Total Cost of Moving To The UK With Your Family

If you are on this page right now, first of all, Congratulations!

It takes a big heart that wants to make a difference to think of moving to the UK. If you are wondering how much you need or the total cost of moving to the UK with your family, then keep reading.

I will try to make this post as short as possible using a real-life breakdown of all expenses incurred in the process of moving to the UK from Nigeria by my friend.

The easiest way right now to move to the Uk is through the Study route. Other ways are still available but may be a bit difficult to get through at the moment. So everything in this post will be centered around the Study route.

What you need to travel to the UK in 2022

1. Get admission.

The process of getting admission is no longer as tough as it used to be those days and you can practically process yours by yourself online. To travel to the UK, you need to first gain admission to a UK school to study for Masters or Ph.D. before you can start talking about the expenses.

For this illustration, we will be applying to Salford University, Manchester. Their admission process is somewhat straightforward with relatively cheap school fees for international students.

You can visit their portal for post-graduate school here to check if they offer your course. You can also apply to any other university of your choice if they don’t offer the course you had in mind.

Tuition Fees

For my friend, the total school fees for her course was £15,000 for the duration of 9 month course. You can split this school fees into two if you can’t afford the whole and pay half upfront, to balance later when you are in the UK.

If you are lucky enough like my friend, you may be selected for an automatic Global Silver Excellence Scholarship worth £3,000. However, in this post, I am assuming you didn’t get it at all. So you pay 55% of the school fees which is £8,250. With the current exchange rate of ₦830/GPB, that’s about ₦6,874,500. As you know, exchange rates are not stable. Be sure to check the rate when applying.

Should anything happen and you were not able to get the visa, your school fees of course can be refunded. Do well to check their website for terms.

Visa Fees

Your student visa fee is £385. For each dependent that comes with you from Nigeria to Uk, you will pay an extra £490 to apply for their dependent visa for your wife/husband or for your children.

For my friend, she went with her husband. so they only paid £875 in total for the visa.

Medical Fees

To move to the UK, here is a breakdown of the medical examinations you need and how much they cost.

The Health insurance can also be waived depending on the condition. Check your eligibility here. In fact, it varies by location of your school.

Proof of Funds (PoF)

Officially, you will need to show the embassy that you have enough money to take care of yourself and your dependent. So how much do you need in your bank account?

There are two categories here:

• If your school is in London, then you need £1,334 monthly for the duration of your course. Plus an additional £845 for each of your dependents. (approximately £19,611 for the entire 9 months covering you and your spouse only).
• If you are living outside London, then you only need £1,023 per month. Plus an additional £680 per month for each of your dependents. (approximately £15,327 for the entire 9 months covering you and your spouse only).
• You also need to have the balance of your school fees sitting in your bank account as well.

The British embassy expects this amount of money to sit in your account for at least 28 days before applying for the visa.

The Trick And How Much You Actually Need (PoF)

I know these numbers are crazy. You don’t need to be discouraged. The thing is that since you are moving with your partner, one person can get a job and work full-time for 40hours while the student can work 20 hours a week.

With that being said, you will need to make sure you have a sufficient amount of money to cater for your living expenses for at least three months pending when you or your spouse will get a job.

How Much You Actually Need To Live In The Uk For 3 Months

On average, you will need about £2,000 monthly to manage life in the UK with your spouse. This amount will cover expenses like:

• House Rent: A studio apartment costs between £650 to £1,200 per month.
• Feeding: Unless you have enough money, then you need to manage yourselves here. £500 should be enough here.
• Transport: Depending on your school and work location.
• Bills: Internet, electricity, and water bills. Budget additional £400
• Then Miscellaneous.

So basically, for 3 months, you need around £6,000 (₦4.98m) to live with your spouse in the UK. I am using three months as enough time to settle and get a job in the UK.

Then the rest of the money needed for the PoF can either be outsourced. If you are in Nigeria, you already know what I mean. If you need help with this, feel free to contact us here.

Other Expenses

Other expenses you may not run away from include;

• Police Clearance: ₦5,000 to ₦10,000 depending on your location.
• A one-way flight Ticket will cost the both of you nothing less than 1.6m if you are flying economy class. Check emirates Airlines for an idea.

The Summary of The Total Cost of Moving To The UK With Your Family.

You will need to have a total of ₦14.2m to move to the UK with your spouse using the study route. This is broken down in the table below:

However, you will need to show proof of funds of at least £26,361 (Approximately ₦22m) if your school is within London. While you only need proof of funds of about £22,077 (Approximately ₦18.3m) if your school is outside London.

Note that your proof of funds is taken with the assumption that you have taken care of every other expenses except for the balance of your school fees and the amount the British embassey expects you have to cover for 9 months of your living in the UK.

Next Steps

Moving to the UK is one of the best decisions you will make and we hope this gives you an idea of the likely total cost of moving to the UK with your partner either husband or wife only. If you are a family of more than 2, then you need to multiply the other living expenses apart from the school fees.

I hope to see you on top. If you need help, feel free to drop your question in the comment section or send us a message here.