Its pretty similar in germany. I know quite alot of people that do some more or less simple work for some of the big german industrial companies (cars, food stu

Its pretty similar in germany. I know quite alot of people that do some more or less simple work for some of the big german industrial companies (cars, food stuff etc) and work 9-5, have alot of holidays and earn more than the average software developer that works his butt off. If you throw in a couple of late/night shifts at those jobs you will get a very good extra pay as well... as a developer ? you wish... I think its because competition for dev jobs is much lower in europe because there is no Google, no Facebook, no Microsoft etc. That said, if you work as a contractor for some of the big companies in cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich etc you can easily make 100K EUR, even as a bread and butter PHP dev.