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> You can try your luck elsewhere, but it's hard to think of where exactly Huh? Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle have plenty of work, you get paid rather less

> You can try your luck elsewhere, but it's hard to think of where exactly Huh? Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle have plenty of work, you get paid rather less (surprisingly not much less last 5 years - but that's been London rates falling rather than north rising), but keep significantly more in your pocket. The people and beer are nicer in the grim North too. Aside from during the peak of dot con and y2k contract rate insanity I've avoided London like the plague. It's a great place to visit for a show, but live and work? I never understood the appeal of earning 25% more, but having 50-70% less in your pocket after housing and travel. It's the only UK city where the pollution is palpable, and constant.

vidarh 10y ago
London is nice as long as you live on the outskirts. When I first moved to London, I lived in Farringdon and then Marble Arch, and the first couple of years it was awesome to be able to just step outside the door and be in the centre of town (at Marble Arch I literally had two minutes walk to be on Oxford Street, or could cross the road and be in Hyde Park). But the pollution was certainly awful - it's the only place I've lived where your snot would be black at the end of the day. And then I moved to Barnes (South West London - very leafy, very affluent), but when we decided to buy it was too expensive, and we ended up moving to Croydon (zone 5, South). I don't think I'll ever move closer in towards the centre again. If I were to consider moving elsewhere, it'd be either further out, or along the edge of London somewhere along one of the major train lines. You get the option of working in the centre when it makes sense, it's far more relaxing, greener, far less pollution, and far cheaper. I can see the appeal of moving somewhere else entirely, but this is a decent compromise for people who want easy access to London but don't want all the downsides of the centre.
- stuaxo 10y ago
  Hm, if commuting, I prefer to live somewhere else entirely, the outskirts of London seem to have none of the advantages (places to go, things to do), but all the disadvantages.
  - vidarh 10y ago
    It is close enough to have the places to go and things to do, and the high paid jobs, but far enough to not pay central London house prices. To me that's highly attractive. Especially now that I rarely need to commute.
robmcm 10y ago
25% more is a bit of an understatement. A web developer outside of London could expect 40/50K pa where as in London you could earn 600 a day contracting. That's 2-3 times the money, plus with so many jobs you don't have to worry about becoming trapped.
- gambiting 10y ago
  To be fair, I live in Newcastle and I know people contracting for web dev here who charge 500 pounds/day. But then again, my partner is a salaried web dev and she makes 32k. Contracting does have its downsides though.
  - robmcm 10y ago
    The contracts in London are often 6-12 months for big companies, for agencies less. However there are so many the is little risk of ever being without work. A graduate developer at a finance company would earn over 40k...
    - vidarh 10y ago
      There are so many now. The big risk with contracting is that when times get tough, suddenly everything dries up, while at the same time jumping ship and going back to permanent work gets hareder. If contracting, you need to factor in the risk of a recession by building up according reserves, so you need to make accordingly more in good times. You certainly can still do extremely well, but the risk is certainly there.
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
  Not really. Comparing contract with perm is not really a workable comparison. There's plenty of web dev contracts in the North, but rates might be 400 - 500 a day. In permanent roles the bump, if any, seems to be around 25%. If you're more junior in PHP the perm roles are similarly salaried in London as outside it (at least going on a friend who complained about this a lot a year or two ago).

vidarh 10y ago

London is nice as long as you live on the outskirts. When I first moved to London, I lived in Farringdon and then Marble Arch, and the first couple of years it was awesome to be able to just step outside the door and be in the centre of town (at Marble Arch I literally had two minutes walk to be on Oxford Street, or could cross the road and be in Hyde Park). But the pollution was certainly awful - it's the only place I've lived where your snot would be black at the end of the day. And then I moved to Barnes (South West London - very leafy, very affluent), but when we decided to buy it was too expensive, and we ended up moving to Croydon (zone 5, South). I don't think I'll ever move closer in towards the centre again. If I were to consider moving elsewhere, it'd be either further out, or along the edge of London somewhere along one of the major train lines. You get the option of working in the centre when it makes sense, it's far more relaxing, greener, far less pollution, and far cheaper. I can see the appeal of moving somewhere else entirely, but this is a decent compromise for people who want easy access to London but don't want all the downsides of the centre.

stuaxo 10y ago
Hm, if commuting, I prefer to live somewhere else entirely, the outskirts of London seem to have none of the advantages (places to go, things to do), but all the disadvantages.
- vidarh 10y ago
  It is close enough to have the places to go and things to do, and the high paid jobs, but far enough to not pay central London house prices. To me that's highly attractive. Especially now that I rarely need to commute.

robmcm 10y ago

25% more is a bit of an understatement. A web developer outside of London could expect 40/50K pa where as in London you could earn 600 a day contracting. That's 2-3 times the money, plus with so many jobs you don't have to worry about becoming trapped.

gambiting 10y ago
To be fair, I live in Newcastle and I know people contracting for web dev here who charge 500 pounds/day. But then again, my partner is a salaried web dev and she makes 32k. Contracting does have its downsides though.
- robmcm 10y ago
  The contracts in London are often 6-12 months for big companies, for agencies less. However there are so many the is little risk of ever being without work. A graduate developer at a finance company would earn over 40k...
  - vidarh 10y ago
    There are so many now. The big risk with contracting is that when times get tough, suddenly everything dries up, while at the same time jumping ship and going back to permanent work gets hareder. If contracting, you need to factor in the risk of a recession by building up according reserves, so you need to make accordingly more in good times. You certainly can still do extremely well, but the risk is certainly there.
anexprogrammer 10y ago
Not really. Comparing contract with perm is not really a workable comparison. There's plenty of web dev contracts in the North, but rates might be 400 - 500 a day. In permanent roles the bump, if any, seems to be around 25%. If you're more junior in PHP the perm roles are similarly salaried in London as outside it (at least going on a friend who complained about this a lot a year or two ago).