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[mulerooster]

My spouse has been offered a postdoc at Cambridge University.  This would be a big & difficult move for us.  I've always wanted to go back to living in England (I lived in London briefly before).  But I'm concerned about the quality of life there and the cost of living.  We have a cushy life here in the states.  We own a home and the mortgage for the home is significantly less per month than what we'd pay for a tiny flat in Cambridge.  I find Cambridge to be quite different from London.  I wanted to have the big city life next and was willing to give up everything here in the states to get that.  But I'm not so sure I'm willing to give up everything here to move to a city of similar size (Cambridge).  It just seems like I'd be paying more to live somewhere very similar to where I am now.

But perhaps I'm just being a skeptic and haven't given Cambridge a chance.  Tell me, what are the great things about Cambridge?  Can we afford to live there on a post-doc salary?  We have pets too, and I'm finding it difficult to find anywhere affordable to live there that allows pets.  Will the quality of life be better in England?  How many paid holiday/vacation days should we expect per year?  What about maternity leave in England?  Will we actually have money left over to travel and do fun things?  Will there be any time to do fun things when my spouse is a post doc?

Will it be easy for me to find a job?  My spouse will have to accept this job offer long before I know if I will be able to get a job there.  That scares me.  I have a hard time saying we can move somewhere if I won't know until several months later if I can even find a job there.  I don't want to have to move there and not be able to find a job.  We really can't depend on just one post-doc's salary!

Is it possible to live in London and have my spouse commute to Cambridge?  I feel like there would be more job opportunities for me in London, plus it's where I really wanted to live.  The cost of a flat around Kings Cross station doesn't seem that much more than flats in Cambridge, but am I missing or forgetting something there?  I always thought London should be more expensive.

So many questions and things to consider.  If anyone wants to share their input or thoughts on life in Cambridge I'd appreciate it.

[hegemony]

I would take a position in Cambridge in a heartbeat.  In fact I have.  It's only 45 minutes by train from London, you know, so you can get down to London and do all your London things very easily.  I find it much less densely built and urban than London, and so more relaxing, but you could reverse-commute if you really wanted to, I suppose.  I wouldn't, but it's possible.  It's true that housing is quite expensive in Cambridge.  The place that offers the post-doc may provide housing (though you have to pay rent) -- have you checked? 

I don't know about maternity leave, though I would figure it has to be better than the States.  I do know there is a great mother-and-baby network of things to do in the city.  The weather is mild, the city is gorgeous, the people are international and lively, there are things to do every night of the week, it's all bikeable and on a human scale, and London is nearby - what's not to like?  The cost of housing and the difficulty of finding it are the only major down side, from my perspective.  And your current mortgage payments may be quite low, but is it an option to stay where you are?  I would imagine your husband's career requires that he move somewhere next.  A Cambridge post-doc probably looks quite good on the CV as well, and the networking he'll do here likewise, so it's an investment.  I'm not sure what your other option is, though -- turning down the post-doc?  That sounds unwise to me, but you know your situation best.

[charlottchen]

Cambridge is a great place, and the postdoc will look very good on the CV if your spouse wants to stay in academia. In industry, I have my doubts that it will impress anybody.

The postdoc salary ranges in the UK are huge, depending on who pays, your experience, etc.. In most cases, it means less than 2000 pounds a month (after taxes). The south of England is very expensive, renting in Cambridge can easily cost you 1000 pounds if you don't want to live in a shoebox. I rented a room there not long ago for a couple of months, it cost me 450 pounds/month (small and far away from the city centre).

Will you be allowed to work in the UK? Unemployment is pretty high in the UK at the moment, a lot will depend on your area of expertise. If there are any jobs, they will be in Southern England though, from that perspective Cambridge is a good place!

The maternity leave is not too generous, as a mother you get 26 weeks semi-paid leave (can be contract-depending, by law it is ~500 pounds a month), and another 26 weeks unpaid leave. Fathers have the same right in theory (you can share the leave), though this law is pretty new and not well tested.

