> I gather some of them have friends and are able to pool their resources to 
> rent somewhere.

If you earn 25K you'll have, what 1500 GBP a month to spend?  I'm pretty 
sure that even for a third of that you could rent somewhere half decent by 
yourself.  If you like it there (the job and the location) you could buy 
somewhere small after a year or two.  That way you're not wasting money on 
rent each month.

> It's not like it has to be right next to my front door, but I would like 
> it to be within a *sane* distance, yes. (E.g., Northampton, Buckingham or 
> even Cambridge wouldn't be too bad.)

You won't believe how much nicer it is to only have to commute 5-10 mins to 
work each day.  I didn't think it was too much of a problem doing 45 mins 
each way, but once I moved I swore I would never go back to anything more 
than 20 mins each way.

> It says "up to" 25K.

That's because it's aimed at graduates, someone with your experience and 
degree would easily expect the 25K or more (hey, I would expect even a good 
graduate with NO experience could ask for the 25K, especially as it's near 
London).

> Your employer [usually] wants you to stick around. *Customers* don't care 
> if you get infected, crawl under a rock and die a slow, painful death - 
> just so long as they get their system working again. And they aren't 
> afraid to say so to your face.

Funny, the customers I deal with are not like that at all.  They appreciate 
the work I do and with most of them the relationship is pretty similar to 
that I have with my colleagues.  Maybe it's because we're always working on 
the same level with technical issues, it's not like I have a meeting with 
the CEO of BMW where he's shouting at me to do something which is 
impossible.  In fact with most of our customers we usually go out for dinner 
with them after meetings and generally have a good time.

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