'I couldn't afford rent in London as a nurse so I commuted from Wales while pregnant'

'I couldn't afford rent in London as a nurse so I commuted from Wales while pregnant' Working busy shifts in a central London A&E department, commuting four hours to and from rural Wales... all while pregnant. Nurse Georgie Scott, 35, says she was "'pushed out" of the capital because of high rent prices, unable to afford spending two-thirds of her salary on housing. Georgie was working in a busy A&E during the Covid pandemic when she was evicted from her flat. After searching for a new rental property she and her partner realised they could no longer afford to stay in London, particularly as Georgie was the "predominant breadwinner". "On a nurse's wage in London, it was not viable," says Georgie. After looking at different areas, the couple made the decision to move to Wales, finding rents were "less than half of what we were paying in London for bigger properties". Georgie says her workplace was "really supportive" and would allow her to have a flexible working schedule so she could commute back and forth. But commuting wasn't easy, says Georgie. "Working in A&E is really hard. It was hard work planning it and the trains are not cheap." She says it was "bit of a kick in the teeth" having to relocate from her home town because of housing. Georgie believes that having a family on a nurse's salary makes it "impossible" to live in London, saying lots of her colleagues have also moved out of the capital to counties including Essex and Kent. "The childcare costs are expensive and your wage wouldn't cover both." London has seen a greater rise in nurses relocating than all of England, according to data from NHS England. The figures, for 2025-2026, showed 24% of nurses in the capital cited "relocation" as their reason for voluntary resignation - compared with 11% in 2011-12. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) claims members say cost of housing is a significant driver. It's a "worsening situation", according to the RCN London director Lisa Elliott. Entry level pay for nurses has gone up by 2.83% each year on average from 2015-2025, while London rent has risen 3.53% in the same time frame every year, according to RCN analysis. "Nurses are having to fork out much more of their salary on just being able to afford the rent," says Lisa. "We need to have enough nurses to provide safe good quality care. If we don't have enough nurses it impacts patients." Nurses and midwives in England and Wales are set to get a 3.3% pay rise in the next financial year, but Lisa says the union was "disappointed" at the award which was "below inflation". Alicia Arias, 41, an intensive care paediatrics nurse, shares Georgie's frustration. She commutes an hour each day from Woking in south London to her hospital in central London - though on a bad day, the journey can take up to three hours. Unable to afford bus fares on top of everything else, she cycles to and from the Overground as part of her daily commute. Alicia has previously campaigned for cheaper transport for nurses. In 2018, she and her partner spent a year living in key worker accommodation - something she says isn't very accessible and is largely discovered through word of mouth. She paid £895 a month for a studio flat in Camden during her first year, which she considered affordable. "Then Covid happened. I was lucky - they froze the rent for a year because of everything key workers were doing," she says. "When you first get it, you feel really grateful and think 'there's something for key workers, great'. "But then they started increasing the rent a lot. I was in that studio for five years, and by the time I left, it was £1,150." Alicia says the flat eventually became more expensive than similar privately rented studios she found at the time, while her salary failed to keep pace. "They were clapping for us as heroes during Covid… but they don't want us to have any benefits," she says. The Mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan has launched a plan to start at least 6,000 rent-controlled 'Key Worker Living Rent' homes in London by 2030. New homes will be let at rents based on 40% of key workers' average net household incomes - saving those with a two-bedroom home about £7,000 a year on average, according to City Hall. Deputy Mayor of London for Housing Tom Copley says: "We know many of the Londoners we rely on to keep our city moving do struggle to afford market rents, let alone buying a property. And won't qualify for social rent." He says 'Key Worker Living Rent' will vary by borough and will "balance affordability with deliverability". Housebuilding in London's private housing sector has fallen by 84% since 2015, despite the capital needing 88,000 new homes annually. But Copley is confident they can deliver for key workers. "London has been buffeted by economic headwinds - we've had the war in Ukraine, Brexit, the pandemic, but also some issues specifically affecting the whole house-building sector in London," he says. "We've had building safety regulator delays thankfully now being sorted by this government, the introduction of new regulations, and rising interest rates." Is London affordable for other key workers? Nurses aren't the only key workers struggling to afford living in London. According to new analysis from Generation Rent, a campaign group that advocates for private renters: - A nurse on an average salary can only find five truly affordable boroughs in the whole of London. - A primary school teacher on an average salary can only find nine affordable boroughs in the whole of London. - Essential workers such as hospital porters and care workers cannot afford a one‑bed flat in any London borough. Generation Rent compared average full-time pay for 15 key worker roles using 2024-2025 ONS salary data with average one-bedroom rents. It then assessed affordability by checking whether rents stayed within typical letting thresholds (about 40% of income) and a stricter affordability benchmark (30% of income). The government has said it has delivered "some of the most significant pay rises the NHS has seen in a generation", including for nurses. It also said it was building 1.5 million new homes, including a major boost to affordable and social housing backed by £39bn "to ensure working people can afford to live in the communities they serve". For Georgie, she says while she feels committed to her role in London, she will now look for jobs in Wales as commuting with a young child is "unsustainable". "As much as I love London, it will be too hard," she says. Meanwhile, Alicia says she is considering leaving the profession, as are many of her colleagues, citing high costs of rent in the capital, low salaries and "burnout" since Covid. "I love what I do. But they rely too much on us loving what we do." Additional reporting by Jonathan Fagg from the England Data Unit. Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected]