I did quite a lot of research on salaries in the London area 2 years ago. Starting wage for a programmer out of school was around 3-3.5K€ per month. Some plac

I did quite a lot of research on salaries in the London area 2 years ago. Starting wage for a programmer out of school was around 3-3.5K€ per month. Some places paid up to 4K per month (90th percentile). 25th% percentile was 2.5K€ per month. I have heard that starting wages have gone up a bit in the last few years. Your numbers for the UK are more typical outside of London, though. Of course nothing like Bay area salaries, even though London is ridiculously expensive. Some Googling seems to indicate that the cost of living in SF is about 25% higher than London, so real earnings are quite a bit higher there for programmers it seems.