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So rough calculation here.. $100K first job which is around £74K in the UK… you aren’t likely to get anywhere near that as a grad masters or not here but after
by dogma1138 5y ago
So rough calculation here..
$100K first job which is around £74K in the UK… you aren’t likely to get anywhere near that as a grad masters or not here but after taxes and student loan payments (which are deducted from your income in the UK) and all other deductions you’ll end up with £42,908.26 per year, that’s $56K.
And this is where this breaks down for people in tech outside of the US at least.
In the UK the path was at least until IR35 kicked in was to slave for about 10 years and become a contractor at which point you’ll charge per day nearly as much as you used to get per week if not per month…
- nickkell 5y agoI started out at £21k and in 10 years haven’t reached the author’s starting salary! The real advice should be for everyone to relocate to the US
- unbanned 5y ago
- CodeGlitch 5y agoThere are some really nice places in the states - although SF or NY are not one of them... Saying that, I'd rather live in NY than London.
- asdadsdad 5y agoI'd take London anytime over NYC
- tluyben2 5y agoYou can do a lot of it without moving to the US or working as a small but niche consultancy outfit (I get 200+ euro/hour from and in the eu); wfh for a US company, as a company in a cheap EU country that has favorable tax for companies. Then optimize. For instance, a UK company can deduct a lot of things especially work from home, you just need to optimize for them. Works fine for programmers at least. I do not think people who 'work jobs' know how much they can optimize their position; which is comparable to the US in rights really in many EU countries.
- nickkell 5y agoThat’s part of the issue, with consulting you’re forced to act and think like a company rather than an employee. It requires more research or hiring professional advisors. There’s potential tax benefits, but also corresponding legislation to ensure you and your clients aren’t dodging social security contributions. I’m sure once you have some experience it’s simple, but from the outside looking in, it seems slightly risky.
- tluyben2 5y agoWell here in the EU you can have jobs with almost 0 risk but less than US money, or a bit of risk (which you would also have in the US; easy to fire people there I think?) and make US money with Healthcare etc intact even if you lose a client. No more stupid interviews (they are hiring a company, not a person; I never had to do one because of that) and you have a safety net in the EU whatever happens anyway... Maybe I should write something about it as I have been doing it for 30+ years.
- nickkell 5y agoFeel free to drop a link to your website
- Sholmesy 5y agoYou should reconsider your worth and attempt to re-negotiate pay. I started out 6-7 years ago at £30k and am now at £100k + options (worthless). Have only ever worked at startups. You can 1.5x that easily at a big tech (some FAANG jobs exist in London).
- dogma1138 5y agoYou then end up paying London rent… You won’t be able to afford to rent a luxury London flat on 100K or even 150K but a 2 bed in any decent area is £2-2.5K council tax and utilities would be another £200 p/m easily. You are probably better off making £80K in Manchester as a senior dev than £100-110K in London. Newcastle has also a decent tech ecosystem tho it is very much focused around Sage.
- switch007 5y agoWhat companies pay £80k in Manc? (Not denying it, genuinely curious which sector/companies etc)
- Sholmesy 5y agoMaybe. We own our flat in Zone 1 (Soho, 48k down payment, 12k closing costs) after 5 years saving, mortgage is 2.29% ~ 1900 a month. Save about 2500 a month. The one thing I will say is that the "single tax" certainly exists in London, and I find my situation affordable because I have no kids, and my partner brings in an other £35k or so. If we wanted a 3 bedroom or something, forget about it. That's when it becomes absurd to live in central and totally prohibitive. Also, my experience with London companies + recruiters in the last 3 months has been that permanant remote roles have been cropping up. I would say its about 50/50 of whether a job requires any on prem time, and about 90/10 that the job requires 1-2 days a week on prem.
- dogma1138 5y agoWhat flat did you buy in Soho for 480K assuming that it was a 10% deposit, or a better question would be when…
- CodeGlitch 5y agoCame here to say exactly the same thing (although it was more like £19k as it was the games industry).
- 300bps 5y agoAt my last company we hired new computer science graduates at more than $100k per year. A friend of mine has a son that just got a job offer right out of a medium tier computer science school with total compensations more than $200k per year.
- merrvk 5y agoTax in the UK is absurd (for what most actually get out of it)
- mmarq 5y agoIn the UK, the stronger drag on wealth accumulation for the poor is the absurd taxation on the middle incomes (50K+), especially given the very low level of service of public schools, healthcare system, childcare, etc…
- berdario 5y agoAgree that the stronger drag is the cost of childcare, but the poor don't earn 50k+ In fact, if you earn 50k as a single without dependants (or if you are a couple with 2x50k income) you're definitely richer than the majority of folks. Also, the UK tax system is incredibly generous to high income folks: 40k+ tax exempt pension contributions, 20k ISA allowance, 12k cgt allowance. It means that you can accumulate a good chunk of capital before you'll even have to start paying taxes
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dogma1138 5y agoYou start to lose your income tax allowance at £100K that more than offsets the CGT tax allowance and puts you in a hidden 60% tax rate. Childcare is expensive as fuck and you lose your childcare allowance at £50K in fact if you share a household with anyone who claims it and you earn more than £50K they’ll deduct that from you… Living on wealth in the UK is as easy as in the US I would agree to that perhaps even easier since there are no property taxes and probably even more tax schemes to leverage than in the US but getting to that point under PAYE even whilst earning well above the median wage isn’t easy especially if you want to have children and have to live in London for that pay. The main issue is just how depressed many of the wages in the UK are and thus just how narrow the tax base is.
- mmarq 5y ago
- dkdbejwi383 5y agoUSA salaries are really unbelievable. That £74,000 which seems to be a poor salary in the USA judging the the OP would be a really very good salary in the UK
- nitrogen 5y agoAre UK salaries quoted post-tax? USA salaries and wages are usually quoted pre-tax. Obviously not a 5-10x difference, but that still makes comparison more difficult with regions that usually discuss post-tax earnings.
- JonChesterfield 5y agoQuoted before income tax and employee national insurance (50%ish) and after employer national insurance (13%). Most people seem to forget about that extra 13 since it disappears before the 'gross' number on the payslip.
- iamthemalto 5y agoHahaha I wish these numbers were quoted post-tax... unfortunately UK numbers are in my experience all quoted pre-tax, just like in the US. So yes, that £74,000 really is before ~22% tax (income tax + national insurance).
- PUSH_AX 5y agoIR35 hasn't really affected that path, you can find contracts that are outside of the legislation and as long as your working practices are also outside you're fine, there are also insurances now for these things.
- dogma1138 5y agoA lot of companies don’t hire contractors under their own LTD anymore they only take those that come through an umbrella company that pays them under PAYE.
- PUSH_AX 5y agoThe people taking these roles arguably aren’t contractors anyway. The market in the uk for contracts outside the legislation is healthy.
- nickkell 5y agoIs there a difference in pay that you’d get if you billed an umbrella company? Or are you liable to pay more tax?
- dogma1138 5y agoYou are basically getting payed as PAYE that way so yes.
- gnfargbl 5y agoThere is also nothing -- literally, nothing -- to prevent you from finding a remote work contract with a US company, and billing them at a rate appropriate for the US market. From your point of view, there is no VAT chargeable on B2B services supplied to a customer located outside the EU, and you can get paid easily using a Wise account. From the client's point of view, give them a W2-BEN-E and they can effectively consider you as 1066 status.
- nsgf 5y agoDo you mean 1099 status?