Victoria Watson and her husband, James, have lived in East Sussex for much of their lives — it’s where they went to school and their support network is there. Yet high living costs and the large mortgage on their flat in Lewes, where they live with their two young children, mean they can’t afford to go on living in the southern county. So they are moving north.
“We have some wonderful friends locally but just feel our quality of life will be far better up north,” says Watson, who runs a PR company; James is a firefighter, having left his job as a commercial airline pilot during the pandemic.
“Firefighters are, sadly, not paid very well and James has applied for another pilot role — we are waiting to see whether he will be based in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool or Leeds,” adds Watson, 33. Once their destination is decided, the couple hope to find a larger home at a lower price.
The average home in southern England now costs £474,600, just over double (104 per cent) the price of a typical property in the Midlands and north, according to Hamptons estate agency. And Watson and her family are not the only ones moving as a result.
Analysis of Experian home mover data by Savills estate agency shows that, across the Midlands and north of England, 8 per cent of moves are by those coming from London and the south — up slightly from 6.9 per cent before the pandemic. In some areas, though, that figure is more than 20 per cent.
“The highest proportion can be seen in the East and West Midlands, given their proximity,” says Frances McDonald, director of residential research at Savills. The Experian figures, which are more up to date than official migration data, also indicate the fallout from higher housing costs since mortgage rates began rising in the wake of the “mini” Budget in September 2022.
Estate agents in the north and north-west of England and the Midlands are agreeing more sales than those in southern regions, while demand from tenants is also higher in the north, according to the latest survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Mortgage searches for purchases in a group of six northern cities — Leeds, Bradford, Newcastle, Liverpool Manchester and Sheffield — were 67 per cent higher in April than in the same month last year, according to the mortgage technology provider Twenty7tec.
This raises the question: what impact could this migration north have on local economies? The Tories’ attempts at levelling up have fallen flat — a report published in March by the Public Accounts Committee found the government had been unable to provide any compelling examples of what the scheme had delivered so far and only 10 per cent of the funds provided had been spent.
Could the combination of high house prices in the south, increased mortgage rates and hybrid working help to boost parts of the north where the Conservatives failed?
Neal Hudson, residential analyst and founder of BuiltPlace, says there is “definitely a shift from the south to the north when the south looks more expensive”, pointing out that net migration from the south of England to the north turned positive in the period leading up to the financial crisis as the north was more affordable.
Property prices are now rising faster in northern areas. Across northern England and the Midlands, values increased 1.7 per cent in the year to March, compared with a fall of 0.3 per cent for the south, according to Nationwide; over the past five years, average prices in the north are up 27 per cent, while those in the south have risen by 18 per cent.
However, homeowners’ money still goes further in the north. “While all regions have seen an increase in mortgage costs due to higher interest rates, payments relative to take-home pay remain closer to their long-run averages in northern England,” says Andrew Harvey, Nationwide’s senior economist.
More people with London salaries and the flexibility to work partly from home are seeking help from Garrington Property Finders to relocate north. “Week after week, we’re seeing increasing numbers of southern sellers become northern buyers — their budget will buy them a house of a size that would be unthinkable in the south,” says Jonathan Hopper, chief executive of Garrington.
In Rutland, in the East Midlands, one in four movers are coming from London and the south, Savills says; in South Kesteven in Lincolnshire, which includes the market town of Stamford, it’s one in five. As well as good schools and links to both Cambridge and London, in this area “many houses have the same ironstone architecture as the Cotswolds but it’s an easier commute, with more affordable houses”, says James Abbott, head of Savills’ Stamford office.
Knight Frank estate agency says increasing numbers of higher earners are moving from London to Birmingham, citing Experian data suggesting the number of such movers earning more than £70,000 a year increased 26 per cent in 2022 compared with the year before. Further north, York has seen “a steady rise in the northern migration of well-to-do buyers”, according to Edward Hartshorne, managing director of Blenkin & Co estate agency.
