You make less than 30k as a cpp programmer? That's crazy!!! Am I missing something here or what? I work in Washington State, US and I make 4x that as a new grad.
Well, UK and US salaries are not really comparable. I live in North East of England, where rent is cheap, my health insurance is like $100 a month, I only work 37.5h/week, get 25 paid vacation days + unlimited paid sick leave.....in that context you don't need to be making $100k/year to have a decent living. If I was in London then sure, that wouldn't be enough, but out here in the North it's actually quite comfortable.