software jobs in the UK are insane. They are illogical. I work in finance in London, which is about the only place (in Europe, perhaps) that's even comparable t

software jobs in the UK are insane. They are illogical. I work in finance in London, which is about the only place (in Europe, perhaps) that's even comparable to US/California rates. I make a six figure base (GBP) and a hefty bonus on top. But my real passion is audio and signal processing. I look at job postings around the country for embedded developers and DSP specialists; fields that require much more specialist skills than the CRUD web apps and PDF reports I generally produce for my employers, but those jobs are offering a fifth of my current income! I've seen jobs saying "master's degree in computer science and 5 years of experience required" offering 30k. We pay our grad students more than that. Edit: obviously, it's not really a mystery as to why; you get paid money when you work in an industry that has lots of it. But the discrepancy is still shocking.