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Cindy Yu
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Dan Lowe
from
Luke Jones
the Times and the Sunday Times this is the story. I'm Luke Jones.
Dan Lowe
As soon as you get off the plane you know you're in Britain because everyone's a little bit grumpy, everyone's moody, everyone's telling you what to do. You get into an altercation in your car and they're throwing the middle finger up at you.
Luke Jones
Ah, that famous British sunny disposition. This is Dan. He's a physiotherapist and content creator and had had enough of home.
Dan Lowe
So I qualified as a physiotherapist about four years ago, got thrown into the nhs, did my rotations, did a little bit of private work, lived with mum and dad, brother who's my best mate. Everything on paper looked great but something wasn't quite right. I tried a bunch of things to be honest. Tried starting my own business, my own physiotherapy practice. It was good for a while but it didn't fix the problem. I then went traveling so me and my now fiance at the end of that trip it was like something changed, like something flipped in our brains and we realized that there was more to the world, there was more to life, there was more to explore. It made me think maybe I'm in the wrong place.
Luke Jones
He moved to the Gold coast in Australia last year and is part of an outward trend. There's been a five fold increase in 25 to 34 year old British nationals leaving the UK since 2022. Where are going? Why are they going? Are they gone forever? And what is the problem with the UK anyway? The story today, why young high Achieving Brits are leaving the uk. When I spoke to Dan, he was still very down on life in the uk.
Dan Lowe
So I guess at the time it was just the fact that I'd always be waiting for weekend and I'd never be enjoying like the weekdays and I'd always be chasing something that was in the future and not living for now. And I think that was largely because I just didn't make enough money as a physio. I was trying to save for a house, I was trying to do things on weekends, but it was always wet, it was always cold and we couldn't go out and spend money because it was too expensive to do it. I was probably working 60 hour weeks just to be able to afford to save for a house and do all the usual life stuff that everyone does. But I think it's also the culture. But I don't think the culture is the problem, I think the culture is the symptom. And I'll be honest, I'm a little bit ignorant to politics, but I think the economy in the UK right now is causing people to be a little bit negative and maybe not live the life that they want.
Luke Jones
Sorry to drill into the numbers, like what would you have earned on the NHS and what are you earning now in Australia?
Dan Lowe
So at the time I was, I just got into pediatrics, so it was quite a specialized role. As a physio. I was getting paid about £30,000 a year minus tax. I moved to Australia and immediately that increased to somewhere in the realm of 60 to 65,000 for the same experience, the same person doing the same job and over double the salary, plus pension. They pay pension on top of your salary.
Luke Jones
The thing that would hold me back though, from it, as lovely as Australia sounds, is missing out on British culture, which I don't necessarily just mean sort of what's on iplayer, but the conversation, the discourse, that sort of shared cultural history and community. Do you miss out on that?
Dan Lowe
I'd be lying if I said I didn't. Every now and then I'll think about Greg's and just think, okay, no, okay.
Luke Jones
Not where my mind.
Dan Lowe
No, I know, immediately went. Yeah. Every now and then one of my mates that I went to uni with, he'll come out with a one liner that. I just think you'd only ever hear that in Britain. That's a northern British bit of banter. And yes, you do miss that.
Luke Jones
And your family must miss you as well.
Dan Lowe
Yeah, that's the hardest part because it's tough some days it's fine. And you get to chat to them over FaceTime. And some days you're just crying because you just want to give your mum a hug and you can't.
Luke Jones
Dan 28 years old and out on the Gold coast, back in sunny London, where you could almost be in the Gold Coast, I spoke to a Times colleague who has been looking at this particular migration trend.
Cindy Yu
I mostly write about China, but I'm always trying to think about other things that's on my mind or that perhaps aren't really covered in the paper by the other columnists.
Luke Jones
Cindy Yu is contributing editor and columnist at the Times.
