3 ms·

UK has pretty bad tech salaries especially for companies located in London and adjusting for living costs.

grues-dinner 1y ago
It's amazing there are any engineers or programmers at at all in the UK. When a graduate engineering post is commonly in the region of 25k to 30k, one wonders why anyone would actually aim to do that rather then finance. Sometimes I ask myself the same question - maybe I should have just sold out and I'd be rocking a million-plus detached house like my classmates! It's also a bit depressing to think that there are posts so near what I started at 15 years ago (mid-low 20s), despite 54% inflation over that period, per the BoE calculator (another claims 64%).
- rgavuliak 1y ago
  I live in Central-Eastern Europe and every time a recruiter tried to get me to move to the UK, the salary was at best on par with what I made over here. Granted, up until recently I've worked remotely for US and other EU countries.
- heavenlyblue 1y ago
  I don't understand, what do you mean by "sell out"? You are working for cash
- ifwinterco 1y ago
  There's a big difference between working in 'actual' engineering (civils, mech eng etc.) and programming/software 'engineering'. In the former you're right, salaries are terrible compared to how highly skilled the job is and how much education you need. For the latter, it's definitely not Silicon Valley, but relative to most white collar jobs software engineering still pays fairly well. Definitely a second tier job behind finance (and finance adjacent roles like top tier legal stuff), but not bad, and often with much better hours/WLB than finance or law which can still be fairly brutal
jfengel 1y ago
Anecdote to back that up: I caught a BBC podcast this morning, about native vs immigrate skilled workers, which suggested that £50,000 ($68k US) was an ordinary salary for a software developer in the UK. That's better than the median UK salary, but not exactly a huge draw. The average in the US is six figures. The methodologies that produce those numbers are always dubious so I wouldn't take that as definitive. But it does support your assertion that UK tech salaries aren't great, at least compared to the US.
ahartmetz 1y ago
Salaries are higher than in Berlin, cost of living is much higher. Or used to be, Berlin is catching up. Also in salaries - it is not clear if it will end up better or worse than London tbh.
cedws 1y ago
UK is bad, but Japan salaries are worse.

It's amazing there are any engineers or programmers at at all in the UK. When a graduate engineering post is commonly in the region of 25k to 30k, one wonders why anyone would actually aim to do that rather then finance. Sometimes I ask myself the same question - maybe I should have just sold out and I'd be rocking a million-plus detached house like my classmates! It's also a bit depressing to think that there are posts so near what I started at 15 years ago (mid-low 20s), despite 54% inflation over that period, per the BoE calculator (another claims 64%).

rgavuliak 1y ago
I live in Central-Eastern Europe and every time a recruiter tried to get me to move to the UK, the salary was at best on par with what I made over here. Granted, up until recently I've worked remotely for US and other EU countries.
heavenlyblue 1y ago
I don't understand, what do you mean by "sell out"? You are working for cash
ifwinterco 1y ago
There's a big difference between working in 'actual' engineering (civils, mech eng etc.) and programming/software 'engineering'. In the former you're right, salaries are terrible compared to how highly skilled the job is and how much education you need. For the latter, it's definitely not Silicon Valley, but relative to most white collar jobs software engineering still pays fairly well. Definitely a second tier job behind finance (and finance adjacent roles like top tier legal stuff), but not bad, and often with much better hours/WLB than finance or law which can still be fairly brutal

jfengel 1y ago

Anecdote to back that up: I caught a BBC podcast this morning, about native vs immigrate skilled workers, which suggested that £50,000 ($68k US) was an ordinary salary for a software developer in the UK. That's better than the median UK salary, but not exactly a huge draw. The average in the US is six figures. The methodologies that produce those numbers are always dubious so I wouldn't take that as definitive. But it does support your assertion that UK tech salaries aren't great, at least compared to the US.

ahartmetz 1y ago

Salaries are higher than in Berlin, cost of living is much higher. Or used to be, Berlin is catching up. Also in salaries - it is not clear if it will end up better or worse than London tbh.

cedws 1y ago

UK is bad, but Japan salaries are worse.