11 ms·

I considered a startup after university in the UK. The talent arbitrage is absurd, physics grads with 1sts from top Russell Group unis fighting to be paid £30k/

by reedf1 2y ago

I considered a startup after university in the UK. The talent arbitrage is absurd, physics grads with 1sts from top Russell Group unis fighting to be paid £30k/yr. For me it came down to security, life is expensive, rent is expensive. I didn't have a spare parental garage to setup five computers - I barely had room in my flat for one desk. I barely had money for that flat let alone internet, and food. I had zero capital, as in literally zero. The plan was to get an entry level job to provide some base line, but that base line never really provided enough life security that I felt comfortable leaving the system once I was inside it.

Guthur 2y ago
This is it exactly, it's the cost of capital and living that is the problem. If our countries had control over their own capital and provided utility at cost the economic development would be easy. Instead we're charged monopoly rents for everything from water to electricity, taxed to oblivion and charged horrendous usary on all capital.
leoedin 2y ago
The low salaries are a double edged sword - the talent is cheap, but the kind of people who might start a company are unable to build up enough savings to take the leap. It's partly due to low salaries, and partly high housing costs. It's crazy that politicians on all sides talk about growth, but then consistently do almost nothing to address the single largest thing that's sucking the life out of 20-30 year olds. Saying that, it's clearly not the only cause as housing in SF and NY is also really expensive.
- Nextgrid 2y ago
  > then consistently do almost nothing to address the single largest thing that's sucking the life out of 20-30 year olds. They & their friends are literally profiting off it. Why would they kill their cash cow? High housing costs is great for them - not only do their real-estate (& adjacent) investments go up, but a middle class perpetually in debt or barely able to make ends meet means there’s an infinite supply of cheap labor that won’t complain about terrible working conditions.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  Just making housing cheaper would do so much for peoples ability to take the leap.
oblio 2y ago
> The talent arbitrage is absurd, physics grads with 1sts from top Russell Group unis fighting to be paid £30k/yr. That much?!? I'm joking, but I've always wondered with FAANG never set up large R&D centers in Southern Europe. They have good universities and salaries are extremely low, even lower than in the UK. Plus good weather & co. The actual Mediterranean climate :-)
- dan-robertson 2y ago
  Presumably because an ambitious young person in southern Europe would rather move somewhere like Zurich for higher pay rather than getting paid less in southern Europe? Who are those R&D centres going to end up hiring?
  - oblio 2y ago
    People don't move if their lives are decent enough. If FAANG sets up shop in Milan and pays 80k compared to the local average of 40k, few people would rather move to Zurich for 150k and have to learn Swiss German and have worse weather and few local friends. For comparison, Eastern Europe has FAANG offices and people working there generally don't move as much, and the few that do leave, generally go to Switzerland (ok) or the US. But those are the ultra ambitious, maybe 10-20%, and they generally leave because Eastern Europe has a lot of other structural problems that aren't really there in say, Spain, for example Eastern Europe has pretty bad healthcare in general, infrastructure is much worse than in Spain, general quality of life is also worse than in Spain.
    - jonas21 2y ago
      The people who are ambitious and driven enough to move for better opportunities are probably the ones they want to hire.
    - throwaway2037 2y ago
      > If FAANG sets up shop in Milan and pays 80k compared to the local average of 40k I see this types of claims on HN frequently. This looks "too easy". Why isn't Big Tech setting up offices in large southern European cities to do exactly this?
Aromasin 2y ago
I'm in the same boat. I've been chasing my tail for the last 6 years, just trying to keep my head above water financially. I'm a computer hardware engineer so the pickings are slim to none outside of the military-industrial complex, which pays shit outside of sales and executive management. Ended up at one of the big US semiconductor companies where I got paid 1/3rd of what my peers in the US earn, with similar expenditures. A starting salary of £26k... Barely broke £34k, plus a couple of grand in stock each year during my time there, while my US colleagues doing the same job get paid $120k+. That's with a good master's degree from Bristol, which is relatively prestigious. I'm sure if I moved to London and focused on software engineering I could make more, but that shouldn't be the only route to wealth in this country. I've spent so long trying to build out a minimum viable product in my spare time, so I can make my