8 ms·

Ask HN: Why salaries tend be lower for tech workers in UK compared to US

9 points by mraza007 5y ago

Would love to hear opinions on this. Even though living in London is expensive

uberman 5y ago
The optimist in me wants to say better fringe benefits like vacation and healthcare. The pessimist say the your your timezone proximity to inexpensive talent from eastern Europe is a factor
- nness 5y ago
  Even outside of the tech co.'s, cheaper talent across Europe is a huge factor. I'd also guess its because product teams are also largely centralised in the US, meaning development-focused talent is not in the same demand. Similarly, the variety of industries avaialble in cities like London, Berin, Madrid, etc., mean that salaries tend to homogenise across industries, instead of being almost exclusively tech co's. In any case, a base tech salary in London can exceed £100k for manager/engineer lead roles, which is almost 3x the average salary within the city. I wouldn't say that's anything to complain about.
- cosmodisk 5y ago
  Having returned to Baltics recently, it's so refreshing to see the tech salaries over here that already look very similar to those in the UK. Just five years ago,the picture was completely different.
TechBro8615 5y ago
Because everybody does it, and because the big US corps conveniently have strict regional salary bands. Also, for the top tax brackets (120k+), the total cost per employee, divided by net salary, is far higher in the UK than the US. The UK government incentivizes corporations to pay their employees less.
comp_throw7 5y ago
It has very little to do with incidentals like benefits, vacation time, etc, and is mostly a question of the huge difference in the productivity of labor of software engineers employed by companies that pay well and companies that don't. FAANG (and similar companies) derive a huge amount of value from each software engineer, which puts a much higher ceiling on how much they can afford to pay them before it stops making sense to hire them at all. And the reason they _do_ end up at a much higher number is because they're competing for a limited # of engineers that pass their bar. Companies which don't get massive scale on the software they write (and therefore derive much less value from "write once, sell many times") pay correspondingly less.
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  So why doesnt facebook hire in london where they 'll get an even bigger value for their money
  - babygoat 5y ago
    They do.
  - comp_throw7 5y ago
    They do, as do Google, Amazon, and Apple. Guess what companies are paying top of market in London?
readonthegoapp 5y ago
I'd actually love to hear facts on this Business always studies this stuff like crazy Seems strange that 'we' don't know
toast0 5y ago
My guess is it has a lot to do with how easy or not it is to start your own thing. In my mind, developers in the US are more likely to have options to strike out on their own, so they need more $ to work for the man.
- readonthegoapp 5y ago
  I always assumed it was the opposite -- mainly because of healthcare. I think the various 'entrepreneur indexes' generally rank the US high, but I'm not sure i buy it -- just b/c of the healthcare thing. i would think, ok, right off the top, you get rid of anyone 30+ years old, anyone with a family, any women, anyone with any kind of health problems, anyone who is not a super-high-rish-taker, etc. So that leaves the white dudes going to MIT, Stanford, and a few other places. Actually surprised that I don't remember seeing much/any talk about those entrepreneur indexes here.
  - toast0 5y ago
    There have always been options for healthcare, the best one being have a spouse with a job with good coverage. Now, with the ACA, you can get meh coverage without the extensive shopping and hoop jumping it used to require.
  - rdtwo 5y ago
    During covid healthcare is an illusion. You can’t actually get anything other than emergency room care and online appointments
369548684892826 5y ago
If you're looking at the higher end of the scale in London, and maybe ignore the >99th percentile in US where salaries get astronomical, I reckon the hourly rate might be in the same ball park. For example a quick search in London shows a dev job at £160K, which is $221K. You would probably have an extra 4 weeks holiday in the London job, so that's the equivalent of $240K. In London you've got a good chance of sticking close to working 40 hours a week too, depending on the company. In the US it sounds like longer hours are more likely.
cblconfederate 5y ago
Like everything in capitalism, the guys at the top get disproportionally higher rewards.
aspiringtechYy 5y ago
I always had the impression that the US pays better than any other country when it comes to tech. On the other specter the minimum wage in the US is much lower then a lot of places in Europe. Might be off topic but I'm looking for fintech job, in my country we have fintech companies like https://www.sambla.no/ https://www.sambla.no/, https://lanfordeg.no/ https://lanfordeg.no/ and https://xn--ln-yia.no/ https://xn--ln-yia.no/. Companies like this is what I'm trying to get a job at. Does anyone have any tips on how to get a job in a fintech company. I only tried applying to one so far and havent heard back. Should I apply to all at the same time? Will they be more impressed if i put my resume on a website? Any nice tricks that fintech companies like when looking for new hires?
cascom 5y ago
I think it’s the same reason that developers in SF make more then their counterparts in say Denver. It’s purely supply and demand and labor doesn’t markets are inefficient (especially geographically) If I had to guess there are probably 10x the tech workers in California than in the UK, which drives the bulk of the disparity.

