4 ms·

In the UK I haven't had a pay increase anywhere near inflation since 2019. I've had to move company twice since then in order to maintain or increase my standar

In the UK I haven't had a pay increase anywhere near inflation since 2019. I've had to move company twice since then in order to maintain or increase my standard of living. I'm now making 65% above what I was making in 2019, whereas if I'd taken the pay increases offered I'd be making 13% more right now than in 2019. Considering prices in the UK are 22% higher than they were in 2019 that's pretty bad, and IT is a well-paid industry, so you can imagine what it's like for people on lower wages.

WentFullRetard 3y ago
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nly 3y ago
Same here. Jumped ship in late 2021 for a 50% pay increase. Haven't had a pay rise with new employer since. They have one more chance this annual review cycle or I'm jumping again. My monthly mandatory expenses (excluding mortgage, since it's fixed for now) have crept up 15-20% this year. Just renewed my home insurance it's gone up 40% since Dec 22 In 4 years I'm expecting my mortgage payments (my biggest expense) to increase at least 30%. We're pretty comfortable, and think we stay off the hedonic treadmill as much as possible, but looking to start a family and I have a lot of financial anxiety despite a decent 6 figure salary in London Total (not marginal) tax burden on my salary is >40% and getting worse every year due to fiscal drag.
doix 3y ago
The UK is insane. I left in 2020 and came back to visit recently, things are over 50% more expensive. I used to buy 20 chicken nuggets for £4, it was £6.50 or something. Pints are £7+ instead of £4. I stayed with a friend and he kept his flat at 15c because heating beyond that was too expensive. I used to keep it at 18 and didn't even consider the costs (once I stopped being a student). I appreciate that the 22% more expensive is on average, but the things that I care about have gotten significantly more expensive. It really killed any desire I have of ever moving back there.
- 15457345234 3y ago
  I visited the UK last in 2022, I stayed in Bristol. I visited the nearest pub to my hotel many times, it was a Wetherspoons. I know that spoons doesn't have the best reputation but it was clean, lively but not packed. 'Abbot' ale was on special at £1.50 a pint and when the special price ran out, other beers were starting at £2.50 I'd like to know where specifically you were drinking. A Central London hotel bar? Because £7 a pint is ludicrous and not at all representative of normality.
  - arp242 3y ago
    > 'Abbot' ale was on special at £1.50 a pint and when the special price ran out, other beers were starting at £2.50 I would consider that to be very cheap, even when I lived in Bristol (before cost-of-living crisis). I don't recall pints being that cheap at Wetherspoons either. Even most beers at Tesco are more expensive than that. £1.50 is roughly the same price as Tesco[1] (£1.375 for a 500ml can). [1]: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/search?query=abbot%20ale&icid=tescohp_sws-1_m-ft_in-abb_out-abbot%20ale https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/search?query=abbot%20a...
    - 15457345234 3y ago
      It was a 'last barrel' price, I think a deal before the keg expires etc. When that finished we could still get Abbott only it was £3. I did say it was a special deal.
      - d1sxeyes 3y ago
