It does look pretty low if you assume that you only need 1.25x the salary in SF vs London to maintain the same standard of living [1],[2].

I worked in EU (Belgium) for 7 years before moving to the Bay Area. In my personal experience (so it cannot be generalized!), I definitely felt that CS folks are highly undervalued in EU. The starting salary for a CS grad (or equivalent by experience) was no more than 1.5x that of say a bartender who never went for higher education. Over time the more "competitive" people did complain about being paid way too less. And companies offered no significant distinction / appreciation for being a great engineer vs an average. On the whole though, most people seemed pretty content. I guess coz you are getting a pretty good deal unless you are a good software engineer :)

[1] http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?coun... [2] https://angel.co/salaries