Cindy Yu
And I just realized that actually one thing that kept coming up between me and my friends when we were getting together was, I mean, A, we would kind of talk about how rubbish things were in this country in a kind of maybe a sign of our aging, it was better in our day, but B, then we would be like, is there somewhere better we should go to? And I should catch caveat that by saying that we are university educated, mostly white collar workers now in our early 30s, so maybe got some 10 years of career time under our belt and now feeling relatively financially independent enough to be able to move should we want to, and so feeling like, well, is this really the kind of the stock that we're left with or can we actually do something more? Can we have a better life somewhere else?
Luke Jones
And this phenomenon isn't just limited to your friendship group.
Cindy Yu
No, it's not. And so when I started digging into it a bit more, I found that actually first of all, the Office for National Statistics have changed the way they deal with migration data in the last few years. It's a little bit confusing, but even with the new metrics, it's possible to see that actually the number of 25 to 34 year old British nationals that we are losing as a country, so they might have emigrated, but they're not coming back to the net loss has increased from 6,000 in 2022 to 30,000 last year. So just to reiterate that that's the number of British nationals who have left the country who have not come back, basically.
Luke Jones
And they're going where?
Cindy Yu
So again, the ONS is not very good at tracking this, but anecdotally and through various different surveys and consumer surveys, for example, it seems that they go to Australia, the UAE and the US Quite a mix.
Luke Jones
Let's get into some of those places then and why they might be attracting people. Australia, beaches and sunny weather and excellent breakfast culture aside, what's the draw? Or is that maybe that is the draw.
Cindy Yu
Yeah, it's Neighbors and Baywatch. No, I think that is very much a large part of the draw, especially for younger people who are, you know, bored off this kind of weather and didn't wait until the UK also had 40 degree heat. If only they'd waited. But I think that is definitely big part of the draw. But also it's not trivial to say the nice. The weather is good. It's about leaving the office and feeling like you can go to the beach, that you're not timed out by about 5 o' clock because it's got dark. But more material, materially for certain industries, treatment is better in Australia, let's say if you're a doctor. The average first year doctor earns about 47,000 pounds in Australia, but it would be about 38,000 pounds in the UK. And then there's other kind of peripheral stuff like treatment of doctors as well, where of course we know in the UK junior doctors haven't been happy for a long time. And then as well as the higher pay for certain industries, there's also lower income tax. So your take home pay feels like more. I think that higher pay for certain industries, lower income tax as well as just kind of Australia doing deliberate things to attract young British people having really good visa schemes. I have friends who have gone over for example and done kind of temporary worker scheme where they were picking fruit, but then that kind of develops into more of a worker scheme and they find all of that kind of generally quite welcoming.
Luke Jones
And I remember actually on the radio a while ago I was doing a thing about, I think it was New South Wales was the state and Australia like doing an active direct marketing campaign to medics in the uk pitching this. So there's all the advantages and also they're trying to make it happen. What about the uae?
Cindy Yu
Yeah, the UAE is a funny one. We always like to be quite snooty about Dubai, you know, and we got so much of that when the Iran war started and there was so much kind of press coverage of like hard these people are coming back, all those
Luke Jones
influences, unable to post on Instagram about the missiles hitting various buildings.
Cindy Yu
I'm very sympathetic towards that kind of snobbery. At the same time I also have friends who've gone to. A friend's sister has gone to Abu Dhabi. She was a teacher in the UK and she's a teacher in Abu Dhabi now at international school. And basically what that industry does is cater towards the British diaspora and the English speaking diaspora who are there now who have international schools want their kids to grow up speaking English and so they're like employing lots of real English teachers and they get paid much more famously, the UAE is a tax haven. So no income tax, inheritance tax, capital gains, blah blah, blah. And depending on where you are, property costs can also be lower and then again the greater lifestyle as well. As long as you're not slagging off the UAE government.
Luke Jones
I was going to say as long as you haven't got any complaints. And yeah, I can sort of get my head around those two. Australia and the UAE for the various reasons that you've highlighted there. The US is an interesting one, especially because when, you know, we're consuming news, it seems like the cost of living there is quite high. Yes, they play fabulous salaries, but. But also it seems quite a tense, fractious place to go to. And yet people are moving.
