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Why do Brits spend so long commuting each day? People traveling for more than 2 hours has gone up 72% in a decade

are you one of those?

who has the longest commute on here...?

20 mins on a bad day here.   In the past I've travelled to Birmingham and Hayes for long commutes, can't say I miss it.

Assume that is there and back?

I do an hour each way.  I work in central london but I'd rather by out of the city at weekends so I think it's worth it.

My commute is just under 2 hours each way: work in central London, live in Leicestershire. Always get a seat on the train in both directions and can get a solid hour of work done. Also manage to work from home 1 or 2 days a week which helps.

Most of my team live in outer London - still takes them over an hour to get to work. I'm happy to trade that extra hour for the benefits to me and my family of living in the sticks.

Leave home around 6am and get home between 8.30pm and 10.30pm depending on workload. There are a couple of hundred regulars doing exactly the same thing from my local station.

My total commute takes an hour with traffic and probably 30 mins no traffic and that annoys me. Not sure how you guys who commute for longer do it!

20 steps from bed to laptop. Roughly 8 seconds.  Never timed it. Just getting up now will set the stop watch and report back.

I went racing twice last week during midweek for the first time in a long time and hitting the rush hour traffic getting home with the clocks going back seems just awful every day no matter where you are.  Fair play to anyone doing 1hour + commutes.  I couldn't do it every day.  Would have to move closer to work.

As for why it happens successive governments from both side of the fence have been anal about keeping house prices artifically high with virtually every economic policy they have introduced to keep winning over the crucial middle england voters which win or lose the elections.  This obviously forces more and more people into longer commutes when they have to work in London and the South East.

The longest commute i know anyone does is from Stafford to Harrow (via Euston).  He used to work for 365 and has moved to lolbrokes for a semi senior management role.  His first class ticket from Stafford to Euston is decent five figures a year (so he has to earn circa £25-30k before tax just to pay for this before parking at station and tube from Euston to Harrow).  I think he is bonkers. 

Those doing commutes; do you take the commute time in to account when working out your hourly rate?

If you're doing 1 hour a day commute + an 8 hour day would you consider a pay cut for a 5 minute commute and an 8 hour day?

Conversely would you consider a job for more money if it meant an even longer commute?

We have a guy at our place who does about 90 minutes each way from Cambridge to Nottingham. Don't know how he does it but apparently you just get used to it and it becomes the norm.

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1hr 8mins in, 1hr on the nose back. Usual caveats about the trains apply...

The thing with London commuting is that the housing market is just so very efficiently priced. There are no 'secrets' out there price/time wise.

Ultimately you have to make a really complex call on what will make you the happiest. The complexity is that this is different for different individuals, all of whom have their own internal order of....

- Commute time
- Commute comfort/crowding
- Facilities on commute
- Willingness for 'changes'
- Cost of commute
- Space at home
- Facilities near home
- Routes away from home to elsewhere
- Forecast appreciation in house prices in area
Etc.

The list is surely almost endless.

When buying I took what I thought was the 'perfect' decision, though naturally others may think I'm a mentalist.

I have a 6min cycle, trains every quarter hour and take 25-34mins, last train 0009, 3mim walk in town.

Doing this, as opposed to living in say Earlsfield (SW London) means for the same money as a two bed flat needing work I got a brand new three bed semi-detached. Incremental time cost is probably 20-25mins a day, which I see as being more than compensated by commute comfort and nicer home.

Horses for courses!!

Good point - it's not just about time.  I'd rather have an hour commute and always get a seat, than be crushed in like a sardine for 30 mins.

Schools for kids in affordable areas must be a big factor for older commuters than Ed.  Ed's list is pretty good summary of the balance.  When you add kids/schools into it certain people will literally commute their life away to get their kids into good schools even if it means they never see them 75% of the week.

Good question. If the role had the same long term opportunities then yes, I'd definitely consider taking a pay cut. However the reality is that in my industry it's not going to happen - the differential between London and anywhere else is too just too big.

Not sure I could physically manage a longer commute, getting enough sleep is the limiting factor. Again, depending on the opportunity I would consider getting a flat for Monday to Fridays.

