WELCOME TO MOOVE2LONDON -

Welcome to Moove2London - the essential guide to moving to London, for graduates and young people from both the UK and overseas.

LATEST - CHECK OUT OUR LONDON VOUCHER CODES ON OUR AFFORDABLE LONDON PAGE.

This site is packed full of vital information on finding work accommodation in London. Whether you're a graduate, a young professional, a student searching for Gap Year Employment, or a person arriving from overseas, you'll find this site to be essential to your move to London.

Everyone who is moving to London has a different set of circumstances. Whether arriving from within the UK or from overseas, some people may have a job waiting for them, others may have their accommodation sorted out, but no job to pay the rent. Then there's the third category of people who have neither a job nor a roof over their head. As scary as this sounds, it's very common and although there is no set-in-stone process for making the move to London, we're going to take you through our tried-and-tested questionnaire which provides you with many tools to help your move to London be as stress-free as possible.

Simply read the questions and follow the path that the answers provide.

EMPLOYMENT
Have you already secured a job before your move?

Yes: If you've already secured a job, (perhaps a position on a graduate-training scheme, or a transfer from another national or international branch of your organization) then this is great news as half of your work is done. The only thing you'll need to bear in mind is the location of your new job, as you'll probably want to base the location of your accommodation around your new workplace. You can live a fair distance away from work, but you might want to choose to live on a particular tube line for instance. Congratulations on your new job! You can now move on to the Accommodation section.

No: First of all, it's perfectly normal to move to London without having found a job yet. If you're arriving from overseas, then you'll need a NI number. Many young people arrive in London and temp for a few weeks whilst they find their feet. The good news is that you can already start working on finding a job before you arrive in London. The first, most important thing that you need to do is to make sure that your C.V looks perfect. It should stand out from the crowd, but for all the right reasons. This previous blog post describes some top tips on writing your C.V. It's absolutely vital that you upload your C.V and profile FOR FREE to Monster . Thousands of employers trawl through the Monster database, so you'll want to ensure that you don't miss out on this free opportunity to promote yourself. Another thing that you can do is to go along to a C.V workshop, such as those run by the CV House - see our Working in London page for further details.
Once you've got your C.V up to scratch and are confident that you're interview-ready, you can start by handing in your C.V to some recruitment agencies. Check out the ones on the Working in London page. They're a good place to start. If you're a graduate, take a look at the Times Top 100 Graduate Employers for details of when and who the best-of-the-best are hiring.

ACCOMMODATION
Do you have temporary accommodation in London whilst you look for work?

Yes: Great! Maybe your new workplace has organized some temporary accommodation for you, or perhaps you're crashing with a friend whilst you get yourself together. Either way, if you're feeling the need for your own space, then try and remember that your situation won't be forever. If you don't want to drag your entire belongings around with you, then you could consider putting them in storage for a short time. Big Yellow is London's leading provider of self-storage. From their site, work out how much space you need, find your nearest Big Yellow storage site, reserve your space, use their packing guide, get boxes delivered to your home, check in at Big Yellow, use their trolleys to move our stuff in, lock up (only you have the key) and access your storage whenever you need.

No: Not a problem. This is London after all and there are temporary accommodation options that will suit any budget. At the bottom end of the budget, you might want to consider Hostelworld who have really cheap beds in hostels in the middle of Central London, but for those who are looking for a little more than a bed, then we recommend some of the accommodation that Accommodation London has to offer. Here's a quick refresher of the fantastic accommodation that they have available.

Are you arriving in London by yourself, or are you part of a couple or group of people who want to live together?

Part of a couple or group: In this case, the next step for you is to work out which area of London to live in. Please proceed to the next question.

Arriving by myself: If you want to live by yourself, (bearing in mind that this will be considerably more expensive than living with flatmates), then please proceed to the next question. If you're looking for flatmates (or as Londoners say... randoms!) then there are a huge amount of tools available for you. The first thing we recommend doing is signing up with a flatmate-finding service such as Easyroommate.com.

Do you know whereabouts you want to live?

Yes: Look up the area you have in mind on our North London, South London, East London and West London pages to see if the local area guide has already been published. All London areas will be uploaded in stages throughout 2010. The area guide will give you heaps of local information, including property prices, estate agents, council tax prices, transport links, popular pubs, bars and restaurants, local supermarkets, gym and sports facilities, libraries and parks.

No: If you have no clue on where you want to live, then you've come to the right website! Send in a question to us at North London, South London, East London and West London pages for inspiration on several popular residential areas in London. Remember also, that many people who work in London during the week, choose to live outside of London. Although we don't yet cover areas such as Kent and Essex on our site, we still promote the possibility of living in a more village-like location whilst working 9-5 in the capital. For more information on places that are within a commutable distance from London, try reading 'The Daily Telegraph Guide to Commuterland' by Caroline McGhie, which is HUGELY popular with our Moove2London followers.

Once you've got to this stage, you're nearly there. You've worked out who to live with, picked an area that suits you and the next step is to actually look at properties. For full advice on dealing with estate agents, private landlords and signing tenancy agreements, please visit our Living in London page.

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