Following the UK’s decision to exit the European Union, more people than ever are wondering if the grass is a little greener elsewhere in Europe, or perhaps even further afield. A surge in applications for Irish and other EU passports suggests many Britons are keen to carry on enjoying unfettered access to work opportunities within Europe.
With so many varied and interesting countries to choose from, deciding where to pack up and move to can be hard. Thanks to open data on what it is like to live in different cities, some of the guesswork has already been done. After combining a range of publicly available datasets, for example, it turns out the UK rates as pretty average when it comes to good work-life balance and the amount of money a typical worker loses as a result of traffic congestion. It will come as no surprise to discover that compared with the rest of the world, London is one of the most expensive places to study.
These insights are made possible by analytics companies combining datasets and adding a human element to typically economic figures. Through this they can gain insight into what it is actually like to work in different cities.
For budding tech leaders, a useful case study comes from Bobbi Brant, a researcher at ExpertMarket.com. She decided to see if the assumption that Silicon Valley is the only tech hub to head for stands up to scrutiny. She combined each major tech hub’s reputation for launching startups, the level of finance raised, salary levels and time taken to launch a company, information available from startup researchers Compass and The World Bank’s open data service. She then cross-referenced lifestyle data from living index Numbeo for the cost of living, rent levels, holiday entitlement and commute times. With the four economic and four personal datasets given even weighting, it was a surprise to find that San Francisco was not the number one tech hub in the world. That honour fell to Berlin.
“A lot of reports into tech hubs are based on economic data but that’s of more use to investors than young people starting out on a career,” she points out. “It’s no good looking to work in the hub with most investment if you can’t afford to live there or the work-life balance is wrong for you. So, when you add data on affordability and lifestyle, Berlin comes out top with Silicon Valley in fourth spot. London’s way down the table at 16th because of the high cost of living.”
Better balance
Similar recent studies from ExpertMarket.com have also named the city where workers can expect the best work-life balance and parents will lose the least sleep fretting about paying university fees. For each study the site’s content manager, Jessica Laporte, started with open data on average earnings from Swiss bank UBS. For the education project they were correlated with average university fees and college rankings from researchers at QS. For the work-life balance project, the amount of holiday people take was combined with average earnings figures. In both studies, France won.
“Paris is obviously the place to work and study because the French work more than a thousand hours fewer than Hong Kong, which provided the worst work-life balance,” Brant says.
“The UK is 17th out of 70 countries and so not nearly as bad as some people who feel overworked might suspect. France is also the most affordable country, where fees apply, for parents to fund their children through university, with the Scandinavian countries all in good positions just behind it.”
Stuck in traffic
Combining extra datasets gives an extra understanding around commute times, or rather the implications behind congestion. Josh Frisby, content manager at vehicle tracking company Global Positioning Specialists, combined average salaries around the world with data on commuting distance at Numbeo alongside congestion levels published by TomTom. The result was a table for the cities where workers driving to the office waste the most amount of time, in terms of wages lost to traffic jams. Mexico City was way out ahead as the worst but, surprisingly, British and American cities did not perform as badly as Frisby had expected.
“In Mexico City the average person could earn nearly 10% more if they weren’t stuck in traffic jams,” says Frisby. “We were really surprised that Los Angeles and New York only came out 19th and 26th respectively and that London is only the 16th worst city for the cost of traffic jams. It was also surprising to see that Manchester was just behind the capital in 20th place, meaning people lose more money in Manchester driving to work in heavy traffic than they do in cities you would presume would be much worse, such as New York, San Francisco, Paris and Singapore.”
Apac cost of living
Anyone considering moving further afield, as far as Australia or the wider Asia Pacific area, might want to check out a new, free online service which compares the cost of living in eight of the region’s major cities.
The comparison website has been launched by data analyst company Qlik. Senior solution architect Stephen Street explains the service uses a combination of data services, such as Numbeo and PropertyGuru to enable a like-for-like comparison between the region’s top business destinations.
“We want the service to be truly useful to anyone comparing Apac cities,” Street says. “So we have a general, average comparison, where Tokyo is the most expensive city and Mumbai is far and away the cheapest. However, we also allow people to tailor the data to their lifestyle. You can compare the cost of living for someone who likes to eat out and drink, or perhaps buy designer clothes. Then Singapore and Sydney become more expensive to live in than Tokyo. As you change the settings the table changes so you can match your lifestyle to the city that appeals the most.”
Before the era of open data, comparing what it is like to live and work in different cities was largely a case of testimonials from locals and expats. However, now, anyone wondering if they could have a better standard of living abroad can find out online from a combination of data sources. Ironically, the open data projects may well persuade many that the UK is not such a bad place after all.
However, for those who are determined to have it all – low-cost education, low congestion and a good work-life balance – it may well be time to dust off the French phrasebook and head for the Eurostar.
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