6 ms·

I'm curious, whats the avarage starting salary at a financial company in london? Sometimes I see salaries of 23k-25k pound per year (for other software companie

by tomh- 15y ago

I'm curious, whats the avarage starting salary at a financial company in london? Sometimes I see salaries of 23k-25k pound per year (for other software companies) from which you can barely afford an appartment for yourself in London.

dmitri1981 15y ago
around £35k+bonus for dev at decent bank.
- wazzles 15y ago
  yup 35 - 40k starting, 50 to 60k after a few years, over 100k possible after 5 (top tier IB)
JonoW 15y ago
As a bit of a finger in the air estimate from looking at job ads here, I would probably estimate that a London finance company will pay about 50% more than a "normal" company. Not sure what a starting salary would be, but I would bet it would be > 30k. After 5 years you would probably be on > 60k, but if you're quite specialist (in terms of finance based skills) you could be earning much more.
c3m 15y ago
Working for Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and the lot, starting salaries for Imperial graduates are upwards of £40k (definitely know people who are starting at £50k). You're correct, £25k seems to be a ballpark figure for software houses. Looking at it statistically, average salary for Imperial graduates is something like £35k, so you can do the math and infer what the top grads are earning.
- eroded 15y ago
  Paying £25k (~$40k USD) for grad devs in London is a bit cheeky, when you consider the living costs are higher than in Silicon Valley (http://tinyurl.com/6e8d3th http://tinyurl.com/6e8d3th). Clearly, UK students enjoy selling their soul to live in bedsits eating noodles :-)
  - nickthedart 15y ago
    Agreed, and even many experienced developer jobs are advertised at only about £40k. When you look at the cost of living in London, its simply not worth it. I'm amazed they manage to recruit at all frankly. You could quite possibly have a better material lifestyle by living in a cheaper area in northern england and stacking shelves in a supermarket for a living. I can never understand why so many high tech companies base themselves in London, when they could relocate up north and get very talented developers for much less who will stick around and who will be happy too as a £20k salary in the north actually gives them a chance of buying a house.
    - mseebach 15y ago
      London isn't a half bad city to live in. Good luck enjoy the kind of communities we have here (literally hundreds show up for the HN meetups) while stacking shelves in a supermarket up north.
iaskwhy 15y ago
Started two months ago, around £78k after taxes.
njs12345 15y ago
My friend is earning £40k pro-rata for a 10 week internship at one of the big IBs in London, so I'd guess starting salaries would be quite a bit above that..
throwaway__ 15y ago
throw away account... I work at a small hedge fund in London, started on £28k (actually might have been less, I literally can't remember now), after 4 years I am up to £40k, with around £5k bonus each year. I have basically been doing CRUD of various flavours the whole time under a bullying atmosphere, utterly soul-destroying and it's got me stuck in the Stockholm syndrome scenario, my skills ground down to the point where I literally can't get another job to get out of it. Am working very hard to counter it, but it's a big job, probably another year of work to stand a chance of getting a decent software job (I'm not going to try for another internal finance job, if that sucks as much it'll be pretty impossible to bear). So yeah, I don't recommend it, though it might just me having bad luck here. I think very few internal jobs, finance included, are even vaguely bearable for hackers - I heard the idea that finance likes to hire overqualified people for monotonous/trivial jobs to make sure they're done right, so you have to be really careful. [1]:http://www.chadfowler.com/2010/12/30/dead-end-jobs-are-you-suffering-from-stockholm-syndrome http://www.chadfowler.com/2010/12/30/dead-end-jobs-are-you-s...
- bhickey 15y ago
  You should have put a mailinator.com address in your account profile. If you would, drop me an e-mail (see profile). My employer is hiring. Located near Moorgate. Not a deathmarch. Edit: Hmm.. I think HN hides e-mail addresses. http://bhickey.net/contact http://bhickey.net/contact
  - throwaway__ 15y ago
    I emailed you. In summary: I don't think I'm capable of passing an interview atm, certainly if (as I presume) your place is good. But we can discuss, at least.
- ig1 15y ago
  You're getting screwed. With 4 years experience at an investment bank you could be making quite a bit more than that, at a hedge fund you should be getting a risk premium on top of that as well.
  - 15y ago
ropiku 15y ago
My colleagues on placement (between year 2-3 of uni) get around £40k/year at investment banks.

