Name: 9 Important Things to Know Before Working in London | Living in London Series
Uploaded: 2022-07-29T21:01:20.000Z
Duration: 6 min 35 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Gerund

If you're planning to move to London and will be getting a job, here are a few things you should know about working here.

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Now, these tips are for people who aren't from the UK so aren't familiar with the working culture here and they're also for people who already have the right to work here.

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So I'm not gonna be talking about how to get a visa or anything like that. I can't help with that.

As an American, I'm pretty used to getting paid twice a month; here they pay monthly and it's typically at the end of the month but it kind of depends.

Back in my permanent job days, I had to learn how to budget a little bit better to make that one monthly payment stretch a little bit further.

Also, freelance work and hourly jobs, and part-time jobs can totally vary.

You might not live close to where you work.

Because of the prices of rent in London, it's very common for people to live in totally different areas from where they work, especially if they work in central London, it's really hard to be able to afford the actually living in central London.

So you are gonna need to keep this in mind when you're planning where your job is gonna be and also where you are going to live.

I do talk about this in a couple of my videos about where to live and how to find a place to live when you move to London.

You can watch one of those by clicking the card popping up there.

This video is sponsored by Job Today, an app that makes finding a job really simple and quick.

All you do is create a simple profile with your name, your photo, your basic information, and a summary of your past experiences, no need to upload a CV.

There are thousands of job listings on the app so when you are scrolling through, and you see one that looks like it's good to you, you can go ahead and automatically click the "apply'" button or open a chat with the employer to ask more questions about the role.

Once you've applied for a role, you'll hear back within 24 hours whether they wanna chat with you further or if it's just a "no" and you can apply for other jobs.

Job Today has jobs in sectors like retail, hospitality, and more.

So download the free app and see what's available even if you haven't quite moved to London just yet, it can give you an idea of what's out there, what salaries are like.

You can get the app by clicking the link down in the description of this video.

You'll be on a contract no matter what type of job that you get.

Again, this is a little different for me coming from the US, where part-time workers and hourly workers typically aren't on a contract that stipulates how much holiday time that you get off and things beyond really, like this is what you get paid and...

But, yeah, most jobs here, you're going to end up signing a contract and you will probably also have a notice period.

And, of course, if you are a freelancer, you definitely always want to have a contract in place that stipulates how much you're getting paid and all the usual freelancer stuff.

Americans, here is one to blow your mind, it is UK law for employers to give employees at minimum (of) 20 days of holiday time or vacation time a year.

This is so different from the US obviously, which, there's no minimum in the US and on average, employers usually give around 10 days of holiday a year.

And then if you're working part-time or like hourly, I don't even think they usually give holiday time at all, you just don't get paid if you take time off.

If you are from another country besides the UK or the US, let me know in the comments what the holiday time is like in the country you are from.

You'll work with a diverse group of people.

Because London is so diverse, you're most likely gonna end up working with other employees and also customers that are from all around the world and might have varying accents, English abilities, and also just cultural differences.

So if this is your first job in London, it would be worth mentioning any experience that you have in dealing with people that are different from you in the past while you're in your interview.

By notice period I mean the amount of time that you have to stay in your role after you submit your resignation.

Now, this typically pertains more to roles that are office based and like for salary, full-time permanents employees.

Typically a notice period for lower-level employees will be around one month but then as you are mid-level, executive-level, it can be six months or even a year.

In terms of part-time and salary work, from asking around with my friends, it seems like that it just completely depends on the company and what's in the contract that you've signed when you start working for them.

If you are not British, you need to apply for an NI number, or a National Insurance Number, when you get to London in order to be able to work and also do some other things like opening a bank account and get a mobile phone.

So as soon as you get to London, arrange for your appointment to get your NI number and as soon as you have applied for it, you can start working legally.

There's a lot of talk around London about the minimum wage vs. living wage

Minimum wage is the national minimum that employers in the UK must pay their employees which at the time of recording is 7.83£ if you are 25 or older; 7.38£ if you are 21 to 24 years old and 5.90£ if you are 18 to 20 years old.

Then there's the real living wage which is calculated by the Living Wage Foundation which at the time of recording is 10.20£ for London specifically.

This is the number that represents how much somebody would realistically need to be earning in order to actually survive living in London.

Unfortunately, the living wage is not enforced by law, it's only a suggestion at this point.

I'm a New Yorker and if I were working full-time right now back in New York, I'd probably be averaging about 55 hours of work a week including late nights and weekend work.

It's just how it is when working in New York City so comparatively speaking, I think actually working in London, in, let's say, office full-time permanent positions, people here tend to have a better work-life balance.

That being said, if we compare how much Londoners work to the rest of the UK and also the rest of Europe, it is a lot more than the average pretty much anywhere else.

So depending on where you are from, you'll probably notice a difference from what you're used to.

This video is part of my living in London series. There's lots of videos in which I talk about moving to London, living in London, working in London, my experience living here as an American.