Cindy Yu
Yeah, I guess as an immigrant, and I should say again, check your privilege as a white collar immigrant, that kind of politics maybe doesn't impact your life that much. So I think for the us, the retraction is that the US of OECD countries is still one of the biggest countries that is growing. There was an interesting survey that came out earlier this year from the Institute of Economic affairs where they asked Brits where they thought they lay in terms of wealth and GDP per capita compared to American states. And Brits thought they were maybe the seventh most wealthy American state. But actually in reality GDP per capita shows that we are poorer than all American states. And of course GDP per capita is not the only measure of wealth and how great or feeling Americans are spending much more money on health insurance if they can afford health insurance at all, whereas we have the nhs. But I think goes to show that we don't quite have a good sense of how far American growth has outstripped the UK and Europe's in general, especially since the financial crisis. And so actually there's now a bit of a gap of about $23,000 of GDP per capita in the UK compared to the US. So it's stuff like that translates then into higher pay, you know, in journalism. Luke, if you and I were going to get this job in the US, we would be paid at least 1.5 or maybe even two times more than what we're paid now. I don't know what you're paid and I don't know if our bosses are listening to this.
Luke Jones
They should be. But also interesting that the us, the uae, Australia, very English language friendly. I guess there must be places which Economically would be worth our while moving to our age and stage, but just we don't have very, very good Japanese.
Cindy Yu
Well, yeah, no, totally. I mean, I speak Chinese, so I played around with the idea of moving to China before I got deeper and deeper into the journalism career, because that would be a bit tricky. But if I weren't doing this job and if I didn't care, freedom of speech as a matter of course, then China would be a very good place for me to go. Cost of living is really low. I mean, they actually have a deflation problem at the moment on an inflation problem. And if you are, especially if you're going to be employed by a kind of a foreign company, then your income would be much higher. So a standard for living is much greater. And I think this is the interesting part about the British experience of this, because actually Brits are famously monolingual. I think 2/3 of Brits don't speak a second language, which doesn't sound like that much. But then you compare it to Europe where like 95% of Dutch people or something. Yeah, you know, speak English for, for those kind of people, maybe they have more options.
Luke Jones
All of this, though is predicated on the assumption that the UK is dreadful and worth leaving. Can we get into that? If you think about jobs, the availability of jobs, the vibe you get is that people are struggling. But is that really the case here in the uk?
Cindy Yu
Yeah, well, so the job market is very tough at the moment, not least because of the entrance, I think, of AI, and we haven't fully understood the impact of that, but we have seen so many kind of the big companies employing less starter jobs, basically, because actually once upon a time that would have been human and now it's been automated. So the ONS says that the number of job vacancies has fallen to its lowest level for five years. The number of new recruits was also at a five year low, according to hmrc and unemployment is up a bit. And we also, of course know about the needs problem as well. One million young people not in employment or education. So I think for a new starter in the job market it is really tough at the moment. But I think for people who are further along the kind of the job career path, who have tried their hand at looking for jobs and tried their hand at jobs here, it's not that they don't have a job, it's just that their income isn't nearly as good as they can get somewhere else. Because since the financial crisis, the UK has just barely grown in productivity or real wages. The Resolution foundation found that actually that kind of tapering off has cost the average worker 10,000 pounds than if the UK kept on its pre financial crisis trajectory. And the problem with that is that actually other countries have recovered faster and the US I think is one of them.