by tomh- 15y ago

dmitri1981 15y ago

around £35k+bonus for dev at decent bank.

wazzles 15y ago
yup 35 - 40k starting, 50 to 60k after a few years, over 100k possible after 5 (top tier IB)

JonoW 15y ago

As a bit of a finger in the air estimate from looking at job ads here, I would probably estimate that a London finance company will pay about 50% more than a "normal" company. Not sure what a starting salary would be, but I would bet it would be > 30k. After 5 years you would probably be on > 60k, but if you're quite specialist (in terms of finance based skills) you could be earning much more.

c3m 15y ago

Working for Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and the lot, starting salaries for Imperial graduates are upwards of £40k (definitely know people who are starting at £50k). You're correct, £25k seems to be a ballpark figure for software houses. Looking at it statistically, average salary for Imperial graduates is something like £35k, so you can do the math and infer what the top grads are earning.

eroded 15y ago
Paying £25k (~$40k USD) for grad devs in London is a bit cheeky, when you consider the living costs are higher than in Silicon Valley (http://tinyurl.com/6e8d3th http://tinyurl.com/6e8d3th). Clearly, UK students enjoy selling their soul to live in bedsits eating noodles :-)
- nickthedart 15y ago
  Agreed, and even many experienced developer jobs are advertised at only about £40k. When you look at the cost of living in London, its simply not worth it. I'm amazed they manage to recruit at all frankly. You could quite possibly have a better material lifestyle by living in a cheaper area in northern england and stacking shelves in a supermarket for a living. I can never understand why so many high tech companies base themselves in London, when they could relocate up north and get very talented developers for much less who will stick around and who will be happy too as a £20k salary in the north actually gives them a chance of buying a house.
  - mseebach 15y ago
    London isn't a half bad city to live in. Good luck enjoy the kind of communities we have here (literally hundreds show up for the HN meetups) while stacking shelves in a supermarket up north.

iaskwhy 15y ago

Started two months ago, around £78k after taxes.

njs12345 15y ago

My friend is earning £40k pro-rata for a 10 week internship at one of the big IBs in London, so I'd guess starting salaries would be quite a bit above that..

throwaway__ 15y ago

throw away account... I work at a small hedge fund in London, started on £28k (actually might have been less, I literally can't remember now), after 4 years I am up to £40k, with around £5k bonus each year. I have basically been doing CRUD of various flavours the whole time under a bullying atmosphere, utterly soul-destroying and it's got me stuck in the Stockholm syndrome scenario, my skills ground down to the point where I literally can't get another job to get out of it. Am working very hard to counter it, but it's a big job, probably another year of work to stand a chance of getting a decent software job (I'm not going to try for another internal finance job, if that sucks as much it'll be pretty impossible to bear). So yeah, I don't recommend it, though it might just me having bad luck here. I think very few internal jobs, finance included, are even vaguely bearable for hackers - I heard the idea that finance likes to hire overqualified people for monotonous/trivial jobs to make sure they're done right, so you have to be really careful. [1]:http://www.chadfowler.com/2010/12/30/dead-end-jobs-are-you-suffering-from-stockholm-syndrome http://www.chadfowler.com/2010/12/30/dead-end-jobs-are-you-s...

bhickey 15y ago
You should have put a mailinator.com address in your account profile. If you would, drop me an e-mail (see profile). My employer is hiring. Located near Moorgate. Not a deathmarch. Edit: Hmm.. I think HN hides e-mail addresses. http://bhickey.net/contact http://bhickey.net/contact
- throwaway__ 15y ago
  I emailed you. In summary: I don't think I'm capable of passing an interview atm, certainly if (as I presume) your place is good. But we can discuss, at least.
ig1 15y ago
You're getting screwed. With 4 years experience at an investment bank you could be making quite a bit more than that, at a hedge fund you should be getting a risk premium on top of that as well.
- 15y ago

ropiku 15y ago

My colleagues on placement (between year 2-3 of uni) get around £40k/year at investment banks.