Why are so many people moving from the UK to the Channel Islands?
In recent years the Channel Islands – namely Guernsey – has seen a noticeable uptake in individuals relocating from the UK, thanks to its incredible landscapes and island way of life, according to Locate Guernsey, the relocation agency within Guernsey's government.
The second largest of the Channel Islands, Guernsey makes up the Bailiwick of Guernsey along with the islands of Alderney, Sark, Herm, Jethou and Lihou. Situated 30 miles from the Normandy coast, France and 70 miles from the south coast of England, getting to Guernsey only takes 50 minutes by plane and three hours via ferry from the UK making it the perfect relocation destination.
'Our goal is to provide free information, guidance and signposting to support individuals and businesses who are relocating to the island of Guernsey,' said Jo Stoddart, director of Locate Guernsey, an initiative that supports those looking to relocate to the island.
'We have seen a 52 per cent surge in the number of enquiries about relocation to Guernsey in recent months. We're on hand to help with enquiries on finding a home, tax and social insurance, residency and immigration and transitioning to life on the island.'
The island is home to 27 named beaches which range from pebbly coves to sandy bays, all of which boast crystal clear turquoise waters. No matter where you consider moving to, you would be no more than 10 minutes from the sea, and those on the west coast have easy access to Britain's cleanest beaches and the island's best surfing locations.
The north of island is a paradise for golfers with a number of courses to choose from. With a diverse landscape of hedgerows, green fields and forested valleys, as well as a diverse array of walking trails, it is also easy to embrace nature and being outdoors on the island. The east coast of the island offers a quaint feel with its cobbled streets but is not short of things to do, thanks to its multitude of bars, cafés and restaurants.
Guernsey prides itself on incredible gastronomic experiences, with a focus on its fresh and local seafood including lobster, white fish, crab and oysters. Award-winning and highly acclaimed restaurants across the island's hotel bistros, waterfront venues, sushi spots and steakhouses showcase a broad selection of quality dishes. The island is known for its thriving social scene with an impressive lineup of food festivals, in addition to cultural events including its annual literary festival that attracts well-known names.
Residents have an enviable work-life balance and a European pace of life. At just 25 square miles, nothing is too far away on the island of Guernsey, meaning minimal commutes and more time to relax and be with the family. For those looking for a change of career, there is no shortage of high-income roles in the finance industry, blending the benefits of a seaside and countryside lifestyle with the opportunities of a financial city hub.
As the closest global finance centre to London, Guernsey is home to over £120 billion of regulated private equity funds and over 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Centuries of commercial success has resulted in a highly skilled modern workforce and high international standards that ensures a smooth journey for skilled workers and business owners. The entrepreneur community is buzzing, a range of new and innovative businesses are springing up and strong investor networks are helping businesses to scale up. By the end of 2025, all Guernsey homes will be connected to fibre broadband making life even easier for those living in Guernsey but working remotely.
The island has been populated for over 1,000 years and has a rich history and heritage. Every year residents celebrate the liberation from German occupation on 9 May with a public holiday, and this year's celebration featured islanders celebrating 80 years of freedom. Home to Megalithic dolmens, Norman ancestral holds and architectural reminders of the Second World War, including bunkers and gun batteries, dotted around the island, Guernsey is both an interesting and beautiful destination to relocate to.
"It's wonderful to see how Guernsey continues to win people over – not just as a destination, but as a place to call home. The island's charm and unique way of life are drawing more and more people to settle here, and we're delighted to welcome them," Stoddart added.
