Thank you, I'll take a look for that scheme.
I have contacted the University organisations, my application was a little late so I had missed a lot of funding opportunities that go early but applied for anything that was available and spoke to my supervisor for departmental funding. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot going this year on that level due to changes in the system it seems.
The original plan has been to have enough saved to cover the very basic living costs and then small bar/shop job for anything extra. There is no way I could work my current job with full-time research on top, that for sure :)
I did a quick search and found that the UK also has a distributed version of the AU Research Training Scheme. Have you contacted the postgraduate student organisations, talked to your intended supervisor? You might have to defer for a year to save up enough to fund your year of research. BTW, once you get involved in your research work it is extremely hard to hold down a job as well.