        Wetherspoons have an app where you can order online (never used it before and had the pleasure of discovering how dreadful it is for the first time), but they don't publish any prices online other than that. After multiple attempts to get the app to work, I gave up, and found this: https://pantryandlarder.com/spoons-map/ https://pantryandlarder.com/spoons-map/ Turns out you can still get Abbott for even less than that. Looks like there's quite a lot of variation in Bristol but the Robert Fitzharding seems to be cheapest, selling a pint of Abbott for £2.34, the city centre pubs seem to be selling for £3.42ish, and the less central pubs seem to be around £2.77. It's not at all beyond the realms of possibility that you might still see a special offer of around £1.50 for a pint. Nice!
gumballindie 3y ago
> and IT is a well-paid industry Used to be until the government decided to kill contracting. Now tech pay in the uk is pretty low.
- cjrp 3y ago
  Contracting is still alive, posing as a contractor while being an employee is dead. Tech pay is low compared to the US, but still very high compared to average salaries.
  - varispeed 3y ago
    > Contracting is still alive, posing as a contractor while being an employee is dead. In some odd niches where the pool of talent is very small and client's can take the risk of getting status determination wrong - yes, but this is also shrinking and people retire early. You have also wrong understanding of IR35. The legislation has been created to protect interests of big consultancies so that their developers don't quit and start working with their clients directly taking profit for themselves. If the legislation was about "working as employee" then the big consultancies that supply workers who do just that wouldn't be exempt from it.
    - gumballindie 3y ago
      > big consultancies so that their developers don't quit and start working with their clients directly taking profit for themselves. That and also to make it look like the government has increased the financing of the NHS and other government agencies that rely on contractors. Here is how it works: increase daily rates by classifying workers inside ir35, allocate more funding, claim half the finding back through taxes, use money for something else. But indeed the main reason is to help consultancies - notably those such as Infosys, owned by the prime minister’s family. The result is a steady brain drain, outsourcing of work, and a drop in quality. I do agree that some folks have been disguised employees, but the majority were not. Contracting has been the main driver of innovation - the best in tech were motivated to spread the knowledge and prop up the industry. Some of the best engineers I knew, hired or worked with, were contractors. Now a significant portion have left the country, are serving us clients or are moving on to something else. Being a permanent worker is simply not attractive given the low pay.
varispeed 3y ago
> and IT is a well-paid industry IT in the UK is poorly paid. Sure people get more than average salaries, but they no longer afford you a comfortable living. It's not poverty yet, but it is heading that way. Governments make sure that skilled work doesn't pay. Many people in the IT that I know, don't work for UK companies anymore, because they hit the ceiling (it's difficult to get paid more than £150k for a developer) and only way to get above it is to work with US companies.
- happymellon 3y ago
  > It's difficult to get paid more than £150k for a developer It's difficult to get paid more than £80-90k as a developer. I see some that go over £100k but they are uncommon. I had to go the contractor route to make more than £100k. If I went FTE at my current company they wouldn't pay me more than 90k, unless I moved to the US office and they would pay me $200k. The UK has become cheaper offshoring.

