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New York is very expensive, but from what everyone I know tells me London is even worse. You should start researching the neighborhoods and do a real cost benefit analysis and also determine if you would like the lifestyle in NYC.
With no dependents, $200K for a single person allows you to live in almost any neighborhood. From midtown to the outer boroughs you can find different scales of affordability, most of which will be open to you.
But, financially, that NYC offer easily beats London. London rents and prices of necessities are much higher than NYC, whether you're comparing prime Manhattan to central London or all of NYC against all of Greater London, and the conversion rate hovers around the 1.6:1 ratio where the two salaries are equal (though it's been as high as 1.2:1 or as low as almost 2:1 at certain points).
The rent Central London vs. Manhattan/prime Brooklyn would be pretty on par. Having spent quite a bit of time in London over the years, I would say just about every other living expense would be less in NYC. The one exception would be health insurance but hopefully your employer pays for most/all of it.
$4000 for an apartment midtown unless you want to live in Washington Heights. Food is inexpensive unless you want to ball out and dine in 5 star restaurants every night. Sure you can buy clothes on sale here unlike UK and you will find 50% + more off on designer clothes from Italy. $200k is healthy lifestyle in NYC but that would be the starting salary for some around here.
$4000 for an apartment midtown unless you want to live in Washington Heights. Food is inexpensive unless you want to ball out and dine in 5 star restaurants every night. Sure you can buy clothes on sale here unlike UK and you will find 50% + more off on designer clothes from Italy. $200k is healthy lifestyle in NYC but that would be the starting salary for some around here.
Food is very expensive, even if you're not dining at 5 star restaurants regularly. Even less expensive food here is way overpriced. A large pizza with a basic topping or two can be close to $30 before sales tax and tip for delivery. I just got my haircut at Supercuts and it was $22 before tip; it was around $16 in the Boston area (where I moved from recently).
Businesses are being fleeced in terms of rent and or real estate taxes so they're passing that fleecing onto us as customers.
For expenses besides rent, the additional dollar amount (vs. other cities) may not be as high but the percentage is still very high. I feel like I'm being fleeced with every purchase, even before the 8.875% sales tax.
That said, $200K is certainly enough to live off of for a single person, but I wouldn't call that rich by any means. The take home will be ~$118K with 2 allowances at each level and no additional deductions. Rent for a 1BR with an internal W/D in a doorman building can easily run $5K+/month. That leaves <$60K for all other expenses.
The cost of living here gets very old very fast.
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