Edinburgh could be a good option. If you look hard enough, it is still relatively affordable (especially compared to the Bay Area) and I’ve found very intellectual people to work with. There seems to be a big focus in the U.K. on collaboration between academic and industry and if you’re into data, Edinburgh is home to a The Data Lab, an innovation centre around data.
I moved here from North America and have previous work experience in Silicon Valley. The startup vibe is slowly getting stronger and we’ve been very fortunate to get linked into the ecosystem.
I would add that if you want something cheaper than Edinburgh, but in the same neck of the woods, then you should try Newcastle-upon-Tyne. There is the same academia-industry collaboration and a growing number of tech jobs.
The pay is a bit lower than other parts of the UK (for tech), but that is changing and you can always find yourself remote work as well.
Most (but far from all) startups in Edinburgh are based in the Codebase building: https://www.thisiscodebase.com/. We also have a couple of unicorns that were started here, Skyscanner and FanDuel; Amazon and Smartsheet also have offices; and Rockstar North is where GTA is developed.
All of the above companies are within 10-20 minutes walk of the Edinburgh Waverley train station. Public transport is awesome mainly because the city is quite small and buses are frequent and cheap.
There are plenty of meetups too - see https://techmeetup.co.uk/ for the biggest general one, which is also live streamed. There are others on security, JavaScript, Go, Machine Learning etc.
If you like hiking/camping/hill walking then Scotland is a great country for you - you have a view of the Pentland hills from the city, and Arthur's Seat in Holyrood park right next to our parliament buildings. You can be in the Cairngorms national park within a few hours by car/train.
Upper end for Senior Engineer take home pay after taxes is around £4,000 pm. You could rent a nice apartment for £1,000 pm, but could get something small and habitable for £600.
Edinburgh is Scotland's most international city, which is a double edged sword as the tackiness of the tourist shops up and down the Royal Mile showcase. But there's lots of great things to do and see, and varied places to eat and drink. The University of Edinburgh is one of the UK's best (I recently walked past Prof Peter Higgs :) and students come here from all over. The Edinburgh Festival is (one of?) the biggest arts festivals in the world and runs for the whole month of August. The Fringe Festival is a world famous testing ground for stand up comics - there's a great Netflix special from Hannibal Buress about his experience of the Edinburgh Fringe.
Big downside to the city is that it doesn't have a tech sector as well developed as, say, London. Also for as stunning and booming as the city is, the weather is pretty bad especially owing to its unpredictability i.e. four seasons in one day. It's drier than most of Scotland but that's not saying much. It's cold and the winters have short days. The flip side is that a sunny summer's day will be one of the most enjoyable of anywhere in the world.
EDIT: and yeah, I echo other warnings about waiting until the Brexit debacle has concluded to see what things are like for the UK
Before I entered this thread, I was already thinking about spending a couple months from late Jan to late March in Edinburgh. Could you expand on the weather and the Brexit warning you mentioned? Thanks!
The unpredicatable nature of weather in Scotland means that if it looks bright and sunny in the morning, you still need to leave your house with a jacket because you cannot guarantee that it won't rain heavily later in the day. Depending on when you take lunch or arrive at work, some people will be drenched, some will enjoy clear skies and sunshine. This isn't necessarily like this every day, but prepare for variability.
The dry air in the winter can make dry your skin, so moisturise well. It can also get windy.
That said, it's fairly temperate. The weather usually goes as low as minus single digit celsius, and as high as sub-30 celsius. And compared to other locations in Scotland it rains a lot less.
With regard to Brexit, it's hard to know where to begin so I'll recap and potentially editorialise.
The Conservative party (popular right wing political party), which is currently ruling as a minority government, has historically been split on the subject of integration with Europe. One side likes banks, free trade, free movement and big business and doesn't mind a bit of bureaucracy (pro Europe); the other likes deregulation, sovereignty, controlled immigration, "brass plaques", and small/medium business (anti Europe). This argument led to a polarising vote to the populace about whether we should leave the European Union or not.
Joining the European Union, which the UK did in the 1970s, was initially about centralising trade agreements. Now though it has a common currency (though the UK retains its own independent currency), legislates and regulates on many varied aspects of life and business, and takes huge membership fees and pays out lots of grants. Some see this as a good system even if reform is needed, some absolutely hate this with a passion.
The public vote polarised the country greatly and ended 52%/48% in favour of leaving the EU. Even if the result was conclusive the fact it's within a rounding error, the winning side committed electoral fraud and made lots of promises which they instantly backed down from, and there's evidence of Russian intereference, so there's a lot of bad feeling from both sides as many can't accept the result as final.
The key take away is that the UK has had 2 years to negotiate leaving but being in the EU affects so many aspects of life, that almost nothing has been decided and there remain so many grey areas. The worry now is that no deal will be reached and leaving the EU without a deal creates massive legal uncertainty in almost every industry conceivable, and means all trade between UK and the rest of the world (currently done via EU trade agreements) will instantly get WTO tariffs - in effect putting instantaneous costly barriers to all goods and services.
At present we're hoping politicians will become sensible and sort something out that doesn't plunge the country into financial ruin, but it's the uncertainty that's the problem at the moment.
Add to this, many in Scotland wish to be independent (another similarly polarising issue) and feel their wishes regarding Brexit are being ignored by the UK government (Scotland in comparison to the rest of the UK wanted to decisively remain in the European Union 62%/38%).
So in conclusion: (a) there's a lot of uncertainty about the UK leaving the European Union in spring next year and what this will do to the smooth running of the country (b) if the UK does leave in a crash and burn style, that may lead to renewed calls for Scotland to become independent and who knows what that will look like. Caveat emptor.
(and for full transparency of my personal bias: I'm pro European, anti Conservative party, pro Scottish independence, and was on the 100,000+ march for a 2nd independence referendum at the weekend)
Thanks for the very thorough reply. I hadn't realized the exit would occur next Spring, which is around the time I plan to visit. I understand this can be tumultuous for residents, do you think it will also affect tourists?
The date of Brexit at present is 29th March. One worst case scenario is that all aeroplanes entering/leaving the country are grounded. I think it's unlikely but it has been discussed in the press https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/09/brexit-airl...
You'll probably be fine as a tourist but as I said, it's the uncertainty that's the problem. If it were me, I'd leave a week or two before 29th March.
The train links into Edinburgh are pretty good - I moved from central Edinburgh across to Fife and although where I live is only ~30 minutes from Haymarket it is pretty rural and property prices are much lower.
And every day you get to go over the Forth Bridge is a good day...
I moved here from North America and have previous work experience in Silicon Valley. The startup vibe is slowly getting stronger and we’ve been very fortunate to get linked into the ecosystem.