start-up dream a reality, but going through integration hell needs to take up all of your time, every day, for a long time, to get through the hurdles in any meaningful time frame. Every time I go back to it, I feel like I'm back at square one. 6 years of saving and I have zero runway to take this full-time to give it the time it needs. What's embarrassing is that I discussed this with my colleagues, and they didn't quite fathom how fucked it is for young engineers in this country until I had the conversation with them. I was getting the same salary now as my mentor did when he was my age; in the early '90s. Wages haven't just stagnated. When adjusted for inflation, they shrank massively. That's not even considering the £60k of student loan debt I get hammered by every month.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  I honestly think if you asked the average Brit on the street what an engineer was, they'd say "it's someone who MOTs your car".
  - Aromasin 2y ago
    When I say I'm an electrical engineer, people often think I make a shit load of cash and barely work. Then I need to clarify I'm not an electrician.
  - bossyTeacher 2y ago
    That's because in most if not all anglesaxon countries, engineering is not legally protected unlike doctors or lawyers which further affects the engineering profession and mixes it with the role of technician. People use engineer and technician interchangeably even when the gap of skill and knowledge between both is huge
gampleman 2y ago
As an immigrant to the UK I'm continually surprised on how poor life here actually is. The main culprit in my mind is the atrocious cost of real estate. Not so much in how much money it takes to buy a house - those costs can be comparable to other countries, but on the ratio of post-tax salary pound per square meter. Most of the real estate in the UK is very small, both in outdoor space as well as in indoor proportions. In the US middle class housing often provides fairly large indoor spaces where multiple people can collaborate, as well as things like garages and large-ish lawns, these things are much rarer and more expensive in the UK. This makes it much more difficult to have a space for multiple people to effectively collaborate on idea "for free". Sure, you can hire a co-working space, but that requires already some form of financial commitment.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  > As an immigrant to the UK I'm continually surprised on how poor life here actually is. Why do you stay?
  - gampleman 2y ago
    I didn't move here for the economy and I don't stay because of it either. In my case it's mostly family circumstances.
  - OccamsMirror 2y ago
    Sunk cost fallacy most likely.
    - WitCanStain 2y ago
      Why comment when you have no way of knowing, when the OP is themselves available to answer?
matwood 2y ago
The UK is a giant version of the Cayman Islands. It's a big bank providing financial services to rich people while keeping them anonymous. Everything else is secondary. And Brexit only made it worse.
- uxcolumbo 2y ago
  That sounds depressing af. Do you see a way out? If so what is it?
- buynlarge 2y ago
  On the other hand, the UK is one of the safest countries in the world, is full of kind people, has a general abundance of food, gives workers a relatively large number of days off in a year, has a functioning police force and takes care of sick people and those who can't work for whatever reason. Of course it is not perfect. The people of Britain may not have huge bank accounts, but this is partly because they collectively spend their earnings on the worthwhile things mentioned above.
  - yomly 2y ago
    Please define safe? The stabbings and acid attacks suggest otherwise Please define functioning police force? The fact the police had to remember that turning up to burglaries is a good thing suggests otherwise Please define takes care of sick people? The fact that ambulance response times were so slow they couldn't save cardiac arrests suggests otherwise No offence but all those assertions sound like the UK 20+ years ago, not the one of today...
    - buynlarge 2y ago
      I am curious what the UK was like 20 years ago, can't say I was very aware around that time. Would love to hear your thoughts on how and why its gotten worse. I think its easy to shit on the UK at the moment because we're in this period of relative decline. The point I was trying to make was that in absolute terms, it's still a great place with a lot of upsides, it just takes more work to realise it and even more work to be grateful despite of it all. Going from 5 to 4 hurts, going from 3 to 4 feels good. Either way, you're still at 4. It's on the people of Britain to recognise that 4 is still OK, better than the 2 that many countries experience, and better than the 1 of fighting lions and being murdered by your fellow tribesman because he's bigger than you.
pyb 2y ago
Exactly my personal experience. The talent arbitrage for £30k physics grads is real. But it's hard to take advantage of when you are that physics graduate, and can't build up any serious savings.