Luke Jones
The other stress then on the pocket is also a tax system. And we keep talking about how the tax burden currently is the biggest since the end of the Second World War. Yet actually, broadly the average worker isn't paying historically high amounts of tax. But I guess if you're that maybe affluent, particularly mobile worker hoping to get on a bit further, the tax system does have various quirks and tricks which
Cindy Yu
stress you out 100%. And I think it's worth saying as well on that tax burden, some of this is invisible. So fiscal drag has been happening for the last five years, which is with the freezing of tax thresholds under Rachel Reeves's last budget, she's frozen until 2031. Who knows if Andy Burnham will change that under John Healy. But what that means is that basically 5 million more people are paying income tax now than they should be if the tax threshold has risen up with inflation. And 5 million more people are also in a higher 40p tax rate. So people are paying more taxes because the tax free allowance isn't rising with their income. But the anomaly that you're pointing to, and again, I don't want listeners to think that this is a small violin, I think my point here is that for really aspiring relatively successful and youngish workers who are starting families, this is a punitive system. And I know that's a very privileged class already. At the same time, that is the class that are the most contributive to society, both in terms of tax revenue and in terms of productivity. So the anomaly here is that between £100,000 and £125,000, the tapering off of that personal allowance actually means that you have a marginal tax rate of 62% and so that's actually higher than people who earn over 125,000 pounds. So actually for that 25,000 pound tax band, you are paying more than the richest in society. And if you are in a couple where one of you is reaching that 100,000 pound threshold, but the other one isn't, your child free allowances also go. So that's left some really bizarre situations where people are actually trying very hard to be under just under that 100,000 pound threshold. So I've got a friend who is no longer a civil servant. He used to be A senior civil servant got a promotion. Fantastic. Took him into that threshold. He has a young child and what did he do? He actually took himself down to a four day week in order to be under the £100,000 and spent the extra day with his kid. Lovely for him. Not great for the economy.
Luke Jones
Wow. And assuming you get to a point where you've got a job, the tax system isn't stressing you out particularly. You're being paid what you want. Maybe you don't have student debt. Another big problem here is just housing. You mentioned the cost of living already, but just the cost of renting or even then putting down a deposit and actually affording the mortgage to buy somewhere
Cindy Yu
people are still struggling with. Yeah, in London the average one bed flat now costs more than half of your median pre tax pay and that's pre tax. So post tax that's going to be a bit higher than that as well.
Luke Jones
In rent.
Cindy Yu
In rent, just in rent. And then that's London of course. London, as we know is a housing bubble but in the rest of England it's 42%. That's still pretty high. And so what you actually get is actually house affordability when you look at disposable income is the most unaffordable. I think it's about 125 years. The average property costs seven times the average full time salary in England or 10 times the average salary in London. So basically for our generation, unless you have a partner and or parents who will help you, don't even think about buying a house. And then there's of course, you know, manipulations in the housing market itself like stamp duty which kind of punishes people from loosening up that housing market. So it's not, it's not happy days. At the moment I don't feel like from my kind of friendship groups from, from the kind of anecdotal stories, we know we got a very good kind of career and income and all sorts of of stuff but it is just that if you are mobile enough to consider a better life somewhere else, why shouldn't you?
Luke Jones
Coming up back to Australia to speak to one of the doctors that we have lost to Melbourne. But is it actually all it's cracked up to be there? And what might tempt her back that's in a moment.
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Cindy Yu
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Luke Jones
Can we start? Jessica, just. We've got it on tape. Could you introduce yourself for us? All your names, who you are, where you are.
Dr. Jessica Yee
Hi, I'm Jess. I'm a doctor who moved from the NHS to Australia. I'm currently living in between Melbourne and the uk.
Luke Jones
Yeah, I always remember Dame Edna Reverage saying that Melbourne is a city wanting to be a British suburb. Is that right?
Dr. Jessica Yee
That's actually really, really accurate
Luke Jones
Rewind for us. What it was like in the uk, I guess. Did you train as a doctor there?
Dr. Jessica Yee
Yeah, so I trained as a doctor in the uk. I went to Bristol University and then I moved to Liverpool to do our foundation training for two years. And then straight after my, what we call, foundation year two, I moved to Australia. So that was back in September 2022.
Luke Jones
And when you were working as a doctor in the uk, how was the work and how was your life around it?
Dr. Jessica Yee
Casting my mind back, it was 2020, so I actually graduated in the year of COVID So I think I had a bit of a strange entrance into the nhs. The rota was very strange. We were always being moved. There was often skeleton stuffing, things like that. But, yeah, overall, of course, like the people and the colleagues I was working with, they were all fantastic. But it was sort of a more difficult environment to get into work so I'll be honest, I didn't actually start looking for a job in the UK after Foundation year two. I wanted to go to Australia. It'd been something that had been in my mind for a long time, before university even, because I'd visited Australia and I did want to go back. I'd heard from quite a few colleagues and friends of friends what it was like out there and it felt sort of like this dream world, essentially just a bit of an escape for at least a year. And, yeah, it's somehow been four, so still going.
