To put this in perspective: a junior role in software in the UK will bag you 25k, which is roughly an order of magnitude lower than what you get as a senior civil servant.
If you think a junior developer fresh out of college knowing a bit of javascript is in any way comparable in terms of the value they deliver then you're wrong. Simple as that.
If you think programmers doing actual work in all sorts of businesses bring less value than bureaucrats hiding in quangos, I don't think we'll ever be on the same page.
But these arnt particularly good jobs. Programmers often have the grades to go into professional services and finance. Those jobs start at 32k.
Very few programmers start at that level.