Right now, nearly 3 hours Sunday night, 4 hour coming back sometimes.  My expenses are probably over 20% of my fees.  Doing 4 hours each way in a day is pretty damn grim though.  These journey times would be longer on a train.  Tend to stay in hotels a lot.  My brother used to do way more miles than me, not sure how he did it.

Sometimes I work in London and it is easier, though rarely without pain.  I did work in Sydney for a while.  Don't know how you'd classify that.  Obviously the commute wasn't daily.

Sometimes wish I picked something less specialised.  

Many years ago I commuted from Carlisle to Newcastle on the train, about an hour plus walking to and from the train station, but used to read or sleep (do remember waking up on a completely empty train in Newcastle as every had left me sleeping!). Then there was a train strike so had to get the bus!!!. It stopped at every village on the way and I spent more time travelling than I did at work, on the plus side was cheap.

And the fact that moving with kids is a huge gamble. Once they're settled and doing well I'll happily suck it up to ensure they're not impacted.

We did think about moving recently as our youngest has started A levels - saving £xxxx per annum on commuting costs looks attractive until we realised it would take several years to offset the sunk cost of moving - stamp duty, fees etc.

I would guess expensive commutes are one of the reasons that personal service companies are popular.

I either work in central Milton Keynes (living in a surrounding town) which takes me ~25mins OR central London (Farringdon) which takes me ~90mins. If working in MK I am struck by heavy traffic which is just a huge annoyance and when in London a fairly nice easy commute.

So I would say once taking all factors into consideration; they are both as bad as each other and I don't mind which one I do.

The school (fees) point is hugely significant.

Fees alone for two children (day school only) will run you £25k. By the time that is from taxed income, even if 40% payer then you're in for £43k gross earnings on fees.

Hence the catchment area merry go round goes completely ballistic.

I would disagree with an earlier point on thread though re: current government policy sustaining house prices - if you look at tax changes to non-does (now CGT-able) and the coming changes on mortgage interest offset (will hit buy to let investors hard) I genuinely feel there's been a realisation that a slight cooling of the market is desirable.

When I work in Manchester (I live in Sheffield), I always take in the commute and sometimes hotels costs. It's an hour each way and if I am not "around" Manchester, I would ask for inbetween £4-8ph.

I was in Madrid a few weeks ago, working in Madrid for a nightclub. First time in Europe & they couldn't grasp the travel and extra cost. I put into that an extra few hundred pound.

I don't think I could do a commute for long though unless I am on £30k+ year.

A relevant example for us all, is Raf White, a well known poker player. He is Sheffield's Genting deputy general manager. He does the commute from Manchester-Sheffield 5 days a week. I do believe he is on £50k+.

Although for some people surely an hour on the train to work there and back is potentially an hour working anyway?

I lived in Twickenham and commuted to Farringdon for about 18 months.

Train was 35 mins, walk to station was about 5 mins. Rather than get the tube at the other end I would walk from Waterloo - took me about 25 mins. Whole thing was just over an hour. So two hours a day. Minimum. In reality when adding in waiting for trains either end and some delays was normally 2.30 - 3.00 hours a day.

Flats in Twickenham start at 500k. If you live any closer it's much more expensive and actually a worse commute as you have to stand the entire way.

About a year and a bit ago we moved to Cheshire. I commuted four days a week. 1hr 40 on the train. Probably 2.30h each way door to desk. I really enjoyed my job, but that commute was just a killer. Maybe if I was younger I could have coped but the total absence of any time to myself during the week really got to me.

I would say the Twickenham commute never really bothered me. Occasionally it was a pain, but for London I would say that's getting towards a typical commuting time for most.

Personally:

50k a year for a 5 minute commute > 75k a year for 2 hours each way on the tube.

Or maybe im just too young to appreciate the increased salary at the moment, but right now it wouldnt be worth it to me.

If it's 4 hours each day on tube for a 45 week working year that's 900 hours on the tube.  So you'd be turning down about £28 an hour before tax to sit on the tube (assuming working day is the same between the 2 jobs).

Doesn't even come close to being worth it.

Should really be looked at as double time as it's massively detrimental to your personal life and mental wellbeing.

I'm not young and I couldn't agree with him more. In fact I'd change them to 30k and 50k and still agree.

£15.40 after tax though because you're well and truly in to that 40% band.