Luke Jones
And I can understand the pull, but what were the push factors?
Dr. Jessica Yee
Quite a few things, I think. For me, the taxes are high. I mean, they're also high in Australia too, but I think because you earn less overall in the uk, that can affect your lifestyle. It's just the whole of the UK at the moment feels to me like a bit messy and a bit complicated. Whether that's politics. The NHS as well. Also not going to bash the nhs. But the staffing did cause stresses. They were long days, they could be very stressful, especially when I was working in the emergency department, the waits would be very long. Patient stresses, of course, we absorb that all the time, but they'd be obviously increased hour by hour as patients were waiting. Also, there's just not enough jobs for doctors that are being made. We're seeing a lot of doctors struggling to get jobs and my partner included applied for 50 jobs for what we call a clinical teaching fellow job in the UK this year. And all these people who are very qualified and even overqualified for these jobs are applying in droves. And unfortunately, there's only one place, I think that's really off putting when you've spent so long training. And that's why a lot of people are moving. I often do ask my friends, what is it actually like working in the NHS now? Is it any different? And the friends who are in training at the moment say it's actually okay. But some of them also say they just want to get to the end of training and then work part time and they don't want to deal with the politics of working in a system that is slightly broken.
Luke Jones
And now you're doing that in Australia. Have you found that's different for the better?
Dr. Jessica Yee
I definitely do think it is, yeah. Overall, the patient workload was much less, the staffing was much better, you're paid much more than you would have been at the same level back in the nhs and the hours are much shorter. So, yeah, a bit of a no brainer it has been really good.
Luke Jones
And away from work. I mean, what has the lifestyle change been like? Image of how Australians live is that they're always up at the crack of dawn, jogging, having hearty breakfasts, and just generally living a fabulous life in the sunshine. Is that what it is?
Dr. Jessica Yee
That's exactly it, Luke. I recommend. Well, I think that is very much a Sydney lifestyle, yes. Earth as well, actually. But yeah, of course, the. The days are much sunnier, you feel like, because you're working less, you have more energy and more time to do things.
Luke Jones
Do they need podcast hosts in Australia, do you think?
Dr. Jessica Yee
Yeah, they do. They definitely do. I'll ask around for you.
Luke Jones
Do you think you'll be back in the UK full time at any point?
Dr. Jessica Yee
Yeah, this has been something that's definitely been on my mind for the past couple of years. Everyone I did move over with in 2022, they've all moved back. The ones who stay, I think, are the ones who have an Australian partner or get permanent residency. But yeah, I think my partner is moving back to the UK and so we will also have to, like, navigate that. And I think eventually I will move back to the UK as well. It's one of those things that you have to think about. The pros and cons, aging parents, friends, milestones, they all, you know, build up and they all matter. So we're back soon, but we'll never close the door in Australia, I think.
Luke Jones
Jess, been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.
Dr. Jessica Yee
Thank you so much, Luke, Nice to speak to you.
Luke Jones
Cindy. We keep laying this disclaimer on thick, but we should again be clear that this is a section of the age demographic, particularly successful or mobile or sort of moneyed end of it, who are able to do this. If we actually zoom out and look at the sort of broader migration picture, what is actually happening? Is there as much churn and movement?
Cindy Yu
Yeah, so actually annual emigration has increased drastically since the 2000 and tens. So in the 2000 and tens, it was hovering around 150,000 Brits a year was leaving the country. Now that's more likely to be 250,000 Brits a year leaving the country. And that's basically since the pandemic. Of course, we know about the immigration problem we're having. And actually we've had record immigration, the so called Boris wave, although last year's data looks a little bit different than that. And that is also a confusing picture because of students coming in who I personally don't think should be included in that figure because they leave after A few years. In any case, what we're seeing is basically a lot more Brits leaving and a lot more immigrants coming in who are often basically lower skilled. And I think that is a crux of why so much of this has become so politically toxic.
