Study finds majority of UK movers want to leave town

Research by removal company, Getamover, suggests that two thirds of UK citizens who want to move are looking to leave their cities.

The London Assembly Housing Committee previously revealed that almost half of Londoners who wanted to move were looking to move out of the city, but this new study suggests that the national average is much higher.

The study analysed over 300,000 moving requests from the UK, and found that Londoners on the move are much less likely to want to leave the city compared to other cities.

Allison Willis, data analyst at Getamover, said: ‘When the London data was first released by the Assembly, it was considered to be a sign of a potential upcoming exodus. However, the findings were only based on 450 survey responses, and we wanted to see how this correlated to other UK cities.

‘As we present in our findings, we were surprised to see that Londoners are some of the least likely citizens to actually leave town. People from other cities – such as Edinburgh or Plymouth – are much more likely to move elsewhere.

‘While Covid-19 has drastically impacted the way we live, we didn’t see a big change in the number of people wanting to move out of the cities. Salaries in the big cities (and London especially) are higher when compared to the rest of the UK. And even though housing prices continue to trend upwards, it can be argued that the cost of living vs salary still benefits the city life. This can explain why people are less likely to move away from the big cities, where job markets are the most active.’

The study found that residents of London, Birmingham and Manchester were least likely to want to leave town, while people in Edinburgh, Leeds and Plymouth were most likely to want to move elsewhere.

People living in Plymouth tended to move the furthest distance from their existing home, compared to Wakefield where people stayed the closest to home and moved into the biggest houses of any UK citizen.

The researchers concluded that there were no real lasting impacts of the pandemic on the moving behaviour of UK citizens in general, but Londoners have been looking to move significantly further away from the city than before Covid-19.

In related news, stats show an increase in housebuilding despite the pandemic. 

Photo by João Barbosa