‘I HAVE A SIX-HOUR COMMUTE BUT IT’S WORTH IT’
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When Paul MacKenzie-Cummins lived in Bath, he had an easy 14-minute commute to work.
But when his wife, Sarah, was offered a new job as a housemistress for a boarding school in south Berkshire, he knew his life would change. While Sarah would have a seven-second commute, his would become a 140-mile –four-hour – round trip.
“Whether to take the job or not was never an option,” says Paul, 51, who runs a PR business called Clearly. “We were just going to have to work out the logistics of the commute. I was in the office five days a week.”
In the year to June 2023, cities including London, Manchester, Birmingham and Nottingham saw more people leaving than arriving, according to the Office for National Statistics, while rural areas such as Cornwall, Yorkshire, Cheshire and Somerset recorded the highest internal migration.
This trend has been fuelled by the rise of remote working, the increasing cost of living and employees prioritising quality of life above career advancement.
As a result, the number of “supercommuters”, with journeys of over 90 minutes, has almost doubled since the pandemic, new research from Trainline has found. This is likely to rise as more companies are ordering their employees to work more days in the office.
But those who have chosen to relocate in search of greater affordability, or have been priced out of UK cities, can face professional trade-offs: an expensive, time-consuming commute, missing out on networking events and having fewer opportunities for career progression.
For some that compromise is worthwhile, but there is always a balance to be struck – one that many movers are still fine-tuning years down the line.
‘I was doing 17-hour days, it was draining’
For Paul, the main compromise was the commute, which he made five days a week until the pandemic. After that he reduced all employees’ office time to two days a week. On these days, Paul is out of the house from 6am to 8.30pm. The commute is both long (up to three hours one way if he gets caught in traffic) and costly (£90 a week).
“I worried that I was going to be exhausted by the time I got into the office. When I started doing the commute, I absolutely was,” says Paul. Commuting made networking and attending events more difficult too. “You’re looking at 16 or 17-hour days. It’s mentally and physically draining.”
There were big advantages to relocating: they moved from a one-bedroom flat to a four-bedroom house with 15-foot-high ceilings and extensive grounds. Their housing was paid for, saving thousands each month. Sarah’s new role brought a “significant increase” in salary and professional credibility, while the work itself has been rewarding.
But for Paul, it has been difficult to strike a balance. Since the couple’s daughter was born in 2022, he has had to get used to saying no. At work, for example, this means missing out on events and delegating work to senior team members who can attend in his place. “It’s not the same as me going, but it’s the only solution that we’ve managed to find.”
At home, there are also compromises: if he takes his daughter to nursery, he won’t see her before she goes to bed. On some long days it is impossible to see her at all. Paul still gets up every day at 5am, which he says helps to set him up for the day – even if it does sometimes mean taking a nap at Membury service station on the way home.
“I’ve learnt to be ruthless with my time because I don’t have as much of it as I once did,” he says. “It’s not perfect, and I don’t think it will ever be perfect. But it’s about as close as I can get to it at the moment.”
‘I commute for 24 hours a week’
Laura Price found the same when she moved from Windsor to Poole. When she accepted a new role in central London, she took on a mammoth six-hour round-trip commute four days a week. She now commutes from Poole to Soho three times a week.
“I was fully aware that I was in for at least 24 hours of commuting every week, and it was a hard decision,” says Laura. “The outlay for an annual season ticket was painful, but knowing I’d be pretty absent from my kids from Monday to Thursday was worse. However, once I’d made the decision to take the job, the only choice was to focus on the positives.”
For Laura, the lower cost of living and improved quality of life meant that her family could live off her salary alone. It allowed her husband to give up work, saving the couple on childcare costs that they had needed when they were both working full time. It also gave Laura “the freedom to run at my career in a way I genuinely don’t believe I would have done if we’d stayed near London”.
Although Laura has come to savour the “me-time” her commute grants her, there are huge drawbacks. Train travel costs £8,500 a year, and leaves her at the mercy of South Western Railway. Delays can stretch the three-hour journey time further, or interfere with her onward connections.
Recently, Laura’s train home was so delayed that she had to book a last-minute hotel in London, buying a dress at the station to wear the next day. “It’s doable, but I can never get into the habit. Our finances just won’t stretch to that being a regular thing.”
She adds: “I won’t pretend it’s always been smooth sailing – I have a daily inner monologue about whether I’m doing ‘the right thing’ and permanent guilt management about my absence from family life: the missed parents’ evenings, assemblies and sports matches.
“But overall, I stand by the decision to move. [My husband] has had moments with the kids that very few fathers get to experience. My children grow up with salty hair and sandy feet, and I hope without prejudice or preconceived ideas about the roles they should play when they become adults.
“And when the weather plays ball, I can grab my paddle board and go for an early morning paddle around Poole Harbour on work-from-home days. That makes it all worthwhile.”
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‘I wouldn’t look back’
For Laura and Paul, who both moved before the pandemic, and the advent of remote working, the commute was an inevitability. But when the bank where James Bonsor worked switched to three days in the office in 2022, he took the opportunity to leave London for Northamptonshire. “Suddenly, moving out of town was a possibility.”
For the price of their terraced house in north-west London, James and his young family could buy a larger four-bedroom property, giving them more space, access to good schools – and allowing James to be closer to his parents.
James, 41, made the two-hour commute, arriving in the Mayfair office for 6.30am and staying with a friend in London one night a week. Last year he got a new job at a company whose office is ironically five minutes from his old house. He commutes three or four times a week to the office now.
James, Laura and Paul have all found ways of maximising their commutes: using them to take calls, work, do personal admin, or listen to podcasts. And in spite of the time spent travelling and the difficulties in juggling family life, all three feel that the move has ultimately been beneficial.
For James, relocating has been good for his family, giving his children access to more outdoor space, and allowing him to spend more time with his father before he died last year. “[The commute] is one of the major negatives, but the positives outweigh them,” says James. “I wouldn’t look back. It’s worked out better than we could have hoped for.”
‘I’m concerned that job progression is slower’
It was the pandemic that encouraged Robyn Pound-Woods, 29, to leave London for Wadebridge, Cornwall, in 2023. With a background in fashion marketing, she had been working for a digital marketing agency and had a busy social life, regularly networking and attending events to build her career.
“I was going at a million miles an hour when I first moved to London, and was probably on the road to burnout. Then Covid happened and I slowed down. I enjoyed it.”
The city began to open back up but Robyn found that London had lost its appeal. When she told people she was thinking of leaving to live by the sea, not everyone understood.
“There were some people who were like: ‘why would you want to do that?’ Or who probably thought there wasn’t as much opportunity,” she says. “I’ve always taken the attitude to give something a try. If it doesn’t work, I could always go back to London. But it was worth taking a punt on Cornwall.”
Robyn took her time to find a job before moving, eventually starting as marketing manager for two Cornish hotels, which she continues to do alongside freelance content creation. Events are still centred around London and Manchester, says Robyn, but she has also found a rewarding creative community in Cornwall.
“The only thing I was concerned about – and I guess still am – is because there aren’t as many jobs in Cornwall, the progression is slower. I had to think: is that job and the salary enough for quite a while?”
For Robyn, the answer was yes. Moving out of London has allowed her to buy a two-bedroom flat in Newquay. “I felt quite unsettled in London because I knew I didn’t want to settle down there – and most people can’t afford to do that anyway – so I never knew where I was going to end up,” she says. “I’m very happy… I’ve got a nice community down here. I’ve found the things I was lacking in London.”
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2025-01-16T16:02:15Z