[zharkov]

Just a note about this "job."  A post-doc is, indeed, sort of a job, but also sort of a continuation of one's doctoral program.  I'd call it a "stepping stone job," where one should not expect to get paid as the same level as a "regular" job.  In some fields, especially STEM, a post doc is pretty much expected, so the real choice is probably not Cambridge vs. "nothing," but Cambridge vs. other post doc opportunities, and these alternative opportunities won't generally pay that well (either). 

[babbinacara]

Great things about Cambridge: very pretty town, low crime, small scale, interesting things to do in the evenings as long as you like music or theater or improving lectures. For everything else, it's not far from London.

Can you afford to live there on a post-doc salary? Possibly, especially if your spouse is in the sciences, but you will not live well. Rents are diabolical--many hundreds of pounds for microscopic flats in town, the same for microscopic houses at the town edges. If you live outside of town and commute in, rents are better but not by much. The University does have flats for staff/ post-docs which, although still microscopic, are at least not quite as expensive as the open market. There is plenty of new housing being built, but that hasn't made any impact on costs yet.

Pets? You would need to get them quarantined and microchipped and a whole load of bureaucratic hassle to bring them from the US. You might want to consider how important they are to you.

Quality of life? Hard to say without knowing what you have now. It's all relative.

Paid holiday/vacation? I can only assume you're joking here. Do any academics have paid holidays? I don't even think I know what this word "holiday" is, nor this other foreign word "vacation."

Maternity leave is good within the university and not as good but still far far better than the US outside it. But a post-doc position, as a fixed-term appointment, might not carry a maternity leave allowance.

Will you have money and time to do anything fun? Well, your spouse won't have the time, so it won't matter that you also don't have enough money. Problem solved.

It will not be easy for you to find a job. Even if you are a UK/EU citizen, there just aren't many jobs, academic, administrative, anything in Cambridge, in East Anglia, in the southeast in general. If you are not UK/EU, it's next to impossible unless you have a stonking set of skills or get very lucky.

People commute both ways, London to Cambridge and Cambridge to London. The trains are pretty good, except for when they are not (construction, autumn leaves, accidents, darkness). You'd also need to factor in the season ticket on the train (many many hundreds of pounds more) into your costs.

All that negative stuff said, Cambridge is great for academics. Your spouse will have something on his/her cv that very few other people have and that has word-wide recognition. It should make future job-prospects better, as well as being intrinsically interesting. Post-docs are not forever. What is this, a 2 or 3 year gig? Most people can put up with being poor, pet-less, living in crappy housing, and postponing fun and gratification for a few years, knowing that things will get better.

[hegemony]

Someone who really knows should speak up about jobs for foreigners, but I do know that when U.S. grad students (enrolled at Cambridge) come with their spouses, their spouses automatically have the right to work in the U.K.  I know two who are doing it right now.  I don't know if the rule applies to post-docs, but I wouldn't automatically assume that it doesn't.  A little research should solve that question.

[mulerooster]

In some fields, especially STEM, a post doc is pretty much expected, so the real choice is probably not Cambridge vs. "nothing," but Cambridge vs. other post doc opportunities, and these alternative opportunities won't generally pay that well (either). 

You are correct.  We are in STEM, and the options we have right now are Cambridge vs a large city in the US.

[mulerooster]

Paid holiday/vacation? I can only assume you're joking here. Do any academics have paid holidays? I don't even think I know what this word "holiday" is, nor this other foreign word "vacation."

I hope you are being sarcastic here.  At my current institution postdocs get 20+ days of paid vacation per year.  And grad students get 15 paid days off per year.  Now maybe not everyone takes them because they are too busy working, but I was always under the impression that it was the Americans who work too much while the Europeans often get 5 weeks of vacation per year and take long summer holidays.  Are you telling me there will be no paid vacation days at Cambridge?

[mulerooster]

Someone who really knows should speak up about jobs for foreigners, but I do know that when U.S. grad students (enrolled at Cambridge) come with their spouses, their spouses automatically have the right to work in the U.K.  I know two who are doing it right now.  I don't know if the rule applies to post-docs, but I wouldn't automatically assume that it doesn't.  A little research should solve that question.

Yes I was under the impression that as long as my spouse's visa gets approved to work at Cambridge then I would also automatically qualify for a spousal visa.  That doesn't mean I can find a job though, even if I have that visa in hand.

