I work two jobs just to afford my rent – this is the reality of living in London 

‘I’m not doing this because I’m choosing to, I’m doing it out of necessity. It’s just mad that people are having to work two jobs to be able to afford to rent a flat in London,’ says 25-year-old Alexandra Melville, who speaks from experience.

Alexandra currently works two jobs to be able to afford the room in her shared flat in Homerton – which comes to £650 per month including rent and bills.

The 25-year-old, originally from Cambridge, had high hopes when she finished university and moved to London in 2020.

But the post-grad struggled to find a flat with her two friends – not just due to budget restraints, but because landlords wouldn’t accept her as she was working in a restaurant at the time.

‘It was just like months and months and months of putting in offers getting rejected, being outbid basically all of the time,’ she tells Metro.

‘The two friends that I was looking with could afford to pay more at the time, I was working full-time in a restaurant – so I didn’t even have a salary.

‘So that became an issue when it came to signing with real estate agents. I was undesirable because I worked in hospitality and my wage wasn’t very high and I didn’t have a guarantor.

‘I was just kind of against all odds basically.

‘It kind of came to the point where I decided to kind of step away from my two friends and be like, look, “I feel like I’m holding you back, I’m just gonna go and look on Spareroom and do my own thing.”‘

Alexandra’s first London flat was a room in Dalston, where she paid nearly £800 per month – but this simply wasn’t sustainable for her. She then found a much better deal in Homerton, where she now pays £550 per month for the room and then around £100 towards bills.

However, she still needs to work two jobs to afford to live in London.

Currently, Alexandra works at a production and fashion agency as her 9-5 – which she describes as she dream job – alongside four to seven monthly shifts at a restaurant at the weekends.

She says: ‘I love my fashion agency job so much and this is the career path that I want to go down. The only downside is that it’s just not paid well enough for me to live in London solely off that. But I know that if I want to end up with the job that I want, I just kind of have to suck it up for now [until I’m paid more].

‘So, for me, I’m just so happy to kind of put up with the late hours and having two jobs because I see the payoff in the future.

‘But, as you can imagine, it’s exhausting.

‘This weekend I’m working Sunday evening, so I’ll finish the restaurant at about midnight – and then I have to get up at 6am the next day.

‘I know it’s not sustainable, but I kind of can’t really quit the restaurant job until I see some kind of financial security, which won’t be for the next few months.’

Alexandra stresses that she doesn’t have the option of turning to, or relying on, her family for financial help.

She continues: ‘I’ve got three sisters – so my dad’s spread very thin and he’s unemployed now as well. It’s not as easy as it was three years ago, where we could sometimes tap on his shoulder and ask for a bit of money. That’s not an option anymore.’

Alexandra stresses this is why she’s working two jobs to afford not just her rent, but to also have some kind of life in London, too.

She continues: ‘I just feel like I’m scraping my pennies together to get through to the payday. I’m just so sick of that. I’ve kind of felt like that since I moved to London basically.

‘I just hate the fact that a) I’m missing out on things at weekends and b) I have money constantly on my mind. I never aimlessly tap my card. There’s always a thought behind it, like is this justified?

‘It’s a constant kind of worry of money on my mind, worry about what I’m doing next, and worrying when it’s all going to come to an end.’

But what does she want to be done about the current dire UK property market?

‘I don’t really think it comes down to the landlords,’ Alexandra adds. ‘It’s the fault of the government to put things in place that stops people from upping the price of rent so much.

‘There’s so much disparity between those that can afford it and those that can’t, and then those who can’t get either get shoved out onto the outskirts of London or they’re forced to move somewhere else.’

This is something Alexandra thinks will happen to her eventually and it makes the 25-year-old sad knowing she probably won’t be able to live in London forever. 

She adds: ‘Even the prospect of thinking about buying is just so beyond my imagination at the moment.

‘The UK property market makes me want to move abroad. I’m genuinely thinking about moving to Spain or somewhere else in Europe next year.

‘It makes me sad because I love London so much and I kind of feel like this is my home, but it just doesn’t feel realistic to live here long-term.

‘Realistically, I think for someone that doesn’t earn that much money, it’s just not very viable to live in London, which is the sad truth.’

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