothing.
So buying shoes, t-shirts and all of these things.
I find them to actually be much more expensive.
Shops which are considered very cheap in the UK, for example H&M, are much more expensive.
And in fact sometimes I noticed products in HM are around a third or even twice the price of what they cost in the parts of the UK that I've lived.
And as well, shoes are so much more expensive.
So usually what I do is, when I return home to the UK, I buy my clothing and my shoes there and then return with them to Russia.
Really.
In general, any imported products into Russia are, of course, a lot more expensive than they are in the UK.
So that's anything from the EU or the US and a lot of different countries.
This includes technology, for example.
So even I found that buying an iPhone in Northern Ireland was a little bit cheaper than buying an iPhone in Moscow.
And, of course, because the average salary is higher in the UK, it makes it so much more expensive to buy these items in Moscow and in Russia in general.
I would also say that to rent somewhere to live in Belfast or Northern Ireland is around the same price as renting in Moscow.
But in Belfast or Northern Ireland you can get a much bigger place for the same price.
And I think this is because of course, Moscow is a huge city.
There is much more competition to rent and buy apartments than there is in Belfast, for example.
So that's about it for the list of things that I think are cheaper.
Actually, wait, I just remembered one.
Another is gym memberships.
So if you want to go to the gym it's actually very cheap outside of London.
So we have a lot of gym memberships which have lots of locations around the country and in the uk.
It cost me around 1500 rubles a month for a really good gym and it was called Pure Gym.
I think the prices have increased since then, so it's probably around 2000 rubles in Northern Ireland, but it's still very cheap.
And I've struggled to find a place that is that cheap for a very good gym in Moscow.
Sometimes they can be two three, four times the price and for the very good locations much, much more.
So apart from all of those things, I would say that a lot of things are around the same price.
So there isn't a huge difference in food costs.
I would say transport in Northern Ireland is a little bit more expensive.
And what else?
Going to the cinema, for example, is around the same price.
Buying alcohol in bars is similar price as well.
So now onto things which I think are much more expensive, perhaps in the UK in general, and particularly where I grew up.
So the first of these is something I noticed immediately when I moved to Moscow and St.
Petersburg in the past too.
And that is the cost of internet and mobile phone coverage.
So, for example Teletubba Beeline, all of these services for home and for your phone.
So in the uk to get uh, maybe 20 gigabytes of internet a month on your phone, it's going to cost you around 2 000 rubles a month, which is quite expensive.
Here in russia i get like 30 gigabytes and it cost me about 400 rubles, which is crazy to me.
So that is a big difference.
It's the same with home internet.
For good home internet.
You could pay free 4000 rubles, maybe even 5000 rubles a month for home internet.
So this is definitely a big plus here.
Another thing that has a crazy difference in Moscow is the price of taxis.
So using Yandex Go or any of those services is so much cheaper here.
I can't even compare the prices.
Anywhere in the UK I wouldn't even think about getting a taxi.
It's so expensive.
But in Russia it's very affordable.
Trains are also much cheaper in Russia than in the UK.
The UK is known for having very expensive trains and I would say they're good but expensive, and sometimes the service is not always the best for the price that you're paying.
So I think I've covered all of the main expenses and costs.
I may have missed some things out.
Of course, in the UK, in terms of education and healthcare, it's all paid for by taxes.
So we have very good state education and very good free healthcare as well.
I've never had any problems growing up.
And I know that sometimes people complain about waiting times or queues for healthcare, but I would say it's not as bad as people say it is.
And I know that in Russia, in Moscow, the healthcare is very good too.
And I know nothing about the education or the schools, but I'm sure they're also very, very good.
So yeah, on that point, I hope that this has allowed you to understand more about the cost of living in London and also the rest of the UK and how it's very, very different.
And i would say, if you want to move to the uk and you're thinking about working there in the future, don't panic about the prices and because, as we saw by the purchasing power, so how much your money is worth and if you get a good job in the uk, you will have more money to save and to spend than you would in Moscow.
And that's because the difference in salaries is just so huge.
So, even if you worked in London or another part of the UK, if you're educated and you get a good job, you can live very, very comfortably.
And although British people are certainly not the wealthiest people in the world, everyone I know travels a lot.
There is a lot of disposable income, so money to save.
And in general, it's a very good place to live.
And of course, I love living here in Moscow too.
Both are very different and they have their positives and negatives.
But I would recommend you to even visit London and the UK.
And, of course, like anywhere in the world, if you decide to visit London, it will be expensive, like a lot of cities such as Paris or Berlin, but you just have to be smart.
Don't use taxis.
Don't eat in restaurants which are right in the city centre.
Look for quieter areas, maybe side streets, so not main streets.
And you can even, if you rent an apartment or an Airbnb, cook at home.
Because the cost of buying groceries, so food products, is not a lot more expensive.
So you can save a bit of money that way.
Oh, and I just realized.
One point I forgot is that in the UK, even London, most of the museums are free.
So you can enter them for free.
This is because our taxes pay for the museums.
So the government sees it as important to keep education and learning free for the population.
So any of the big government owned museums, such as the science museum, the history ones, even the art galleries they're usually all completely free.
And you can leave a donation if you want, but you don't even have to.
So those are great ways to have a very cheap day out in London.
Thank you very much for listening to this episode of the Understandable English Podcast.
I hope that you enjoyed it.
And if you have any topics that you want to request, feel free to message me on Instagram or TikTok at English with Oliver.
So I will see you all in the next one.
Have a fantastic morning, day or evening.
Goodbye.
