I worked a split desk for a year during the tech bust and made ~50K in 8 months, and I wasn't particularly motivated at that job... several co-workers who start

I worked a split desk for a year during the tech bust and made ~50K in 8 months, and I wasn't particularly motivated at that job... several co-workers who started the same time that I did outperformed me by as much as 40K. For most of those guys today, a bad year is below the $150K range. Mind you, this is in Dallas, not San Francisco. Some of them migrated to another company which does permanent and contract placement and most of the ones who made the switch are pulling in 200K+. From what I gather, the UK and EU don't value software developers as much, so the bill rates are probably lower.