This content is provided by an advertiser, and while every care is taken in ensuring the content complies with the Advertising Standards Authority and the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct & Promotional Marketing (CAP Code), Telegraph Media Group assumes no responsibility in the effect rising therefrom, and readers are advised to seek professional advice before acting on any information. The Daily Telegraph/TMG does not accept any liability for views expressed, pictures used or claims made by advertisers.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
The Last Journey: behind the scenes of the feel-good film of the summer
When Filip Hammar was growing up in Köping, a Swedish town less than two hours' drive from Stockholm, his father Lars's obsession with France was an acute source of embarrassment. 'It was a very working-class town – they manufacture Volvo cars there – and this guy is sitting round wearing a beret,' recalls 50-year-old Hammar, who, with his friend Fredrik Wikingsson, 51, is one half of Sweden's best-known double-act, presenters of TV documentaries, quiz shows and podcasts. 'Now, I look back and think, 'Wow, that took a lot of courage!'' Every summer throughout Filip's childhood, Lars, a school teacher, would drive the family in his orange Renault 4 to Beaulieu-sur-Mer, on the French Riviera, a journey of 1,450 miles. 'He was such a Francophile that when France did nuclear tests in Polynesia in the 1980s, the local newspaper called and asked if he was going to stop teaching French and drinking French wine.' In 2008, after 40 years of teaching, Lars retired, aged 66. He had been looking forward to this new phase of life: he and his wife, Tiina, could now travel to France as often as they wished; it would be his troisième âge. It didn't turn out that way. Without his job, Lars lost his spark; the school had been his stage, and the performance was over. Although medical tests found nothing wrong physically, he took to spending his days slumped in his armchair, as if waiting for the end to come. Something had to be done. So Filip came up with a plan, a road trip to reinvigorate his father, destination: Beaulieu-sur-Mer. He tracked down a vintage Renault, identical to the old family car, and roped in Fredrik – as well as a tiny film crew, so that the nostalgic journey could be documented. Lars, then aged 80 and armed with a French dictionary and a big fat book about Charles de Gaulle, was installed in the passenger seat, with Filip taking the wheel, and long-legged Fredrik crammed into the back seat, and off they went. When the film of their adventure, The Last Journey, was released in Sweden last year, it quickly became Scandinavia's highest-grossing documentary of all time. Now, this funny, life-affirming film is coming to British cinemas, which is how I come to find myself in London's Soho Hotel, asking Filip and Fredrik how Lars is handling his late-life fame. 'He said, 'I wish I was a little bit younger, a bit less frail, so I could enjoy the success more,'' replies Filip. 'But he gets so many lovely letters and emails from people who've seen the film, and Facebook messages from ex-students. I think he loves it.' There were points in the filming when this happy ending seemed far from assured. Only a couple of days into the journey, in Malmö, Lars fell, cracking a bone in his leg and requiring hospitalisation: it looked as if the whole trip was off. Instead, Filip and Fredrik decided to drive the ancient Renault ('Europe's most overtaken car', as Fredrik calls it) across Denmark, Germany and Belgium, where they were reunited with Lars, who had travelled there by train with Tiina, after being discharged from hospital. The documentary captures the playful, staged moment when the two friends plant Lars behind the wheel and push the Renault 4 over the border into France, a smile of sheer delight breaking across his face. His troisième âge had begun. 'Conventionally, you're not supposed to stage stuff in a documentary,' says Filip, who resists the idea that non-fiction films should maintain a po-faced, unmanipulated, 'fly-on-the-wall aesthetic'. Fredrik tells a story about the great German director Werner Herzog giving a talk to a class of film students. After one of them asked him if he'd ever staged something in any of his documentaries, 'Herzog said, 'Everyone who thinks a documentary needs to be straight up and fly-on-the-wall, raise your hand.' And everybody raised their hands. Then he said, 'Happy New Year, losers!' and left the room.' In The Last Journey, we see Filip ask his father what he used to love most about France. Lars thinks for a minute. 'It was great to meet people who don't stop at stop signs,' he says. 'Every Frenchman is his own president.' He also mentions that he used to enjoy seeing how the French would argue in traffic, which prompts Fredrik to visit a local casting agency, hire a couple of actors and stage a minor road-rage incident for the unwitting Lars. The following day, Filip takes his father to a roadside café for lunch, while Fredrik hides around the corner, directing proceedings via a walkie-talkie. ('Car number one – go! Car number two – go!') One of the actors pulls up in front of the café, blocking the road with his car; when a second actor drives up, an argument breaks out that ends with someone getting slapped. Lars watches, entranced, mouth slightly open, from his ringside seat at the café. I ask Fredrik when they broke it to Lars that the whole scene had been orchestrated. 'He was at a screening, two weeks before the premiere,' he says, 'and I suddenly realised we'd forgotten to tell him. When he was watching it and realised it was a set-up, he just turned to me with a lovely smile and said, 'You bastards.'' Filip laughs. 'He's always been a good sport.' The French trip functions as what Fredrik calls a sort of 'reverse bucket list' for Lars; repeating the same experiences he'd already ticked off decades before. They stay in the apartment where the family always used to go, enjoying the same old view from its balcony, and take trips to all the familiar haunts: the cemetery at Sète where Lars's hero the singer-songwriter Georges Brassens is buried; the beach; the market; the posh restaurants, where Filip now has to help his frail father keep the food on his fork and raise his wine glass high enough to swallow. 'And, in the editing, we realised that these almost desperate attempts to recreate the past also said so much about what Filip wants out of this,' says Fredrik. 