by reedf1 2y ago

Guthur 2y ago

This is it exactly, it's the cost of capital and living that is the problem. If our countries had control over their own capital and provided utility at cost the economic development would be easy. Instead we're charged monopoly rents for everything from water to electricity, taxed to oblivion and charged horrendous usary on all capital.

leoedin 2y ago

The low salaries are a double edged sword - the talent is cheap, but the kind of people who might start a company are unable to build up enough savings to take the leap. It's partly due to low salaries, and partly high housing costs. It's crazy that politicians on all sides talk about growth, but then consistently do almost nothing to address the single largest thing that's sucking the life out of 20-30 year olds. Saying that, it's clearly not the only cause as housing in SF and NY is also really expensive.

Nextgrid 2y ago
> then consistently do almost nothing to address the single largest thing that's sucking the life out of 20-30 year olds. They & their friends are literally profiting off it. Why would they kill their cash cow? High housing costs is great for them - not only do their real-estate (& adjacent) investments go up, but a middle class perpetually in debt or barely able to make ends meet means there’s an infinite supply of cheap labor that won’t complain about terrible working conditions.
Aeolun 2y ago
Just making housing cheaper would do so much for peoples ability to take the leap.

oblio 2y ago

> The talent arbitrage is absurd, physics grads with 1sts from top Russell Group unis fighting to be paid £30k/yr. That much?!? I'm joking, but I've always wondered with FAANG never set up large R&D centers in Southern Europe. They have good universities and salaries are extremely low, even lower than in the UK. Plus good weather & co. The actual Mediterranean climate :-)

dan-robertson 2y ago
Presumably because an ambitious young person in southern Europe would rather move somewhere like Zurich for higher pay rather than getting paid less in southern Europe? Who are those R&D centres going to end up hiring?
- oblio 2y ago
  People don't move if their lives are decent enough. If FAANG sets up shop in Milan and pays 80k compared to the local average of 40k, few people would rather move to Zurich for 150k and have to learn Swiss German and have worse weather and few local friends. For comparison, Eastern Europe has FAANG offices and people working there generally don't move as much, and the few that do leave, generally go to Switzerland (ok) or the US. But those are the ultra ambitious, maybe 10-20%, and they generally leave because Eastern Europe has a lot of other structural problems that aren't really there in say, Spain, for example Eastern Europe has pretty bad healthcare in general, infrastructure is much worse than in Spain, general quality of life is also worse than in Spain.
  - jonas21 2y ago
    The people who are ambitious and driven enough to move for better opportunities are probably the ones they want to hire.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    > If FAANG sets up shop in Milan and pays 80k compared to the local average of 40k I see this types of claims on HN frequently. This looks "too easy". Why isn't Big Tech setting up offices in large southern European cities to do exactly this?

Aromasin 2y ago

I'm in the same boat. I've been chasing my tail for the last 6 years, just trying to keep my head above water financially. I'm a computer hardware engineer so the pickings are slim to none outside of the military-industrial complex, which pays shit outside of sales and executive management. Ended up at one of the big US semiconductor companies where I got paid 1/3rd of what my peers in the US earn, with similar expenditures. A starting salary of £26k... Barely broke £34k, plus a couple of grand in stock each year during my time there, while my US colleagues doing the same job get paid $120k+. That's with a good master's degree from Bristol, which is relatively prestigious. I'm sure if I moved to London and focused on software engineering I could make more, but that shouldn't be the only route to wealth in this country. I've spent so long trying to build out a minimum viable product in my spare time, so I can make my start-up dream a reality, but going through integration hell needs to take up all of your time, every day, for a long time, to get through the hurdles in any meaningful time frame. Every time I go back to it, I feel like I'm back at square one. 6 years of saving and I have zero runway to take this full-time to give it the time it needs. What's embarrassing is that I discussed this with my colleagues, and they didn't quite fathom how fucked it is for young engineers in this country until I had the conversation with them. I was getting the same salary now as my mentor did when he was my age; in the early '90s. Wages haven't just stagnated. When adjusted for inflation, they shrank massively. That's not even considering the £60k of student loan debt I get hammered by every month.