[scotia]

Paid holiday/vacation? I can only assume you're joking here. Do any academics have paid holidays? I don't even think I know what this word "holiday" is, nor this other foreign word "vacation."

I hope you are being sarcastic here.  At my current institution postdocs get 20+ days of paid vacation per year.  And grad students get 15 paid days off per year.  Now maybe not everyone takes them because they are too busy working, but I was always under the impression that it was the Americans who work too much while the Europeans often get 5 weeks of vacation per year and take long summer holidays.  Are you telling me there will be no paid vacation days at Cambridge?

babbinacara was being sarcastic. The UK holiday entitlement varies from university to university, but the minimum you are likely to be entitled to is 25 days + statutory holidays (though if the statutory holidays fall during term you may be required to work that day and take another day in lieu). The holidays are paid.

[oddlyodd]

On living near King's Cross. The rents probably seem cheap because the area is still fairly run down. There is some new re-development (lots of student accommodation being thrown up), but King's Cross still has a bit of a reputation of being a bit dark and dangerous.

[britmom]

The maternity leave is not too generous, as a mother you get 26 weeks semi-paid leave (can be contract-depending, by law it is ~500 pounds a month), and another 26 weeks unpaid leave. Fathers have the same right in theory (you can share the leave), though this law is pretty new and not well tested.

This isn't quite right.  The basic minimum maternity pay is 6 weeks at 90% of wage and 33 weeks at £102 per week and 13 weeks unpaid. However, many places pay more than this. My University pays 8 weeks full pay, 16 weeks half pay plus the £102 of statutory maternity pay (SMP). That can be followed by 15 weeks of £102 SMP and 13 weeks unpaid. This is fairly typical of Universities and is pretty much the same as what's provided by the NHS, for example. In addition to this, you continue to accrue annual leave throughout the period of maternity leave (in my case, that's 39 days per year).

Both of my periods of maternity leave (13 months) were comprised of:
- 11 weeks of annual leave (full pay - 3 weeks before the start of my maternity leave and 8 weeks taken immediately after my maternity leave finished.)
- 8 weeks full pay
- 16 weeks half pay + SMP (amounted to about 70% of my full pay)
- 15 weeks SMP (approx 20% of full pay)
-7 weeks unpaid.
In addition, I received £243 per month of childcare vouchers. (There's a law saying your employer has to continue to provide all benefits, other than your actual wage, throughout your period of maternity leave.)

There are plans to allow leave after the first 18 weeks to be shared between partners, and to be taken more flexibly. However, this law hasn't been passed. At the moment, fathers are entitled to take 2 weeks of paternity leave at £124 per week. (Again, bigger companies/employers tend to allow/pay more.) There are also laws allowing for flexible working requests and you can take 13 weeks of (unpaid) parental leave within the first 5 years to deal with family/caring responsibilities.

Ahem, I'll stop now -this is probably waaaaay more than you ever wanted to know about maternity leave in the UK, but I am a bit of an expert in such things.

[babbinacara]

Someone who really knows should speak up about jobs for foreigners, but I do know that when U.S. grad students (enrolled at Cambridge) come with their spouses, their spouses automatically have the right to work in the U.K.  I know two who are doing it right now.  I don't know if the rule applies to post-docs, but I wouldn't automatically assume that it doesn't.  A little research should solve that question.

Yes I was under the impression that as long as my spouse's visa gets approved to work at Cambridge then I would also automatically qualify for a spousal visa.  That doesn't mean I can find a job though, even if I have that visa in hand.

Yes to this, which is what I meant. You will have the "right to work," but that does not mean that anyone will have an obligation to hire you. And, all other things being equal, UK/EU citizenship will trump "right to work" every time.  There are actually plenty of jobs for non UK/EU citizens with the right to work: behind a bar, waiter/waitress, secretarial, laboratory flunky; but as your job aspirations move higher, there are fewer jobs and the difficulty in getting those jobs also increases.

Paid holiday/vacation? I can only assume you're joking here. Do any academics have paid holidays? I don't even think I know what this word "holiday" is, nor this other foreign word "vacation."

