3 ms·

I know plenty of engineers (web application developers) making over £100-£150k outside of London, usually in fairly low-stress remote jobs. The pay is clearly

I know plenty of engineers (web application developers) making over £100-£150k outside of London, usually in fairly low-stress remote jobs. The pay is clearly nothing compared to the US, but I wouldn’t say it was massively hard for them to get where they are. They all have 5+ years experience at a senior level, and are otherwise just reliable, capable, low-maintenance employees, but maybe that’s rare!

GasVeteran 2y ago
They are almost always contractors. If you work permanent it tops out max at about £75,000-90,000.
- retrac98 2y ago
  They’re not, they’re full time employees.
  - GasVeteran 2y ago
    Then they are very few and far between. Generally the absolute limit is £90k. I've never seen any role for more than 90K unless it was a company in London and those are typically hybrid and not remote.
    - jonatron 2y ago
      The jobs above 90k generally don't specify a salary on the job posting. Just two examples: Goldman Sachs and Meta.
      - GasVeteran 2y ago
        So like I said originally these jobs are few and far between. The point is that in the UK the salaries are much lower than those in the US and this is across all experience ranges.
      - zipy124 2y ago
        I only have the figures for end of 2018[1], but meta employed around 2300 people in the UK, if we assume the same distribution of jobs as elsewhere in the world about half will be engineers, so 1150 engineers. There aren't that many of these jobs. At goldman its a lot higher, aboutn 10,000[2] globally, but they only have around 3,300 employees in the Uk so if its the same ratio as global (25% tech), then that means around 800 developers. Again you'll note this is a very small number compared to the number of top graduates a year, with class sizes of 100-200 per university. [1]: https://engineering.fb.com/2018/11/16/production-engineering/year-of-engineering/ https://engineering.fb.com/2018/11/16/production-engineering... [2]: https://brainstation.io/magazine/goldman-sachs-digital-team-grows-to-10000-developers-25-of-workforce https://brainstation.io/magazine/goldman-sachs-digital-team-... [3]: https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/goldman-sachs-international-pay-first-half-2023-20230831 https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/goldman-sachs-internationa...
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - esskay 2y ago
    They're in the extreme minority. Most software dev roles in the UK top out between £40 and £50k, £60k if you're lucky.
    - UK-AL 2y ago
      I am not a top software engineer( (otherwise I'd be working fang tbh) and I earn 85k up north. Hybrid role that's local as well. I know people that earn a lot more than me. It's just the recruiters are a joke and advertise silly salaries from local companies that are out touch. You have to know what companies are serious or not, and just apply direct or via recommendations.
      - GasVeteran 2y ago
        I used to work at bet365. They don't even offer that to the permies (65K for Senior), if you stay there a bunch of years maybe 85k is doable. 365 are probably the best playing place outside of Manchester in the NW. So I find this rather hard to believe.
        UK-AL 2y ago
