When I did a 400-mile roundtrip for work, I stayed "away" all week. The way I did it was this,

Contract signed based on a "local" office location, to allow the expenses claims for the travel.
Flat rental paid for by company.
Car allowance over salary.
All mileage paid for by company. (at 40ppm)

Above this, I would typically arrive sometime Monday morning, and leave around lunchtime on Friday, and get home late afternoon\early evening.

I did this for a year, and had definitely had enough of it by then. When you add up the extra time spent, and the strain on your personal life, it's better (IMO) to take a few grand less and actually have a life.

350 miles! You'd have to be mental to even consider it.

To do it on a daily basis will kill your soul, trust me I've been comuting between Norfolk to London and Norfolk to Birmingham for several years and although it is 'dooable' it will slowly wear you into the ground.

Depending on your job if it's not a 9-5 and the blackberry/emails still come in after hours then not only do you have the commute you have to account for the out-of-hours work.

Key problem for you will be cost of fuel and time as any sort of social life Mon to Fri will be out the window and weekends will be spent recoverning from the commute.

Can't you move closer?

Personally I don't think I'd want to commute more than 40 minutes each way, perfectly happy with my 10 minute commute.

What is your personal situation? Kids/wife/missus/lothario? May have a bearing.

That said, I wouldn't entertain it without moving locally. I used to work with someone who lived in IoM - flew in to London City every Monday morning and back home Friday night. Worked for him but I believe he was childless or his kids were older. His earnings would have been many multiples of what he could have got locally (if he could get anything at all) though.

I have a young family and therefore wouldn't even consider it. Even without the kids, that's a pretty lonely existence. Are you the type for whom that doesn't matter?

I’m still here, thanks for all comments. I’ve decided to give this one a miss, waiting until it feels right. Can moving away for work ever feel right?
On a different matter (or the same….)
I’m unsure if its my age (22) or personality but I’ve been having a frustrating dilemma….
To give whoever is listening a little background… I’ve worked full time since 16, since 17 in this particular industry.
The job I have atm requires me to sit in front of a computer 95% of the day (5% for tabs) with little if any chance of progression, the reason is as I believe, the company is happy for me to churn out the work im currently producing because where were next step would lead is already ‘overpopulated’. < that will never change!
Hence I’ve been searching for jobs which offer better career prospects, a chance to prove what I can do hand in hand with a company who are willing to let me.

What’s frustrating me is… if I were to commute further my social life would obviously suffer
If I were to stay here my sanity would suffer as not progressing in a career at 22 in my eyes is downright pathetic
I have been tempted by half decent paid manual labour oriented work (danger money). But I’ve worked hard for the time I’ve been doing what I’m doing to get where I am and the qualification associated with it.
I’ve also registered my interests with local companies which may well come through.

In the meantime I’m having a quarter life crises, ie feeling sorry for myself < this then makes me feel like a t**t as it’s not really that bad as I’ve got a job, car etc., it is weird however that I can feel so lost!

I didn't really start to get anywhere in terms of a career until my mid-late twenties, so I wouldn't let it get you down too much. I spent my early twenties discovering that I was a terrible Estate Agent and that Window Cleaning was a bit too dangerous long-term.

Keep your feelers out at and check the job boards regularly, something will come up soon that will be much more local with better prospects.

I do a similar drive most days. start at 4.30 am and dont usually get home until atleast 7, any jobs over 2 and 1/2 hours away I get a hotel paid for. It's not easy so prefer lodging away. This is in a company van though so no cost to myself.
I've done 23,000 miles this year so far,

I moved to Norfolk for a better pace of life, and cheaper living costs. However, I chose a place that was right next to the A11 road that goes South out of the county, joins up with the M11 and then the M25.

My job was night manager of a city printing company - the hours were 9pm to 6am, Monday to Thursday.

So for four nights a week, I drove 100 miles there and 100 miles home in the morning. As there was little traffic at 7:30pm when I left Norfolk, and again at 6:00am when I left London, it was pretty good. And even if I was delayed at work and didn't leave until 7 or 8am - all the traffic was heading into London anyway - so going out was similarly easy.

I had a comfortable, fast and reliable turbo-charged Volvo with cruise control. It normally took 90 minutes each way, or less if I went a bit bananas

So basically, my commute was 800 miles a week by car, but pretty stress-free driving, distracting myself with listening to all kinds of music (I spent a lot of money on CD's when I was doing that job ) or audio books. The car was tuned, and entertainingly fast enough that sometimes I'd get involved in a 'ding-dong' with another car, and a bit of racing fun whiled away the commute quite nicely

Despite this, after two years of doing it, I was honest with myself - it was tiring, and had got boring and hard work.

My circumstances changed shortly after anyway which meant I stopped doing it.

But in my experience - any commute that is long, will get to be bad news after a year or three.

HTH

This.
You shouldn't be stressing yourself out jobwise at 22.
You are in the middle of the best years of your life (trust me).

For now just take the money, get out there and have fun!!!
You can start stressing about your job in about 6 years which should coincide with the upturn quite nicely.

Ive travelled similar to pick up a car...but then stayed in a hotel overnight. That's not a commute that's a road trip!

I commute 90 mile round trip each day and even that's beginning to feel like Ive made a bad decision...Oh and the people i work with are s.