WentFullRetard 3y ago

[dead]

nly 3y ago

Same here. Jumped ship in late 2021 for a 50% pay increase. Haven't had a pay rise with new employer since. They have one more chance this annual review cycle or I'm jumping again. My monthly mandatory expenses (excluding mortgage, since it's fixed for now) have crept up 15-20% this year. Just renewed my home insurance it's gone up 40% since Dec 22 In 4 years I'm expecting my mortgage payments (my biggest expense) to increase at least 30%. We're pretty comfortable, and think we stay off the hedonic treadmill as much as possible, but looking to start a family and I have a lot of financial anxiety despite a decent 6 figure salary in London Total (not marginal) tax burden on my salary is >40% and getting worse every year due to fiscal drag.

doix 3y ago

The UK is insane. I left in 2020 and came back to visit recently, things are over 50% more expensive. I used to buy 20 chicken nuggets for £4, it was £6.50 or something. Pints are £7+ instead of £4. I stayed with a friend and he kept his flat at 15c because heating beyond that was too expensive. I used to keep it at 18 and didn't even consider the costs (once I stopped being a student). I appreciate that the 22% more expensive is on average, but the things that I care about have gotten significantly more expensive. It really killed any desire I have of ever moving back there.

15457345234 3y ago
I visited the UK last in 2022, I stayed in Bristol. I visited the nearest pub to my hotel many times, it was a Wetherspoons. I know that spoons doesn't have the best reputation but it was clean, lively but not packed. 'Abbot' ale was on special at £1.50 a pint and when the special price ran out, other beers were starting at £2.50 I'd like to know where specifically you were drinking. A Central London hotel bar? Because £7 a pint is ludicrous and not at all representative of normality.
- arp242 3y ago
  > 'Abbot' ale was on special at £1.50 a pint and when the special price ran out, other beers were starting at £2.50 I would consider that to be very cheap, even when I lived in Bristol (before cost-of-living crisis). I don't recall pints being that cheap at Wetherspoons either. Even most beers at Tesco are more expensive than that. £1.50 is roughly the same price as Tesco[1] (£1.375 for a 500ml can). [1]: https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/search?query=abbot%20ale&icid=tescohp_sws-1_m-ft_in-abb_out-abbot%20ale https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/search?query=abbot%20a...
  - 15457345234 3y ago
    It was a 'last barrel' price, I think a deal before the keg expires etc. When that finished we could still get Abbott only it was £3. I did say it was a special deal.
    - d1sxeyes 3y ago
      Wetherspoons have an app where you can order online (never used it before and had the pleasure of discovering how dreadful it is for the first time), but they don't publish any prices online other than that. After multiple attempts to get the app to work, I gave up, and found this: https://pantryandlarder.com/spoons-map/ https://pantryandlarder.com/spoons-map/ Turns out you can still get Abbott for even less than that. Looks like there's quite a lot of variation in Bristol but the Robert Fitzharding seems to be cheapest, selling a pint of Abbott for £2.34, the city centre pubs seem to be selling for £3.42ish, and the less central pubs seem to be around £2.77. It's not at all beyond the realms of possibility that you might still see a special offer of around £1.50 for a pint. Nice!

gumballindie 3y ago

> and IT is a well-paid industry Used to be until the government decided to kill contracting. Now tech pay in the uk is pretty low.

cjrp 3y ago
Contracting is still alive, posing as a contractor while being an employee is dead. Tech pay is low compared to the US, but still very high compared to average salaries.
- varispeed 3y ago
  > Contracting is still alive, posing as a contractor while being an employee is dead. In some odd niches where the pool of talent is very small and client's can take the risk of getting status determination wrong - yes, but this is also shrinking and people retire early. You have also wrong understanding of IR35. The legislation has been created to protect interests of big consultancies so that their developers don't quit and start working with their clients directly taking profit for themselves. If the legislation was about "working as employee" then the big consultancies that supply workers who do just that wouldn't be exempt from it.
  - gumballindie 3y ago
    > big consultancies so that their developers don't quit and start working with their clients directly taking profit for themselves. That and also to make it look like the government has increased the financing of the NHS and other government agencies that rely on contractors. Here is how it works: increase daily rates by classifying workers inside ir35, allocate more funding, claim half the finding back through taxes, use money for something else. But indeed the main reason is to help consultancies - notably those such as Infosys, owned by the prime minister’s family. The result is a steady brain drain, outsourcing of work, and a drop in quality. I do agree that some folks have been disguised employees, but the majority were not. Contracting has been the main driver of innovation - the best in tech were motivated to spread the knowledge and prop up the industry. Some of the best engineers I knew, hired or worked with, were contractors. Now a significant portion have left the country, are serving us clients or are moving on to something else. Being a permanent worker is simply not attractive given the low pay.

varispeed 3y ago

> and IT is a well-paid industry IT in the UK is poorly paid. Sure people get more than average salaries, but they no longer afford you a comfortable living. It's not poverty yet, but it is heading that way. Governments make sure that skilled work doesn't pay. Many people in the IT that I know, don't work for UK companies anymore, because they hit the ceiling (it's difficult to get paid more than £150k for a developer) and only way to get above it is to work with US companies.

happymellon 3y ago
> It's difficult to get paid more than £150k for a developer It's difficult to get paid more than £80-90k as a developer. I see some that go over £100k but they are uncommon. I had to go the contractor route to make more than £100k. If I went FTE at my current company they wouldn't pay me more than 90k, unless I moved to the US office and they would pay me $200k. The UK has become cheaper offshoring.