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London wasn't that great when it comes to tech jobs compared to US/Canada. Starting salary for grads at FANGs is around a third of what it is at large US cities

London wasn't that great when it comes to tech jobs compared to US/Canada. Starting salary for grads at FANGs is around a third of what it is at large US cities when living costs are no more than 30-40% lower for example. Compared to rest of Europe London is a lot better with notable exception of Switzerland which is a non-EU country. So to me it would seem that membership in EU is not a necessary condition for good tech jobs with competitive pay. I'd be a lot more worried about the general shift to working from home than leaving EU when it comes to London's importance as a tech center.

neural99 6y ago
I would agree to this about working from home. But this applies every city as well - New York being notable because of the mass emigration during COVID.
- lallysingh 6y ago
  I think most NY exits went to NJ by a good train line. NY should be fine.
holstvoogd 6y ago
Switzerland is not that great either I believe. Looked it up last year, I could make ~1.5 times what I make now, but prices are on average at least 2 times higher than where I live now.
- orange_tee 6y ago
  Taxes are very low, though.
djaahk 6y ago
I always feel like salary comparisons are a little biased by a slightly US-centric definition of a comfortable lifestyle (e.g. including a car, parking, bigger house requirements, etc) as well as underestimating some built-in benefits of other countries like free healthcare. Are there good sources out there that would afford a holistic cost comparison of a typical London lifestyle (Tube, 1-bedroom in Zone 1-2, weekend abroad in Europe, etc.) vs SF, LA or NY for instance? Otherwise agree that long-term the work from home trend could be slightly more concerning, but this won't materialise as soon as most think. There is still a lot of value in being physically close to networks of influence and decision-makers, which in the UK would very much still remain in London.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- marcinzm 6y ago
  >as underestimating some built-in benefits of other countries like free healthcare. If you're at FAANG (which the original post was talking about) then there's little advantage of free healthcare imho. You get top of the line company paid for healthcare. You can see a top specialist in a week with no referrals needed and someone almost as good same day.
  - bvcvbuiy 6y ago
    That is a given for every resident in most European countries. Edit: it seems I am wrong. I commented a bit too fast.
    - orange_tee 6y ago
      That's not true. For example in Germany there is an explicit difference between statutory healthcare and private healthcare. Private healthcare will get you to the front of the line and will give you easy access to all services. With statutory healthcare you will have to go around searching for specialists who have time for you, as most will refuse you on account of them being "fully booked".
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - majewsky 6y ago
        I'm a German with statutory healthcare. > most [specialists] will refuse you on account of them being "fully booked" I don't deny that this does happen, but it's not as inevitable as you make it sound. I've seen about a dozen separate specialists over the years for various reasons, and have never had such problems. There were a few outliers where I had to wait several weeks for an appointment, but that was only for non-urgent matters and I was never refused service. In most cases, I can get an appointment within 1-5 days of calling the doctor's office. My suspicion is that such overload as you describe is a regional issue, so if, as an immigrant, you need to rely on certain specialists because of chronic ailments, it may be worth to investigate the availability of the relevant specialist doctor beforehand.
0xy 6y ago
London beats any European city by a substantial amount, even including cost of living. I don't see why that would change. Switzerland as you point out has similarly high wages. I can't see innovation, talent or companies moving to the EU at any stage. It's a regulatory horror show and has massive brain drain to places that actually pay developers reasonable wages. Developers in Sweden are paid the equivalent of 51k USD. This means even including cost of living such as health insurance, you can make substantially more in the US, London or Switzerland. Developers in the EU get shafted big time. Free health insurance is not worth half, or even one-third the salary.
- patrickdet 6y ago
  > Developers in the EU get shafted big time. Free health insurance is not worth half, or even one-third the salary. It’s called solidarity
  - sharpneli 6y ago
    The money saved does not go into the healthcare. The healthcare is paid from taxes paid from salaries etc. So the bigger the salary the more funding for healthcare. I’m not complaining about the situation. Supply and demand determines IT wages quite well. For some reason US based devs are simply more in demand.
  - morlockabove 6y ago
    After this year, I've had more than enough of 'solidarity'.
  - 0xfaded 6y ago
    No, it's called getting shafted. The EU has more or less the same wealth floating around as any other western country, but it's in total stagnation. We can argue about why this is, but the end result is that asset prices are high, while there's no incentive to cycle money through the economy in a way that allows wealth building. Not even the government is willing to spend, which is a problem because the government has set itself up to be the subsidizer of everything. The scale of the problem is easily appearant when you see Brussels celebrating a €10b climate package. Exactly what is €20 per citizen supposed to achieve?
raverbashing 6y ago
Switzerland does have freedom of movement with the EU so thinking it's a "non-EU country" in terms of talent access is incorrect
mellosouls 6y ago
FANG salaries and financial rewards aren't relevant to most software engineers, though the proportion may be higher on HN. Realistic salaries more generally also can't be taken out of the wider context of living in a country with different social values and funding of them (I'm trying to be polite in reference to the comparative British/European vs USA perspectives of and funding with regard to social support and social disparities).
ff7c11 6y ago
Swiss tech companies find that there isn't enough talent within Switzerland unless they are focusing purely on the Swiss market. Cost of living is higher than London in somewhere like Geneva. For growing US tech companies, what is the main reason why they want to open a tech office in Europe? If it's just regulatory / business / tax stuff, there's no need to employ developers: it could just be business & legal side. If it's access to talent then London is still great. Perhaps that will decline as it won't be as easy to bring EU citizens over to work there. I know that the Silicon Valley salaries can be several times higher than in London, but for some Europeans it just doesn't seem super attractive to live and work in the US.