9 points by mraza007 5y ago

Would love to hear opinions on this. Even though living in London is expensive

The optimist in me wants to say better fringe benefits like vacation and healthcare. The pessimist say the your your timezone proximity to inexpensive talent from eastern Europe is a factor

nness 5y ago
Even outside of the tech co.'s, cheaper talent across Europe is a huge factor. I'd also guess its because product teams are also largely centralised in the US, meaning development-focused talent is not in the same demand. Similarly, the variety of industries avaialble in cities like London, Berin, Madrid, etc., mean that salaries tend to homogenise across industries, instead of being almost exclusively tech co's. In any case, a base tech salary in London can exceed £100k for manager/engineer lead roles, which is almost 3x the average salary within the city. I wouldn't say that's anything to complain about.
cosmodisk 5y ago
Having returned to Baltics recently, it's so refreshing to see the tech salaries over here that already look very similar to those in the UK. Just five years ago,the picture was completely different.

TechBro8615 5y ago

Because everybody does it, and because the big US corps conveniently have strict regional salary bands. Also, for the top tax brackets (120k+), the total cost per employee, divided by net salary, is far higher in the UK than the US. The UK government incentivizes corporations to pay their employees less.

comp_throw7 5y ago

It has very little to do with incidentals like benefits, vacation time, etc, and is mostly a question of the huge difference in the productivity of labor of software engineers employed by companies that pay well and companies that don't. FAANG (and similar companies) derive a huge amount of value from each software engineer, which puts a much higher ceiling on how much they can afford to pay them before it stops making sense to hire them at all. And the reason they _do_ end up at a much higher number is because they're competing for a limited # of engineers that pass their bar. Companies which don't get massive scale on the software they write (and therefore derive much less value from "write once, sell many times") pay correspondingly less.

cblconfederate 5y ago
So why doesnt facebook hire in london where they 'll get an even bigger value for their money
- babygoat 5y ago
  They do.
- comp_throw7 5y ago
  They do, as do Google, Amazon, and Apple. Guess what companies are paying top of market in London?

readonthegoapp 5y ago

I'd actually love to hear facts on this Business always studies this stuff like crazy Seems strange that 'we' don't know

toast0 5y ago

My guess is it has a lot to do with how easy or not it is to start your own thing. In my mind, developers in the US are more likely to have options to strike out on their own, so they need more $ to work for the man.

readonthegoapp 5y ago
I always assumed it was the opposite -- mainly because of healthcare. I think the various 'entrepreneur indexes' generally rank the US high, but I'm not sure i buy it -- just b/c of the healthcare thing. i would think, ok, right off the top, you get rid of anyone 30+ years old, anyone with a family, any women, anyone with any kind of health problems, anyone who is not a super-high-rish-taker, etc. So that leaves the white dudes going to MIT, Stanford, and a few other places. Actually surprised that I don't remember seeing much/any talk about those entrepreneur indexes here.
- toast0 5y ago
  There have always been options for healthcare, the best one being have a spouse with a job with good coverage. Now, with the ACA, you can get meh coverage without the extensive shopping and hoop jumping it used to require.
- rdtwo 5y ago
  During covid healthcare is an illusion. You can’t actually get anything other than emergency room care and online appointments

369548684892826 5y ago

If you're looking at the higher end of the scale in London, and maybe ignore the >99th percentile in US where salaries get astronomical, I reckon the hourly rate might be in the same ball park. For example a quick search in London shows a dev job at £160K, which is $221K. You would probably have an extra 4 weeks holiday in the London job, so that's the equivalent of $240K. In London you've got a good chance of sticking close to working 40 hours a week too, depending on the company. In the US it sounds like longer hours are more likely.

cblconfederate 5y ago

Like everything in capitalism, the guys at the top get disproportionally higher rewards.

aspiringtechYy 5y ago

I always had the impression that the US pays better than any other country when it comes to tech. On the other specter the minimum wage in the US is much lower then a lot of places in Europe. Might be off topic but I'm looking for fintech job, in my country we have fintech companies like https://www.sambla.no/ https://www.sambla.no/, https://lanfordeg.no/ https://lanfordeg.no/ and https://xn--ln-yia.no/ https://xn--ln-yia.no/. Companies like this is what I'm trying to get a job at. Does anyone have any tips on how to get a job in a fintech company. I only tried applying to one so far and havent heard back. Should I apply to all at the same time? Will they be more impressed if i put my resume on a website? Any nice tricks that fintech companies like when looking for new hires?

cascom 5y ago

I think it’s the same reason that developers in SF make more then their counterparts in say Denver. It’s purely supply and demand and labor doesn’t markets are inefficient (especially geographically) If I had to guess there are probably 10x the tech workers in California than in the UK, which drives the bulk of the disparity.