> there has been zero change to regular life as a result of leaving the EU

Maybe yours. My life has been affected as a result, and I'm a UK born citizen. I think you left out these aspects (some affect me directly):

- UK people with access to a home abroad (for example in Spain) can no longer use it as they used to, or work there any more. There are short time limits, so people who used to go to their second home for the whole winter (for example) aren't allowed to do so any more. And they can't work there legally any more when they go; this is a huge step down in lifestyle for some people.

- UK people lost the freedom to work in EU countries which they used to enjoy. This especially affects contractors who used to travel to different countries for work: that work has basically stopped. And people who occasionally worked in another country for a couple of years (as I did). Getting visas is still theoretically possible as with any country, but it is not reliable and has made the UK persons much less attractive to employ than their counterparts who don't need them.

- Mobile roaming charge caps are going away, but only for UK people, as we drop out of EU regulations.

- The Erasmus educational travel and cultural exchange opportunity is gone for young UK citizens. The program created to replace it (non-EU because of course) has some good points but it is not equivalent, and it's one-way unlike Erasmus, so we no longer enjoy the company of as many foreign students in the UK for cultural exchange as we used to.

- All the musicians, DJs, and other performers who used to rely on performing at venues across the EU suddenly can't do that work any more. The UK is a much smaller market, so their work has dried up, but even for those finding work in the UK it's obviously a huge, unwanted change to their life compared with the travelling they did all the time before.

- The families whose lifestyle relied on having an "au pair" help at home (and provide language lessons for the children) can no longer do that, in practice.

- People in care homes aren't doing well: They can't find the staff for care homes, because too many of those doing the work have left now, and the seasonal intake from EU countries don't want to come here any more.

- Fruit and veg farmers aren't doing well: The seasonal staff they depend on no longer come over from other countries to do the job, because UK conditions are now unattractive compared with elsewhere.

- Can't find enough staff for hospitals. Multiple reasons, EU staff not coming over now is one of them.

- Every small business which exports to the EU, which is virtually all small businesses which export because EU is our largest export destination, has found its customer base shrink. Not only are costs and bureaucratic obstacles now much higher, and time delays higher, these factors have made the UK suppliers competitively unattractive compared to other EU suppliers, so EU customers are switching away, a stronger effect than mere costs.

- Horizon R&D science and tech funding is cancelled, and UK has only a joke replacement planned, with neither the funding or the quality of collaboration possible any more. Many research group's work has had to stop as a result. Of course losing many academic colleagues due to them feeling no longer welcome or sometimes not being able to stay, also adversely affected those groups.

- Some of us used to be approached by EU clients for freelancing/consulting opportunities. That work has dried up because of the new barriers.

- Some UK parents are unhappy their children won't have the opportunities they themselves had, to go travelling in the culturally interesting and varied EU/EEA/other while living off casual work among the various cultures and meeting all sorts of people. It's become much harder to do that for a UK young person.

- It's generally more of an unwelcome-feeling place for immigrants, and UK children of immigrants, than it used to be.

- Their UK citizen friends aren't happy either. Especially the ones who want to marry and find in the post-Brexit system they have to leave the UK because the UK prefers that its own citizens leave (and shut their businesses, local community connections, support of parents, etc), rather than having a spouse be allowed to stay. Previously the EU spouse could stay because "right to private family life" was a simple basic right, which has now gone.

- Brexit has and still is coinciding with abusive policies like the hostile environment policies that enforce homelessness on whoever who has problems getting the right database entries (nobody is allowed to rent to them, and landlords must re-check periodically); this now affects more people than before. Some EU people who've lived here legally for decades, even some grandparents, found themselves denied and stressed by those policies (affecting jobs, homes, healthcare) while trying to sort it out.

> substantially higher pay in London than the EU?

If that's what's important to you, there's plenty of pay in the EU, EEA and single market area if you know where to find it: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/software-engineering-sala... With the right companies and if you are lucky enough to still be entitled to work in the EU, you can also get the London pay while working remotely in an EU country; it's also realistic to hybrid commute from a nearby country with the excellent travel links.