Re: moving to England
Surrey is a pretty nice area there are grammar schools here. Depending on where you live in Surrey you can be in London in an hour. I studied in Leicester and the city has some nice areas, though I do not know much about schools. You can get to central London from Leicester in roughly over an hour on the direct train. Ashford in Kent will get you into Central London in about 40 min. St Albans is good for commuting to and from London and has a reasonable house price.
I think your friends should look into local schools, shops and transport to help them decide for location. As traffic can get really bad in Central London people normally commute by public transport so I would recommend picking a place that also has good transport links.