        Took me about 5 seconds https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SID=b3duZXI9NTA3MDAwMCZwYWdlY2xhc3M9Sm9icyZvd25lcnR5cGU9ZmFpciZ1c2Vyc2VhcmNoY29udGV4dD0xMTQxMjc0MjYmam9ibGlzdF92aWV3X3ZhYz0xOTM2MDk5JnNlYXJjaHBhZ2U9MSZwYWdlYWN0aW9uPXZpZXd2YWNieWpvYmxpc3Qmc2VhcmNoc29ydD1zY29yZSZyZXFzaWc9MTczNzM4Nzg1NS0wYjNkY2RhNTNhNTM4NmNlNDQ1ZmQwYmY0Yjk2YzQwOTU2MzgzNGU0 https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SI... https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SID=b3duZXJ0eXBlPWZhaXImcGFnZWNsYXNzPUpvYnMmb3duZXI9NTA3MDAwMCZwYWdlYWN0aW9uPXZpZXd2YWNieWpvYmxpc3Qmc2VhcmNoc29ydD1zY29yZSZzZWFyY2hwYWdlPTEmam9ibGlzdF92aWV3X3ZhYz0xOTM2OTE5JnVzZXJzZWFyY2hjb250ZXh0PTExNDEyNzQyNiZyZXFzaWc9MTczNzM4Nzg1NS0wYjNkY2RhNTNhNTM4NmNlNDQ1ZmQwYmY0Yjk2YzQwOTU2MzgzNGU0 https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SI... Those are government, so probably have even better pensions than private sector. And there was job advertised for lead software engineer by computer futures(probably an agency) for 80k I didn't even look deep. I know there are even better jobs. There are jobs that pay more than 65k. Just have to know where to look. If you're working for undercapitalized local private companies, then yeah not going pay very much. I'd also recommend looking at remote jobs. My really smart friends who can beat the competition got 100k+ jobs working remote that are officially based in London but they work up north. Then come down for meeting once or twice every few months. A lot of the fintechs allow for fully remote and pay well.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
zipy124 2y ago
That is indeed very rare. A simple sanity check you can look at how many people earn about 100k in the UK, we know the figure for above 125k is 500,000 [1]. We can subtract the number of other jobs that we know for sure pay above this for example lawyers at magic circle firms which start on >150k for newly qualified lawyers, consultants in the NHS, directors of large corportaions, and we end up with a very small amount of people in other industries that earn these figures. Even before that we know the median is about £50k, and I can tell you from experience you can hire very very good software people on those wages, even in London. From personal experience, I also know of software guys making that, but I also know far far more people earning below that, and these are oxford/cambridge/imperial/UCL grads.... [1]: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-incomes-statistics-for-the-tax-year-2021-to-2022/personal-incomes-statistics-2021-to-2022-commentary https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-incomes-st...
- Macha 2y ago
  > and these are oxford/cambridge/imperial/UCL grads. There are many bad things we can say about software hiring, but one of the good things is that (outside the US at least), it's much more concerned with what you can do than the name recognition of the institution where you studied.
  - kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
    The US isn't that focused on elite schools. It's only in the VC/startup bubble where bias exists. Most tech grads don't go to those schools.
twic 2y ago
Just want to echo the other replies and say i think this is rare. It happens, but it's rare. I have >15 years experience, and currently work in finance making plenty. A while ago, i spoke to a recruiter about opportunities outside finance; everything he had topped out at ~90k for engineers, a bit higher for team leads. But then, i also have friends working at a few non-finance companies on 100-150k. Small places, willing to pay for quality. Seems to be unusual though!