Even as a single bloke with no kids my time is worth far more than that. If I was a family man it wouldn't get a second thought.

This.  Plus you have to deduct the cost of the 2 hour train/tube fare from the hourly after tax.  Pretty hard to be on a tube for 2 hours so a train fare would be included on top of the tube fare.  Pretty sure after that is deducted in most cases you will be earning nothing and/or paying to sit on the train/tube 4 hours a day as well as losing 20 hours of your week before/after work.

If i was still an accountant (prior moving to the betting industry) i often think i could commute door to door in 2 hours each way from where i live now to my old firms HQ right outside Euston station (stafford to euston direct on virgin trains).  This would cost me £15k a year after tax to do for the season ticket.  I wouldn't do it if you paid me another £50k a year to what i earn now even if the train fare was included for free (which it isn't).  The thought of leaving home at 6am every morning and getting home at 8.30pm every night isn't worth it imo.  I would just rather be worse off and go without material things i don't really need.

I used to drive home 2/3 times a week when I was based in Pompey, and that was alright for a bit.

Wouldn't fancy doing it every night of the week though, as getting up at 6am to drive back in the mornings was never much fun.

That's only Dorchester-Portsmouth, too. In the end, I sacked it off, and just came home weekends.

When I got moved to Chicksands, I didn't even bother with every weekend.

Thing is though, with the cost of living rise in London and the increasing number of jobs that are in the capital compared to elsewhere it's not really an option for a lot of people. If you want to live in anything other than a tiny rented flat (or for some people just to afford that) you have to live a long long way out of town.

20-25 mins for me. 30-40 if traffic is bad, though I work shifts so not in bad traffic usually. Even that amount of time annoys me if traffic is bad. Fk doing a daily commute to London. Bad enough coming up for sporting events.

Not enough people really count the cost of travel time in terms of their wages imo

It's the same situation as would you take a job involving 4 hours extra work a day for £25k extra.  It's not double time - mentally shut down and read a book. 

Arb boy makes a good point though that you have to offset the extra (often outrageous) train fare.

Perhaps - but you're effectively saying it's not worth your time working for £28 per hour.  Given minimum wage is £7 or whatever it is, that's quite a statement.  Most people work for way less.

Getting to be a regular occurance now, probably 3 days a week I do 4+ hours a day travelling, fucking knackering, not sure I can keep it up in the long run to be honest.

I'm speaking from personal experience here. I'm telling you for a fact I would make that decision.

edit: Not saying that's the right decision for everyone obv.

That works out at £58k a year based on a 40hr working week. So less than the hypothetical 75k a year job you're supposed to be commuting to :)

Showed my calcs earlier.  If the 50k job and 75k are identical except for the commute of 4 hours each day, then I assumed a 45 weeks of work (might be a bit generous with the 6 weeks hols plus bank holidays so let's make it a 47 week working year).  So 47 x 4 x 5 hours is what we have to put in for our 25k.  So that's now £26.60 an hour.

And that's fine.  You value your time at more than the £26/£28 an hour.  So do I.  But some (many?) people wouldn't.

Of course the extra cost of the train likely blows the argument away anyway.  Tax on the £26 per hour then pay an extra £3k per year for the travelling and it's not so appealing.  It's probably £1k net in your bank per month you are giving up for extra 4 hours per day. 

No I'm not. I'd happily work a 40 hour week for significantly less than £28/hr. I'd maybe go as low as £13 or so at a push as I could live on that.

Offer me twice as much per hour for twice as many hours though and I'd turn you down flat.

There's a balance somewhere and everybody has their own dependant on what they want or need.

I've always had a notional limit in mind of about an hour each way as the max I'd ever do. I've never been one for working a massive excess of hours for perception's sake - not for 25 years or so anyway, so this means in most circs I can be home by around 6 and if I really want to do some more work I'd rather do a bit from home.

Having worked in and around London for the bulk of my working life an hour doesn't mean very far necessarily if travelling by car. Had a spell of driving 4 hrs a day for a short while (perhaps a year and a half) and it ruined me - plus had an RX8 (mid life crisis) and the farkin petrol bill was rather high :-)

Business recently moved to Elstree and living in 'emel it's 20 mins at the right time and around 40 with traffic. Closest i've ever lived to work other than 4 years working at home and it's hard to describe what a benefit it feels. There is literally, yep, literally, no amount of money that would make me exceed the 45 mins to an hour ever again as a regular daily thing.