Some parents are even moving to free up money for private education for their children — a reason that could become more common given Labour’s pledge to introduce VAT on school fees.
Jack de Wet and his wife, Laura, who have five-year-old twin daughters, are selling their house in Islington, north London, to buy a Victorian townhouse in York, close to where Laura grew up.
“A three-bedroom house in the school catchment area in London is almost unaffordable — it means we would essentially be held captive by our mortgage,” says De Wet, 43, vice-president of development at Time Out Market. “We have lived in Islington for 15 years and have loved it but moving to York opens up more choices. As well as having a wonderful house for significantly less money, we will have more disposable income and have been able to get our children into a fee-paying school.”
Factors such as a good community, a more relaxed pace of life and access to green space are also crucial.
Christine Morgan moved with her family from Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, to West Kirby, a coastal town on the Wirral, Merseyside. “An ex-council house in Beaconsfield was £1mn-plus and that could buy a footballer’s place on the Wirral, but it wasn’t just about a bigger house,” says Morgan, head of communications at mortgage lender Together Money. “We have good schools, feel we can allow our children more independence and are surrounded by nature. Last week I did yoga on the beach as the sun set.”
Despite an increase in relocators, the north still has plenty of catching up to do. The top 50 neighbourhoods in England and Wales with the highest average household incomes are all in London, while all but four of the 50 poorest areas are in cities in the north and the East Midlands, according to analysis of Office for National Statistics data by the Centre for Cities think-tank.
And, while there are infrastructure improvements and success stories such as the regeneration of Salford Quays in Greater Manchester, there are disappointments too. Last year, the government axed the northern leg of HS2, meaning passengers will only able to go between London and Birmingham on the high-speed rail, rather than all the way to Manchester. Also, after in effect declaring itself bankrupt, Birmingham city council is raising council tax by 21 per cent over the next two years and saving money by dimming street lights.
London continues to exert a powerful pull, says Paul Swinney, director of research and policy at Centre for Cities. After the pandemic, he says, some expected remote working opportunities in more affordable locations to improve living standards in those areas, “but having high-skilled private sector jobs based in the area itself is still important”, he says. “Manchester, Birmingham and other cities all underperform London in this respect.” Career progression has an impact on movers’ willingness to sever their ties with the capital, with some keeping a flat in the city for days when they’re office-based.
Keeping that London connection also means there’s less risk of Fomo, or fear of missing out, to which some of them admit. “I miss the buzz, the gigs and the huge choice of restaurants,” says Dan, a lawyer who relocated from east London to a northern town last year and didn’t want to reveal his real name. “I took a significant pay cut to work for a regional firm and that was a hard decision but I felt I could have a better work-life balance, be less burnt out and see more of my children. I’ll never be able to get back on the London housing ladder but we now have a big house and a large garden — something we’d never have had where we were.”
So, while moves to the north can enhance the lives of those who make them, do they do anything to level up their new hometown? Hudson questions how much economic activity movers are generating in the north if they are living there and working remotely or elsewhere.
“What is needed is to drive better outcomes for people who are living and working there, with more jobs and higher wages,” he says. “If anything, people moving from the south can make it more difficult for locals to buy.”
Also, as Anthony Champion, emeritus professor of population geography at Newcastle University’s Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies, points out, remote working is much more prevalent among those in professional and managerial jobs.
“The consensus is that, if they are moving further from their employers, they will only go far enough to get somewhat less expensive housing and will want to be within commuting range of their official workplace,” he says. “This looks like accentuating rather than reducing the north/south divide, especially for the former’s ‘left behind areas’ like the old mining and industrial areas, although perhaps less so their main cities.”
As for levelling up, northern moves could simply be making the country even more uneven. Yet for Victoria Watson and her family, relocating can’t come soon enough. “We have mixed emotions because East Sussex is very much our home, but we just cannot afford to go on like this any more.”
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A caption was amended after first publication to correct Stamford’s county to Lincolnshire
