I live in London and have just been offered a position in Oxford. The salary is not significantly higher than what I’m currently getting but the job is more exciting and I hope it will bring more satisfaction. All my life is in London – my girlfriend lives and works here, my friends, so I’m not looking to move. The job is mainly remote, but they do want me to come to the office 1-2 days a week. Is this going to be feasible or am I mad? Also, the company is not going to reimburse train tickets, so not sure how bad this would be financially.
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Honest question, are you unable to look up train/bus/coach routes?
You are asking strangers that don’t know where in London you live nor where in Oxford you will be working on how to get there
But there is a phone in your hand
It is feasible time-wise just about if you take the train (depending on how close you are to Paddington) – a family member of mine did it. But it will hit your wallet fairly hard.
The bus is not really doable – getting in and out of london by road at rush hour would be mental
I would say if it’s once a week, possible doable. Any more than that, it’s going to be annoying and expensive.
Yeah it’s only an hour. Expensive but still, once or twice a week is no bother.
Remember plenty of people commute the other way on a daily basis, and from further out.
You could potentially get a train to Didcot Parkway (under 40 mins from Paddington) and catch the bus from there. Oxford trains are a bit behind the times. That’s about £30/£40 return train ticket and under a tenner for bus. That sounds more feasible depending on where you are in London.
I would say its possible but not ideal. It’s one of the more expensive routes in the country in terms of cost per mile. Also, whilst it’s not a slow train, it’s not a quick one either. Add on that Oxford train station is slightly out of the centre, and whatever your journey to Paddington is, and it could be quite a long commute.
So, if you’re doing it a couple of times a week it’s not un-doable. But you would feel the hit on your wallet if they don’t cover your train fair, and your certainly have quite long days on those days, taking into account the commute.
£73. You get charged exactly the same as someone doing the much-more-popular reverse route. Plus travel costs in London and Oxford. I don’t think a season ticket will help with you only going once or twice a week.
London prices and not-London salary is going to do your finances zero favours generally. Also, never trust the company to not demand you in the office every day all of a sudden!
Time wise it’s probably 90 minutes door to door unless you live and work real close to the stations, and that’s too long to commute for more than a few months IMHO.
Timewise it’s not an overly long commute if you’re just doing it once or twice a week. But you probably wouldn’t want to do it more often than that, unless you live very close to Paddington and your work is close to Oxford station. So I’d want to have it in writing, in the contract, that you are only required to come in twice a week.
Unfortunately season tickets aren’t worthwhile for a twice a week commute and normal Anytime tickets are quite expensive (£73 for an Anytime Day Return). There’s sadly no ‘contra peak’ pricing, as per you get on many other commuter routes to/from London.
However as you’ve identified, Advance tickets are generally available at reasonable prices if you book a little while ahead and are happy to be tied to a specific train.
Do bear in mind that Advances are offered *entirely* at the discretion of the train company, so you shouldn’t assume they will always be available at the current prices. They can also be withdrawn e.g. on strike dates or during engineering works. So do your budgeting on an assumption that Advances won’t be available, for the worst case scenario.
Off-Peak tickets are also available and the time restrictions aren’t too onerous in the contra-peak direction. The Off-Peak Return (SVR, £32.60, return portion can be used on any day within a month) is just straight up valid from 09:30, whilst the Off-Peak Day Return (CDR, £30, only valid for one day as the name suggests) is valid from 09:20. There are evening restrictions departing Paddington with the CDR, but these don’t affect you as you’re travelling contra-peak.
You could alternatively also buy an Off-Peak Return from Oxford to London and use it in the “wrong direction”, i.e. using outward portions on your way home and return portions on your way to work. The main advantage here would be that Off-Peak Returns issued to London are valid to depart Paddington from 09:20 whilst those issued from London are valid from 09:30. But of course the Off-Peak Day Return is also valid from 09:20 so it’s unlikely to be massively beneficial for you.
If you’re aged 30 or under, or 60 or over, or are a Veteran, have a disability (there’s a pretty wideranging set of qualifying conditions, such as being deaf) then you can also get a Railcard to discount your travel. Every Railcard except the Disabled Railcard has certain time or price restrictions, but generally speaking these shouldn’t be an issue with this particular commute.
There are also slightly cheaper fares available if you use the slower Chiltern Railways service from Marylebone. However you may find that the saving isn’t worth the time penalty.
Hope that helps 🙂