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Comment by ryaniscool | Hacker News Reader

Along those lines, I have always wondered why tech salaries I see advertised for the UK seem so depressed (£40k-£50k) compared to the USA (typically > $100k). Is it because of EU labor mobility? If so, will Brexit push tech salaries up to USA levels?

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In London, many (most?) experienced people do contracts at £100k+ per year.

Can confirm; at least for myself and a handful of others I know.

In general cost of living is lower in London than major US cities like SF, NYC, Boston. For example, the cost of rent in SF is on average 30.96& higher than in London. Groceries 62% higher!

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

The numbers look less impressive with Boston, which isn't a particularly cheap city. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

You're right, they aren't as impressive. But as a current resident in Boston, I'd say that this isn't my reality. See my comment below for details, but outside of petrol, which is criminally cheap here, everything else at least feels more expensive than in the UK.

Internet and TV ~1.5x as expensive. Mobile phone plan ~2x as expensive. Simple things like fresh fruit and veg at least 1.5x. Utilities ~2x as expensive.

I mean, I feel like part of that is that part of that is how small a part of metro Boston Boston itself is. I live outside of the city and the city is crazy expensive to me. I haven't spent time in the UK though.

Although, that said, we can keep going down the line and look at cities like Raleigh or Austin where wages are not that much lower than here and prices are way lower. Definitely have been tempted by that at times.

SF seems to be one of the costliest cities of the West Coast. Does London compare favorably to other coastal cities? (In the EU, London has a reputation for being expensive)

London is definitely an expensive city, but as a UK citizen currently living in Boston, I can certainly attest to the cost of living being higher here. That goes for many categories: phone plans, internet, cable tv, groceries, utility bills, rent. All higher. For my two bedroom apartment in Boston I'm currently paying 3x my mortgage on a three bedroom house in Oxford, Uk, which is one of the most expensive cities in the country.

The data seems to be suggest that Boston is reasonably comparable to London[1]. This isn't my experience though.

[1]https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...

And London is insanely expensive compared with the rest of the UK!

I previously lived in Oxford, which is the least affordable city in the UK: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/uk-least-affordable-...

Salaries were always (since I moved to the US in 1996 anyway...) roughly 2x the numeric value. So your UKP 50K == USD 100K comparison sounds right.

In my experience however this does not translate to actually being twice as wealthy :(

For one thing, UK employees don't need to fund their own healthcare nearly as much as US ones do.

Not sure I see the connection. The employer in the US pays most of the healthcare costs, not much comes out of your paycheck.

And in the NHS, healthcare costs are paid via taxes, which means less take home money. So in fact, you'd expect UK wages to be higher to make up for it.

As well as the factors below, there is a large onshore/offshore sector in the UK. Not sure if this is bigger than the US but there are a lot Wipros, Tata, InfoSys etc in the UK and they move Indian staff to the UK.

Funny I always thought the US salaries were inflated, especially for grads. Not sure why they are so high, is it cost of living?

US incomes in general are extremely high at the median compared to all other developed nations save a few. The only comparables are nations like Australia, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland.

The median full-time job in the US pays around $45,000. That median person has no four year degree and is not living in a coastal city.

The demand is there, is I guess the most obvious reason. I don't think companies are paying good salaries out of the kindness of their hearts.

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