Got you. Missed that. Apologies.

Very much this. Agree with almost every word.

In running a calc on earnings ALONE vs. Commute time however you are ignoring the (admittedly less tangible) benefits working in such a job may deliver moving forward.

I completely get that people have a £x amount they are unhappy travelling for, but if you work in a set up where your earnings can increase considerably over time then turning down the commute day one can shift from being a rational, to an irrational, decision as you never realise the increased earnings.

On a similar note my old man explains very well the true 'cost' of playing poker in one's younger years. Naturally it can still be the right decision for some, but we both feel the variable people incorrectly calculate is not earnings now (let's say a poker pro can make £50k pa with minimal expenses Vs £25k pa with commute/time constraints etc, "it's a no brainier".) but rather over time as one fights to increase earnings in a shrinking, increasingly competitive marketplace Vs. being on a career 'track' that has natural increases over time.

This is an understandable point at your age, at mine it's less relevant  - it's genuinely hard for me to conceive how an extra amount of money either in a lump sum or on a continuing basis would make me feel more content/happy etc

Currently travel to Derby (51 miles) 2 days/week and Hucknall (70 miles) 2 days/week, Derby takes 1hr 20 on a good day. Hucknall 1hr 45.
Previous;
2 years Rotherham 4 days/week (91 miles) 2hrs on a good day 3 million hrs on a bad one.
1 1/2 years Bristol 4 days/week (85 miles) 1hr 30 average

I usually aim to be on site 8am and finish whenever I can.

Luckily I charge 45p/mile for 10k miles and 25 p/mile the rest + I charge per hour as soon as I leave my front door and return

I got a couple of mates who do 25 hours a week travelling but that is part of their travelling salesman jobs.  Assume your travelling is the same (ie built into your 40 hour week).  You don't do 8 hours a day plus an hour for lunch with 4 hours travelling on top of that 4 days a week surely woodsey?  You seem to be on holiday on the other side of the globe half the year to me!!!!  ;D

I'm up the greasy pole these days, as a sales person I rarely got near 40 hours a week including travelling lol. I'm now a national sales manager for a sales team across the UK and am probably out with the guys 2-3 days a week plus other meetings I have to travel to. Only been doing it about a year, resisted it till now but finally thought I'd step up. Dont mind admitting I'm finding it really hard, the travellling is really hard even though I'm used to travelling and use the train a fair bit. The jury is out at the moment about this newish job with all the extra travelling, but I'm currently leaning towards its not worth the extra money. Maybe if I can do it for 5-10 years to get some extra money in the pension then step back down, dunno we'll see. I'm a sales guy at heart and love the day to day interation with customers and hearing about the difference some of our medicines make to peoples lives and the challenge of getting docs bought into new ones, I lose some of that in my current job.

My neuro has had a mare trying to sort me out, so pop us some Sativex in the post if you could please, Woodsey ;D

Sorry mate, even nothing remotely up your street.  :(

Current situation is a nice 40 minute drive each way to a flexitime job, at my desk by 7:30, hit the road back at 4pm, cook for the family every night and knock off at 1pm on a Friday. But bored shitless and no pay review in sight.

Considering a job in London that would be approx 90 mins each way on train/tube, leave the house about the same time, but unlikely to be home much before 7pm. But it's £20k-£25k more a year Plus other benefits, good career move, more challenging and interesting job.

weighing up the pros/cons of the lifestyle change compared to the long term rewards. Couldn't afford the up front cost of an annual season ticket, so would be stuck paying over the odds for monthly or quarterly tickets, which would reduce the financial benefits, but I'd still be up.

With a bit of planning monthly train season tickets can work out cheaper than an annual. A monthly doesn't have to be for 30/31 days, you can buy them for any length you like so make sure one expires just before Easter/summer hols/Christmas and then you're not paying for one when you don't need it.

Haha, nevermind... I'll keep harassing my neuro then :D

Thanks, I did wonder about that. Likelihood would be first 3-6 months would be in the office, but would try and introduce some working from home after that, so annual would make less sense I guess.