Developing a Must-Have App for UK Expats

The App Store is filled with millions of applications for users to use that can both provide entertainment and help them with their day-to-day life. If you’ve recently moved to the UK or are thinking about doing so, you can find several iPhone and Android apps that can help you get to grips with living in a new country. Apps like Citymapper, Trainline, Zoopla, NHS and Klarna are all apps that will benefit any UK expat.

Something that seems to be missing in the App Store is an all-in-one app for UK expats that has many different uses. This will eliminate the need to have multiple apps on your iPhone that take up a lot of space and memory. While developing this type of app can prove tricky and complex, we are here to give inspiration as to what should be included on this app to best benefit any expat coming to live in the UK.

Must-Have Features for UK Expat App

Maps

The likelihood is that an expat won’t be very familiar with the area they move to in the UK, whether they are living in the capital city of London or in a more rural area like Huddersfield. Having a map as a built-in app feature can give expats the chance to navigate their new neighbourhood and surrounding areas with ease. If the app can give them directions from their current location to their desired destination, it will further enhance their experience.

Google Maps is one of the most downloaded apps on the App Store and it’s no surprise. The power to zoom into any street in the world, no matter how big or small, is very powerful and is used by hundreds of millions of people for all their navigation needs.

Public Transport Passes

There are multiple apps in the UK that allow users to purchase passes and tickets for public transport. Some of the main examples include Trainline, Bee Network and National Rail. Users can download these applications, purchase tickets and have them stored within the app to reveal to any ticket inspectors that board your train or to your bus driver. 

Having this feature will be essential for UK expats and having it located all within the same app as the other features in this list will make their new life in the country much easier, as they can avoid any public transport fines.

Social Calendar

Having a social calendar will be essential to living a fruitful and enjoyable life when moving to the UK from abroad. This is especially the case if you’re moving to a populated city like London or Manchester, as arranging your social life can be tough due to there being so much to do. Organising what activities to do on each day can be stressful, so it would help significantly if there was an application to help with this.

Having a feature that will organise all of your activities to create you an efficient schedule that fits everything in should be a part of this application. It can also give insight into activities that expats might not be aware of, such as British festivals and UK national holidays.

Money Management

Money management can be difficult, especially for expats in the UK who have to adapt to a new currency. It can help them to consolidate and track finances across multiple currencies from both their home country and the UK, so they can get a clearer picture of their spending habits. This can help them with managing their finances, which will help them to live in the UK. While banking systems are good for this, it would be much more beneficial to have it all on the same application.

It could also provide a feature that allows expats to see live exchange rates, so they can compare conversion costs and potentially find better deals when they are transferring money from their home currency to British pounds.

Learning Materials

Having learning materials on the application will allow expats to learn more about the UK to help them adjust to the new culture. If they better understand UK culture, they can quickly get to grips with what people are like in the country and what they expect from others. It can also help with learning the English language if expats aren’t too familiar with it.

If an expat is looking to obtain permanent residency in the UK, they might have to undergo the British Citizenship test. Having content on the application that can help them study for this test will give them a better opportunity of passing it.

Translation

Google translate has proven to be an extremely useful tool by people all over the world and it is one of the most used applications. Having a translation feature on an application for UK expats can help them gain familiarity with the British language and help them better converse with people in the country. 

It can help with anything from simple phrases to more complex sentences by either inputting words from the expats home language and changing it to British, or taking UK phrases and seeing what the equivalent in your country is.