Luke Jones
Just finally though, is there a type of person who can actually make these moves away from the spreadsheet? You know, if you're younger and you haven't got kids and maybe you haven't rooted in a place, it's easier to go, but also into that equation, you do need to take culture and the fabric of society that you want to live in. Andy Byrne and we keep being told is about the politics of place and the impact that that has. And there are many people who might not just want to float around wherever makes their Excel spreadsheet happiest.
Cindy Yu
So of course there are people like that. I am just really kind of talking about a sliver of privileged young, mid career people. And then I also have friends within that sliver who have gone abroad and really, really miss it in the uk. So I've got a friend in America who whenever she comes back, she's like, oh, it's so nice to hang out with Brits, because Americans, they can only have organized fun. And when she comes back, it's just so nice to be organically with Brits.
Luke Jones
And we should finally end on an optimistic note. You fit into this category where you could be moving anywhere. You said you're British Chinese, so that China could be an option. There might be economic benefits to that. Make the case for staying, because you have done that.
Cindy Yu
Yes, of course. No, I really good. Thank you for asking your discussion because I don't want to come off as criticizing the UK for everything. You know, I love Britain.
Luke Jones
Just 30 minutes of Cindy just ripping the crap out of the country.
Dan Lowe
Gone.
Cindy Yu
No, the UK is amazing and London is such a brilliant place to live. And as I get older and explore the city and the country more outside of London, you know, actually since the pandemic, my partner and I have done much more kind of staycations. You know, we went to Somerset, we went to Yorkshire. All these places where you drive around and you see the local countryside, it's beautiful. And then in London itself, what an international city. The food is amazing, the culture is amazing, the amount of plays that are going on, museums, exhibitions, all sorts of stuff. It is an amazing place to live if you can afford it. That is the main clincher of all of this, if you can afford it. But of course, if my partner got a job in America, we would really go. It will be a really, really sad
Luke Jones
end on an optimistic note. And you just turned it around to say you're off to the U.S. i
Cindy Yu
think that we would probably come back because we'd want our kids not to be Americans.
Luke Jones
Good save, good save. All right. We'll forgive you on that point. Sydney, thank you very much.
Cindy Yu
Thank you so much.
Luke Jones
Cindy Yoon, columnist and contributing editor at the Times and the Sunday times. And our two Brits abroad were physiotherapist Dan Lowe and Dr. Jessica Yee. That is it from us. The story@thetimes.com is our email address should you wish to get in touch. Maybe you yourself are a Brit who has fled for sunnier or economically happier climbs. Let us know. Today's producers were Olivia Case, Jennifer Kennedy and Shabron McGraw. The executive producers were Taryn Siegel and Sophie McNulty. Sound design was by Dave Creasy and theme composition was by Mayo Lassetto. I'm Luke Jones. See you soon.
Barclays Brief Host
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Podcast: The Story (The Times)
Episode Date: August 5, 2026
Host: Luke Jones
Guests: Dan Lowe (physiotherapist and content creator, now in Australia), Cindy Yu (columnist at The Times), Dr. Jessica Yee (doctor who left the NHS for Australia)
This episode explores a notable trend: the emigration of young, high-achieving Britons (particularly those in their 20s and 30s) to countries like Australia, the US, and the UAE. Through firsthand accounts and expert analysis, Luke Jones investigates what is driving some of the UK's best educated and most mobile citizens to leave—and what, if anything, would tempt them back.
Guest: Dan Lowe, physiotherapist, now living in Australia
Guest: Cindy Yu, Times columnist
Guest: Dr. Jessica Yee, left NHS for Australia
The episode offers a rich, nuanced window into a growing “brain drain” of young, educated Britons. The lure of higher salaries, better work-life balance, and affordable living—especially in Anglophone destinations—is powerful. Yet emotional ties, identity, and cultural connection remain sticky—and for many, hope for a better UK still flickers.
As Cindy Yu puts it:
"London is such a brilliant place to live ... It is an amazing place to live if you can afford it. That is the main clincher." (28:49)
Recommended for: Anyone interested in trends in British society, post-Brexit migration, economic policy impacts, and cultural identity among young professionals.