robertlagrant 2y ago
I honestly think if you asked the average Brit on the street what an engineer was, they'd say "it's someone who MOTs your car".
- Aromasin 2y ago
  When I say I'm an electrical engineer, people often think I make a shit load of cash and barely work. Then I need to clarify I'm not an electrician.
- bossyTeacher 2y ago
  That's because in most if not all anglesaxon countries, engineering is not legally protected unlike doctors or lawyers which further affects the engineering profession and mixes it with the role of technician. People use engineer and technician interchangeably even when the gap of skill and knowledge between both is huge

gampleman 2y ago

As an immigrant to the UK I'm continually surprised on how poor life here actually is. The main culprit in my mind is the atrocious cost of real estate. Not so much in how much money it takes to buy a house - those costs can be comparable to other countries, but on the ratio of post-tax salary pound per square meter. Most of the real estate in the UK is very small, both in outdoor space as well as in indoor proportions. In the US middle class housing often provides fairly large indoor spaces where multiple people can collaborate, as well as things like garages and large-ish lawns, these things are much rarer and more expensive in the UK. This makes it much more difficult to have a space for multiple people to effectively collaborate on idea "for free". Sure, you can hire a co-working space, but that requires already some form of financial commitment.

throwaway2037 2y ago
> As an immigrant to the UK I'm continually surprised on how poor life here actually is. Why do you stay?
- gampleman 2y ago
  I didn't move here for the economy and I don't stay because of it either. In my case it's mostly family circumstances.
- OccamsMirror 2y ago
  Sunk cost fallacy most likely.
  - WitCanStain 2y ago
    Why comment when you have no way of knowing, when the OP is themselves available to answer?

matwood 2y ago

The UK is a giant version of the Cayman Islands. It's a big bank providing financial services to rich people while keeping them anonymous. Everything else is secondary. And Brexit only made it worse.

uxcolumbo 2y ago
That sounds depressing af. Do you see a way out? If so what is it?
buynlarge 2y ago
On the other hand, the UK is one of the safest countries in the world, is full of kind people, has a general abundance of food, gives workers a relatively large number of days off in a year, has a functioning police force and takes care of sick people and those who can't work for whatever reason. Of course it is not perfect. The people of Britain may not have huge bank accounts, but this is partly because they collectively spend their earnings on the worthwhile things mentioned above.
- yomly 2y ago
  Please define safe? The stabbings and acid attacks suggest otherwise Please define functioning police force? The fact the police had to remember that turning up to burglaries is a good thing suggests otherwise Please define takes care of sick people? The fact that ambulance response times were so slow they couldn't save cardiac arrests suggests otherwise No offence but all those assertions sound like the UK 20+ years ago, not the one of today...
  - buynlarge 2y ago
    I am curious what the UK was like 20 years ago, can't say I was very aware around that time. Would love to hear your thoughts on how and why its gotten worse. I think its easy to shit on the UK at the moment because we're in this period of relative decline. The point I was trying to make was that in absolute terms, it's still a great place with a lot of upsides, it just takes more work to realise it and even more work to be grateful despite of it all. Going from 5 to 4 hurts, going from 3 to 4 feels good. Either way, you're still at 4. It's on the people of Britain to recognise that 4 is still OK, better than the 2 that many countries experience, and better than the 1 of fighting lions and being murdered by your fellow tribesman because he's bigger than you.

pyb 2y ago

Exactly my personal experience. The talent arbitrage for £30k physics grads is real. But it's hard to take advantage of when you are that physics graduate, and can't build up any serious savings.