[Cor]

I'm living in Leeds at the moment and I'm working as a technical marketer at a technology driven small business. We've had little difficulty finding quality developers. While wages are 10-15%~ lower here than in London, the low cost of living more than makes up for it.

[adaml_623]

Have you considered that the reason you're having trouble is because you think that wages are 10-15% lower than London? You are competing directly with London. Therefore you should probably just put "London Comparable Salary" in your advert and see how that works out.

[chippy]

Agreed. There are hundreds if not thousands of developers in Sheffield/Leeds/Manchester etc. The vast majority of these developers are in Digital Marketing (websites for other companies) and not really in any kind of startup or technology company, but I know they would want to do that instead.

[100timesthis]

in my experience, I was working in Leeds and now I'm in london, the difference is higher than that, at least 30% more, but I have to say my life was better in Leeds.

[Cor]

Interesting. Is that doing a direct comparison between Leeds and London?

Also - if you don't mind me asking - why did you prefer your life in Leeds? I do really like it in Leeds, but the lack of meetups and networking opportunities are quite disappointing, so I was contemplating a move to London for a year or two. I'd love to hear about your experiences.

[100timesthis]

This is my experience: I spent three years in Leeds (1 master+2 working) and one in London.

Maybe I had a deeper emotional connection with Leeds, I went there to study for a master, the first experience out of my country, I made loads of friends. It was easy to do anything I wanted, studying, have fun, visit other places... When I moved to London find a decent accommodation for a decent price was hard, moving around is time consuming, everything requires more time and it's more complicated.

Leeds is not a small city, but everything is close, I used to walk to go to work (20 minutes). The city center was close and small, I rarely used cabs or other vehicles.

London is huge, you can find everything you possibly want, but everything is far. I'm quite lucky, I work in the city center and my commute is 40 min, I have a colleague that commutes for 1h 15 min and he thinks he is lucky. All this erodes your free time.

London has like 10 million people and a lot of tourists,so it's always busy: having so many people around makes me stressed.

I went to some meetups and I was partially disappointed: a lot of them, despite looking interesting, were in fact boring and without substance.A few of them were really good but I stopped now cause I don't have enough time and energy. I'm not good at networking, I chat when I'm at conferences and meetups but usually it ends there as I feel that keeping in touch is not worth the effort (with a few exceptions)

The big plus for me is my job: I'm doing really interesting things with really good people and that's why I'll stay here for another three years at least

London is not perfect but it's really the capital of something, you can feel it, it's definitely a good thing to spend some time here.

Do ask me if you have more questions