Thanks everyone , you have really given me a lot of different ideas.
Re asia friendly, I am actually worried if the school is not multi-cultural, then my kids would have difficulty fitting in and making new friends. I am perhaps over worried because a lot of my friends move abroad and they didn't seem to have any issues.
My kids will be in local authority schools so I prefer to rent an apartment/house in a good catchment area, with family friendly facilities like libraries and parks.
I prefer a slower life so that's why I put Glasglow. I would never want to commute for 3 hours daily though !!! But after the point about Healthrow is good, I think I might have to stay closer, perhaps outer london. Any other medium to large city , with good schools and low crime rates and good employment prospect in IT?
My expense currently, converted to pounds, is 26k a year , excluding rent and tax.
food + utilities ~15k
commute 2k (we mostly walk as school, libraries, parks, shops are within 10min)
school related + child care 6k (tuition is free but as we are double income family , so after school care)
one vacation 2k
~various 1k
We are living in HK , so the mortgage/rent is expensive, I guess comparable to UK.
If we move, we plan to have a parent look after the kids and the other earn the bread and butter.
Using the info given by other readers, it looks like we would be under roughly the same expense