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My own experience: * Graduated in 2012 and took a job in the South East (not London) - £25,000 * Left after 18 months because high cost of living and salary i

My own experience: * Graduated in 2012 and took a job in the South East (not London) - £25,000 * Left after 18 months because high cost of living and salary increases were below inflation (small company with money problems). Moved to North West and took a job earning - £30,000 * Left that job and took a cut down to £27,000 because I wanted to work with rails and it's hard to find rails positions here in the North West I could probably be earning more money but getting professional rails experience is higher on my list. It's hard looking at US salaries and not seeing jobs offered anywhere near those rates here in the UK. I guess if you want to earn over £50k a year before you're 30 in the UK you have to be a contractor.

londonymous 12y ago
Contracting is definitely the way to go in London. To add another data point, I have slightly over two years industry experience and make what would be equivalent to a six-figure salary if I were a full-time employee.
- porker 12y ago
  > To add another data point, I have slightly over two years industry experience and make what would be equivalent to a six-figure salary if I were a full-time employee. I would posit that you also have very good sales skills or are working in an in-demand niche (mobile?). I would've loved to be there after 2 years' experience; alas learning to big myself up took a bit longer!
  - londonymous 12y ago
    I think rather than sales skills, what's helped me is having the mindset of consciously applying for jobs I don't think I'll get. The worst thing that can happen is that you 'easily get the job' — I like to think if more than 20% of your interviews result in an offer, your day rate is too low. After starting out doing Ruby on Rails, I moved to backend development focusing on Devops/PaaS — not super-niche but definitely more in-demand than Ruby on Rails, which that's one of the reasons I switched (as well as enjoying it more). Furthermore it's has the advantage of being a Hot New Thing™, which means you gain seniority much faster — in Ruby on Rails it might take 4-5 years to be considered 'senior'. In a much newer technology (like Angular for example), you might only need a year.
londondev123 12y ago
I don't think this is accurate - though London might just be very different. I'm a 26 year old Australian C# developer that moved to London this year. In two weeks I had several job offers ranging from £50-57k. Since then I've built up a network of connections and beefed up my skillset (spending more time with js frameworks such as Angular) and since received offers in the £65-70k mark. These were always "senior tech lead" positions, but they never seemed like real management jobs and I'd still spend the majority of the time writing software. In the end I've jumped to contracting because the money is 2-3 times that of permanent roles and it was just too tempting. But the roles are there, especially in London - Ruby devs included.
- porker 12y ago
  > I don't think this is accurate - though London might just be very different. London is its own micro-world. In the same way SV != USA, London != UK. Perhaps moreso here, seeing as the country is smaller.
- jnardiello 12y ago
  Yes exactly. This is more or less the ranges i experienced as well.

londonymous 12y ago

Contracting is definitely the way to go in London. To add another data point, I have slightly over two years industry experience and make what would be equivalent to a six-figure salary if I were a full-time employee.

porker 12y ago
> To add another data point, I have slightly over two years industry experience and make what would be equivalent to a six-figure salary if I were a full-time employee. I would posit that you also have very good sales skills or are working in an in-demand niche (mobile?). I would've loved to be there after 2 years' experience; alas learning to big myself up took a bit longer!
- londonymous 12y ago
  I think rather than sales skills, what's helped me is having the mindset of consciously applying for jobs I don't think I'll get. The worst thing that can happen is that you 'easily get the job' — I like to think if more than 20% of your interviews result in an offer, your day rate is too low. After starting out doing Ruby on Rails, I moved to backend development focusing on Devops/PaaS — not super-niche but definitely more in-demand than Ruby on Rails, which that's one of the reasons I switched (as well as enjoying it more). Furthermore it's has the advantage of being a Hot New Thing™, which means you gain seniority much faster — in Ruby on Rails it might take 4-5 years to be considered 'senior'. In a much newer technology (like Angular for example), you might only need a year.

londondev123 12y ago

I don't think this is accurate - though London might just be very different. I'm a 26 year old Australian C# developer that moved to London this year. In two weeks I had several job offers ranging from £50-57k. Since then I've built up a network of connections and beefed up my skillset (spending more time with js frameworks such as Angular) and since received offers in the £65-70k mark. These were always "senior tech lead" positions, but they never seemed like real management jobs and I'd still spend the majority of the time writing software. In the end I've jumped to contracting because the money is 2-3 times that of permanent roles and it was just too tempting. But the roles are there, especially in London - Ruby devs included.

porker 12y ago
> I don't think this is accurate - though London might just be very different. London is its own micro-world. In the same way SV != USA, London != UK. Perhaps moreso here, seeing as the country is smaller.
jnardiello 12y ago
Yes exactly. This is more or less the ranges i experienced as well.