Recently we’ve had a number of positions offering relocation packages, offering help to skilled candidates who live outside the region. East Anglia is home to many energy companies, and with such a long stretch of coastline on the North Sea there are a great many links to the windfarms being built at Hornsea, Dogger Bank and further afield. 

Moving for a job is a great adventure and a challenge, in this series we aim to offer helpful and practical advice for someone looking to move to the Eastern counties. 

The Lay of the Land 

With over 90 miles of coast that start at in the west at The Wash that borders with Lincolnshire and curves round along the northern and eastern boundaries to Great Yarmouth. To the south, Norfolk borders with Suffolk and to the west Cambridgeshire. 

As well as having a long coastline, Norfolk is famous for the Broads. The Norfolk Broads are a National Park with over 125 miles of navigable waterways, home to great and diverse wildlife and many tourists in the summer months! 

The only city in Norfolk is Norwich, a medieval city with great music, arts and culture scenes as well as being a popular spot for shopping. Charming coastal and market towns and villages spot the landscape, including Sandringham – the country retreat of Her Majesty the Queen! 

Norwich 

The ancient city of Norwich is the most complete medieval city in the UK, with much of the original city walls still standing. The castle, known as ‘the box on the hill’, stands proud in the centre, flanked by two beautiful cathedrals. Two rivers run through the city which famously at one point had a church for every week of the year and a pub for every day! Nowadays many of those churches are arts centres and there are still a great deal of pubs – Norwich has the highest number of pubs per square mile in the UK!

The city is a mix of old and new, with lots of history to explore and many new developments popping up. Two universities in the city, the University of East Anglia and Norwich University of the Arts, along with several city-wide festivals means there’s always something to see and explore. 

Living in Norfolk 

Norwich and Norfolk frequently appear in the ‘best places to live’ guides, and for good reason too! Norwich and Wymondham were on the Sunday Times Best Places to Live 2018 list, Kings Lynn was 4th on Rightmove’s survey of the happiest places to live in 2017. Many factors are used to judge these lists, most commonly cited reasons for inclusion are the city and county’s low crime rate, good shopping and leisure facilities and quality of local schools. 

Transport 

Less than two hours drive to London, Norwich has good transport links around and out of the county. There’s a large train station in Norwich which has direct links to London, Cambridge and Peterborough. Most of the large towns in Norfolk have train stations, and there are good transport links to get around the county by bus, bike or boat. 

Norwich International Airport offers flights to many destinations in the UK and Europe, with frequent flights to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol giving access to flights anywhere in the world.