I hope you are being sarcastic here.  At my current institution postdocs get 20+ days of paid vacation per year.  And grad students get 15 paid days off per year.  Now maybe not everyone takes them because they are too busy working, but I was always under the impression that it was the Americans who work too much while the Europeans often get 5 weeks of vacation per year and take long summer holidays.  Are you telling me there will be no paid vacation days at Cambridge?

babbinacara was being sarcastic. The UK holiday entitlement varies from university to university, but the minimum you are likely to be entitled to is 25 days + statutory holidays (though if the statutory holidays fall during term you may be required to work that day and take another day in lieu). The holidays are paid.

Sarcastic? Realistic? The entitlement for permanent posts is about 30 days per year. A post-doc might have the same or less. But "paid vacation"? A whole month in which one takes off, away from the university, away from research, away from writing, and thinks "I am still being paid"?
Maybe this happens in France (or does it, really?), but not in the UK (or not at Cambridge). Maybe this happens in sciences, but not in my field (social sciences).  People might take a dirty weekend before or after a conference if it is being held somewhere nice. One might even head off for a whole week for something special, like a 20th anniversary. Or take a week off around christmas/new year, when the university is shut anyway and the heat is turned off. Or take a week off to sort out all the personal problems that build up when you are working 15 hours a day, like getting the car fixed or painting the house. (Although in the latter two cases, that just means working at home or working in a relative's spare bedroom after the presents are opened and feast is consumed, or continuing to write an article or sort out admin or teaching materials in the evening after you have slopped paint all day.) I don't know anyone who counts up these days, aiming for no more but no fewer than 30-whatever. "Paid vacation" really is a foreign language, both the "vacation" part and the idea that there is "pay" involved. It shouldn't be, but it is.

[the_walrus]

Yes to this, which is what I meant. You will have the "right to work," but that does not mean that anyone will have an obligation to hire you. And, all other things being equal, UK/EU citizenship will trump "right to work" every time.  There are actually plenty of jobs for non UK/EU citizens with the right to work: behind a bar, waiter/waitress, secretarial, laboratory flunky; but as your job aspirations move higher, there are fewer jobs and the difficulty in getting those jobs also increases.

My SO's experience was similar.  Sort of---the big sticking point in her case was having a national insurance number, which you don't get simply by virtue of having the right to work.  She sensed in many job ads that not having an NI number probably got her application thrown away, since it wasn't fully filled out and makes it clear that you aren't UK/EU, and perhaps, for the less cosmopolitan employers, maybe even calls into question whether you're legally allowed to work (you are---you're just supposed to then be allowed to get an NI number after you have a job).  She was able, in the end, to get an NI number before getting a job.  I believe she had to show she had been applying for jobs and been rejected.  I think it was as simple as carting down to the job centre some rejection letters, along with all the other documentation they require.  And in the end (thanks in part to the NI number?) she was able to get a very good job, suitable to her level of education (to postgraduate level).  But it wasn't easy, and took the better part of a year.  If you're only here for a short while (i.e., on a postdoc), then it might not be worth all of the hassle.  On the other hand, if you're down south (we're not), there are a lot more jobs, so maybe all of this will come easier.

[hegemony]

Americans I know got NI numbers simply as a result of having an "official" position in Cambridge, which includes spouse of someone with a position (including grad student, post-doc, visiting fellow). Note that you can have a NI number without the right to free treatment on the NHS, although I'd bet that post-docs' spouses do get free treatment.  But for the purposes of applying for a job, if a NI number matters at all, I would think you'd easily be entitled to one.  You wouldn't have one before you got here, most likely, but I wouldn't apply for jobs until you do get here, as the start date is likely to be quite soon after you get hired.

It's not as if the economy is that good in the States, either.  Frankly, Cambridge is thriving compared to many places in the States.  If you come to Cambridge or go to the other choice in the States, you'll never know how it would have worked if you'd taken the opposite choice.  And since we don't know what your other choice is, it's hard to comment. And you seem as if you're starting out with some antipathy to Cambridge, which would make adjusting harder.  But if it weren't for the antipathy, I'd think it would be fairly appropriate to be overjoyed that Cambridge is one of your choices.