'It's a metaphor for what he is trying to do, to recreate what was before.' And this is perhaps the film's most poignant aspect: Filip's desperation for his elderly father to enjoy life as he used to causes Lars in turn to feel sad that he is no longer living up to his son's expectations, that he is somehow disappointing him. It is Filip, it seems, who is in denial about ageing, not Lars. That realisation lands with unexpected emotional force. The process of making The Last Journey also led Filip to question his father's long-held view of France. While the country was always a source of happiness for Lars, 'I sometimes think, does France deserve all this love? We screened the film in Paris the other night, and it went down well, but to the French, it's like, 'You don't have to tell us that our country's great; we know!' I love France, but I also detest that self-congratulatory aura that almost every Frenchman has.' 'They take it for granted,' adds Fredrik, before admitting, slightly sheepishly, that he owns a second home in France. 'I love the weather, but the people..? The local baker treats me like s--- every morning.' The Last Journey is not the first time that Filip has turned the camera on his family. In 2007, he and Fredrik made an acclaimed series about Filip's sister Linda, who has a learning disability: I en annan del av Köping (In another part of Köping), which ran for four seasons. 'She was living in a home with three male friends, also learning disabled, and when you hung out with them, they were so funny, it was almost like Seinfeld,' Filip tells me. 'The first episode opened with her saying, 'Uh-oh, I've been unfaithful again...' and that set the tone for the series. It was not what people would expect.' The show was so popular that, for a while, Linda became a national celebrity. 'At one point, she was voted 'Woman of the Year' in Sweden. Ahead of the queen! 'For some reason, I tend to explore my family and my hometown in our work – it must be a kind of therapy, or a way of dealing with weirdness,' he says. 'But I have said to Fred, 'By the way, whenever you want to do something about your family, I would be open to that...'' 'They're not charismatic enough!' replies Fredrik. 'That's the harsh truth. They're so low-key.' 'But there is a sort of inverted charisma vibe to your parents,' says Filip, kindly. 'You'd have to dig really, really deep,' concedes Fredrik. When The Last Journey came out in Scandinavia, the scale of its success took both men by surprise. 'It had more admissions than Dune: Part Two, which had a huge marketing budget,' points out Fredrik. 'God, we're so boastful. There have been several successful documentaries in Sweden in recent years: one about the ex-prime minister Olof Palme; one about Ingrid Bergman; one about the footballer Zlatan Ibrahimović. And one is about a teacher from a small town: my dad. He beat them all.'
BBC News
4 hours ago
- BBC News
Coastguard warns Guernsey boat owners to follow sea safety rules
Boat owners in Guernsey have been warned to follow safety rules before heading to sea by the island's coastguard Coastguard said boat owners should follow the "Three Ps of sea safety" - prepare before leaving the harbour, provide the right equipment and perform responsibly at Way, acting harbour master, said following the rules would "reduce the risk of getting into difficulty, but also improve their chances of rescue if something does go wrong".He said: "Whether you are heading out for a day's fishing, sailing, or simply enjoying our beautiful coastline, it's vital to plan ahead" as "longer days and warmer weather" meant more people would use the sea. What are the Three Ps? The coastguard said the Three Ps people needed to follow were:PREPAREBefore leaving the harbour, prepare in the following way:Make a plan and tell someone ashore what you are doing and when you will be backCheck your boat thoroughly including fuel, engines, rigging, hull, electronics, bilge pumps, and gas systems (if fitted)Ensure your navigation lights and instruments are working up-to-date weather forecasts, tide times, and tidal flows for your intended passageKnow how to make a distress call and who to contact in an emergencyCheck the latest Navigation Warnings and Local Notices to Mariners at social media, or by listening to the Maritime Safety Information broadcast every 4 hours on VHF Channel 16/20PROVIDEMake sure you provide the right equipment on board:Serviced lifejackets for everyone aboardA reliable marine VHF radio (not just a mobile phone)Emergency flares - in-date and safely storedFire extinguishers, kill cord, EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) or PLB (Personal Locator Beacon)Navigation equipment - updated electronic or paper chartsPERFORMPerform responsibly on the water:Look after your passengers and crew - practice emergency procedures including person in the water recovery and making distress callsRespect harbour and bay speed limits and other rulesBe mindful of your wake and considerate of other vessels and water users, particularly in the baysThe coastguard said people should "never mix boating with alcohol or drugs, whether legal or otherwise". It said people going to sea to regularly should refresh their knowledge of safe boating practices and emergency procedures.
BBC News
4 hours ago
- BBC News
Explore bats, moths and more at Devon nature events
From twilight bat walks to early morning moth discoveries, nature enthusiasts in East Devon will have the chance to learn more about wildlife in their local area with a number of Wild East Devon programme is "packed with opportunities to get up close with some of the area's wildlife", the East Devon District Council highlights are bat walks at Seaton Wetlands, where participants use detectors to listen for calls from 14 recorded species, including the rare Bechstein's and grey long-eared bats. "From traditional crafts such as willow weaving and spoon carving to immersive wildlife experiences, there's something for everyone," countryside manager James Chubb said. Also new this year are moth and muffin mornings, which will "provide attendees with the chance to discover the beauty of moths and the staggering diversity of species found at Seaton Wetlands", the council Trinity Hill, nightjar walks will guide visitors through dusk landscapes in search of the elusive, ground-nesting nightjar, known for its haunting events include:Willow Garden Owl, Saturday 7 June, Seaton WetlandsSpoon Carving for Beginners, Saturday 14 June, Seaton WetlandsSeaton Wetlands Summer Holiday Club, 4–8 August
