Around half a million people left the UK to live abroad last year, and it’s not just retirees. A survey by the British Council showed that 72 per cent of 18 to 30-year-olds would consider living and working overseas, with cold weather, the high cost of living, extortionate childcare, a lack of work-life balance and even poor romantic prospects among their motivations for leaving the UK.
The i Paper’s Expat Files follows Brits who have taken the leap and settled elsewhere, detailing the ups and downs of their journeys. Founder Liam Quirk, 28, left the UK for Cyprus in 2025, with his girlfriend Melanie, 26. He tells Maybelle Morgan why Paphos now feels like home.
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Every morning, under a gloomy sky, I used to walk to my office in Liverpool city centre thinking the same thing: “I could be anywhere in the world right now, yet I’m here walking in the rain.”
Five years later, my mornings look completely different. Over 300 days of the year, I wake up to sunshine and I’ll go to my local boxing gym where I get a workout in before sitting down to calls.
