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Comment by IdeaHamster | Hacker News Reader

From the offer description: "Salaries range from £30,000 to £45,000."

That seems a little low? Is this typical for Cambridge? I'm not familiar with UK tax law, so what does this translate into in terms of take-home pay?

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From my last round of job-hunting around Cambridge (about two years ago) I'd say that was pretty typical for the posts they're looking to fill. As with all things, you have to look at the whole package, and Redgate's is pretty good. I guess it's one of those cases where you trade off being amazingly-paid but working 80 hours a week in a job you hate against being less well-paid (but still frankly not badly paid in the grand scheme of things) but enjoying where you work more. It's not often you find somewhere that'll pay you £60k and still let you go home at 5:30pm.

£30,000 = £22,000 take home

£45,000 = £32,000 take home.

+ the benefit package yada.

That's about £23,000 to £33,000 take home.

A bit above average for a graduate CS job. Less than you'd expect for a 30-35 year old with degree plus experience.

(roughly anyway)

Thanks! That explains my reaction, as I'm closer to being in the later group than the former. This probably also explains the promotion. I imagine that the fresh-outta-college type is more likely to be impressed by a free iPad offer than a journeyman programmer would be.

Yep my thoughts entirely; this will be a swinger for graduates looking for a job.

When you pop above 45K here tax starts to get excruciating (40%) so that is probably why the upper limit is sat there (I get 8% year on year increase in my current job and it's barely noticeable due to tax...)

It's a bit of misconception that tax increases that much - as national insurance drops off.

E.g http://www.thesalarycalculator.co.uk/salary.php

(figures in GBP)

  30k -> 22.6k    (25% total employee tax burden)

  45k -> 32.8K    (27% total employee tax burden)

  90k -> 59.4K    (34% total employee tax burden)

 135k -> 86.0K    (36% total employee tax burden)

You missed a key figure though:

60K -> 41.7K (30% total employee tax burden)

There is a sudden big leap (of an extra 1%) in that particular range before it settles back down again.

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