neural99 6y ago

I would agree to this about working from home. But this applies every city as well - New York being notable because of the mass emigration during COVID.

lallysingh 6y ago
I think most NY exits went to NJ by a good train line. NY should be fine.

holstvoogd 6y ago

Switzerland is not that great either I believe. Looked it up last year, I could make ~1.5 times what I make now, but prices are on average at least 2 times higher than where I live now.

orange_tee 6y ago
Taxes are very low, though.

djaahk 6y ago

I always feel like salary comparisons are a little biased by a slightly US-centric definition of a comfortable lifestyle (e.g. including a car, parking, bigger house requirements, etc) as well as underestimating some built-in benefits of other countries like free healthcare. Are there good sources out there that would afford a holistic cost comparison of a typical London lifestyle (Tube, 1-bedroom in Zone 1-2, weekend abroad in Europe, etc.) vs SF, LA or NY for instance? Otherwise agree that long-term the work from home trend could be slightly more concerning, but this won't materialise as soon as most think. There is still a lot of value in being physically close to networks of influence and decision-makers, which in the UK would very much still remain in London.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
marcinzm 6y ago
>as underestimating some built-in benefits of other countries like free healthcare. If you're at FAANG (which the original post was talking about) then there's little advantage of free healthcare imho. You get top of the line company paid for healthcare. You can see a top specialist in a week with no referrals needed and someone almost as good same day.
- bvcvbuiy 6y ago
  That is a given for every resident in most European countries. Edit: it seems I am wrong. I commented a bit too fast.
  - orange_tee 6y ago
    That's not true. For example in Germany there is an explicit difference between statutory healthcare and private healthcare. Private healthcare will get you to the front of the line and will give you easy access to all services. With statutory healthcare you will have to go around searching for specialists who have time for you, as most will refuse you on account of them being "fully booked".
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - majewsky 6y ago
      I'm a German with statutory healthcare. > most [specialists] will refuse you on account of them being "fully booked" I don't deny that this does happen, but it's not as inevitable as you make it sound. I've seen about a dozen separate specialists over the years for various reasons, and have never had such problems. There were a few outliers where I had to wait several weeks for an appointment, but that was only for non-urgent matters and I was never refused service. In most cases, I can get an appointment within 1-5 days of calling the doctor's office. My suspicion is that such overload as you describe is a regional issue, so if, as an immigrant, you need to rely on certain specialists because of chronic ailments, it may be worth to investigate the availability of the relevant specialist doctor beforehand.

0xy 6y ago

London beats any European city by a substantial amount, even including cost of living. I don't see why that would change. Switzerland as you point out has similarly high wages. I can't see innovation, talent or companies moving to the EU at any stage. It's a regulatory horror show and has massive brain drain to places that actually pay developers reasonable wages. Developers in Sweden are paid the equivalent of 51k USD. This means even including cost of living such as health insurance, you can make substantially more in the US, London or Switzerland. Developers in the EU get shafted big time. Free health insurance is not worth half, or even one-third the salary.

patrickdet 6y ago
> Developers in the EU get shafted big time. Free health insurance is not worth half, or even one-third the salary. It’s called solidarity
- sharpneli 6y ago
  The money saved does not go into the healthcare. The healthcare is paid from taxes paid from salaries etc. So the bigger the salary the more funding for healthcare. I’m not complaining about the situation. Supply and demand determines IT wages quite well. For some reason US based devs are simply more in demand.
- morlockabove 6y ago
  After this year, I've had more than enough of 'solidarity'.
- 0xfaded 6y ago
  No, it's called getting shafted. The EU has more or less the same wealth floating around as any other western country, but it's in total stagnation. We can argue about why this is, but the end result is that asset prices are high, while there's no incentive to cycle money through the economy in a way that allows wealth building. Not even the government is willing to spend, which is a problem because the government has set itself up to be the subsidizer of everything. The scale of the problem is easily appearant when you see Brussels celebrating a €10b climate package. Exactly what is €20 per citizen supposed to achieve?

raverbashing 6y ago

Switzerland does have freedom of movement with the EU so thinking it's a "non-EU country" in terms of talent access is incorrect

mellosouls 6y ago

FANG salaries and financial rewards aren't relevant to most software engineers, though the proportion may be higher on HN. Realistic salaries more generally also can't be taken out of the wider context of living in a country with different social values and funding of them (I'm trying to be polite in reference to the comparative British/European vs USA perspectives of and funding with regard to social support and social disparities).

ff7c11 6y ago

Swiss tech companies find that there isn't enough talent within Switzerland unless they are focusing purely on the Swiss market. Cost of living is higher than London in somewhere like Geneva. For growing US tech companies, what is the main reason why they want to open a tech office in Europe? If it's just regulatory / business / tax stuff, there's no need to employ developers: it could just be business & legal side. If it's access to talent then London is still great. Perhaps that will decline as it won't be as easy to bring EU citizens over to work there. I know that the Silicon Valley salaries can be several times higher than in London, but for some Europeans it just doesn't seem super attractive to live and work in the US.