GasVeteran 2y ago

They are almost always contractors. If you work permanent it tops out max at about £75,000-90,000.

retrac98 2y ago
They’re not, they’re full time employees.
- GasVeteran 2y ago
  Then they are very few and far between. Generally the absolute limit is £90k. I've never seen any role for more than 90K unless it was a company in London and those are typically hybrid and not remote.
  - jonatron 2y ago
    The jobs above 90k generally don't specify a salary on the job posting. Just two examples: Goldman Sachs and Meta.
    - GasVeteran 2y ago
      So like I said originally these jobs are few and far between. The point is that in the UK the salaries are much lower than those in the US and this is across all experience ranges.
    - zipy124 2y ago
      I only have the figures for end of 2018[1], but meta employed around 2300 people in the UK, if we assume the same distribution of jobs as elsewhere in the world about half will be engineers, so 1150 engineers. There aren't that many of these jobs. At goldman its a lot higher, aboutn 10,000[2] globally, but they only have around 3,300 employees in the Uk so if its the same ratio as global (25% tech), then that means around 800 developers. Again you'll note this is a very small number compared to the number of top graduates a year, with class sizes of 100-200 per university. [1]: https://engineering.fb.com/2018/11/16/production-engineering/year-of-engineering/ https://engineering.fb.com/2018/11/16/production-engineering... [2]: https://brainstation.io/magazine/goldman-sachs-digital-team-grows-to-10000-developers-25-of-workforce https://brainstation.io/magazine/goldman-sachs-digital-team-... [3]: https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/goldman-sachs-international-pay-first-half-2023-20230831 https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/goldman-sachs-internationa...
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
- esskay 2y ago
  They're in the extreme minority. Most software dev roles in the UK top out between £40 and £50k, £60k if you're lucky.
  - UK-AL 2y ago
    I am not a top software engineer( (otherwise I'd be working fang tbh) and I earn 85k up north. Hybrid role that's local as well. I know people that earn a lot more than me. It's just the recruiters are a joke and advertise silly salaries from local companies that are out touch. You have to know what companies are serious or not, and just apply direct or via recommendations.
    - GasVeteran 2y ago
      I used to work at bet365. They don't even offer that to the permies (65K for Senior), if you stay there a bunch of years maybe 85k is doable. 365 are probably the best playing place outside of Manchester in the NW. So I find this rather hard to believe.
      - UK-AL 2y ago
        Took me about 5 seconds https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SID=b3duZXI9NTA3MDAwMCZwYWdlY2xhc3M9Sm9icyZvd25lcnR5cGU9ZmFpciZ1c2Vyc2VhcmNoY29udGV4dD0xMTQxMjc0MjYmam9ibGlzdF92aWV3X3ZhYz0xOTM2MDk5JnNlYXJjaHBhZ2U9MSZwYWdlYWN0aW9uPXZpZXd2YWNieWpvYmxpc3Qmc2VhcmNoc29ydD1zY29yZSZyZXFzaWc9MTczNzM4Nzg1NS0wYjNkY2RhNTNhNTM4NmNlNDQ1ZmQwYmY0Yjk2YzQwOTU2MzgzNGU0 https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SI... https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SID=b3duZXJ0eXBlPWZhaXImcGFnZWNsYXNzPUpvYnMmb3duZXI9NTA3MDAwMCZwYWdlYWN0aW9uPXZpZXd2YWNieWpvYmxpc3Qmc2VhcmNoc29ydD1zY29yZSZzZWFyY2hwYWdlPTEmam9ibGlzdF92aWV3X3ZhYz0xOTM2OTE5JnVzZXJzZWFyY2hjb250ZXh0PTExNDEyNzQyNiZyZXFzaWc9MTczNzM4Nzg1NS0wYjNkY2RhNTNhNTM4NmNlNDQ1ZmQwYmY0Yjk2YzQwOTU2MzgzNGU0 https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SI... Those are government, so probably have even better pensions than private sector. And there was job advertised for lead software engineer by computer futures(probably an agency) for 80k I didn't even look deep. I know there are even better jobs. There are jobs that pay more than 65k. Just have to know where to look. If you're working for undercapitalized local private companies, then yeah not going pay very much. I'd also recommend looking at remote jobs. My really smart friends who can beat the competition got 100k+ jobs working remote that are officially based in London but they work up north. Then come down for meeting once or twice every few months. A lot of the fintechs allow for fully remote and pay well.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

zipy124 2y ago

That is indeed very rare. A simple sanity check you can look at how many people earn about 100k in the UK, we know the figure for above 125k is 500,000 [1]. We can subtract the number of other jobs that we know for sure pay above this for example lawyers at magic circle firms which start on >150k for newly qualified lawyers, consultants in the NHS, directors of large corportaions, and we end up with a very small amount of people in other industries that earn these figures. Even before that we know the median is about £50k, and I can tell you from experience you can hire very very good software people on those wages, even in London. From personal experience, I also know of software guys making that, but I also know far far more people earning below that, and these are oxford/cambridge/imperial/UCL grads.... [1]: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-incomes-statistics-for-the-tax-year-2021-to-2022/personal-incomes-statistics-2021-to-2022-commentary https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-incomes-st...

Macha 2y ago
> and these are oxford/cambridge/imperial/UCL grads. There are many bad things we can say about software hiring, but one of the good things is that (outside the US at least), it's much more concerned with what you can do than the name recognition of the institution where you studied.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y ago
  The US isn't that focused on elite schools. It's only in the VC/startup bubble where bias exists. Most tech grads don't go to those schools.

twic 2y ago

Just want to echo the other replies and say i think this is rare. It happens, but it's rare. I have >15 years experience, and currently work in finance making plenty. A while ago, i spoke to a recruiter about opportunities outside finance; everything he had topped out at ~90k for engineers, a bit higher for team leads. But then, i also have friends working at a few non-finance companies on 100-150k. Small places, willing to pay for quality. Seems to be unusual though!