Well it is very hard to hire anyone good at that rate in London. There is a rapid elevator as people go from inexperienced to more useful, so the first few year

Well it is very hard to hire anyone good at that rate in London. There is a rapid elevator as people go from inexperienced to more useful, so the first few years people should be getting good increases every year. I am aware that there are a whole lot of marginally profitable firms trying to hire at these low rates, and that people do take these jobs, so there is a sort of "going rate", and there are companies who hire employees at low rates while hiring freelancers at triple rates as if they were permanent staff. There are plenty of junior PHP+mysql developer jobs for example advertised in the 30-40k area, and that is with people paying 10k+ to a recruiter for the "service" - and thats a pretty low end skill with little value added.