Is that pre or post taxes? How do people survive in London with such low salaries? It always baffles me, as I live in NYC (which is equally expensive).
"Survive" is the right word. It's likely insufficient to save enough money for a deposit anywhere commutable to their job while also contributing significantly to savings and a pension.
A single person in a studio/1 bed with a not-too-bad commute would probably spend £1300-1600 on accommodation/travel/council tax/utilities. (Sure, you can find god-awful "studios"/houseshares for less...).
We basically just accept less and less. 1 bed -> studio -> house share. Give up idea of buying a house. Contribute less to pension. etc
People who want to earn more in London tend to do contracting.
And that companies advertising for 80k will possibly stretch to 100k for the right candidate.
100k =~ 5k/month And a reasonable 1 bed is 1500-1800 somewhere decent to live.
So, it's not exactly like you can't survive.
But I had a profile on Hired.com open for ~ a week, and all the companies who I normally see advertising 60-80 offered me 100.
That's about 10 datapoints saying that for the right CV they'll go there.
To be honest, I get the feeling finance goes much higher than that for the right person.
I live in a 3 bedroom penthouse with my friends, 15 minute cycle to work. Under 40% of my net income on rent, about that with bills. Used to be significantly cheaper but we moved (very) upmarket. I guess a 1 bed would be a bit more expensive, but 1 beds tend to be mostly for couples. I save maybe 25-30% of my net income and spend the rest on social stuff and holidays.
I don't feel like I'm just surviving, I feel embarrassingly wealthy compared to my (non software) peers. Surviving on the average London salary would be a different matter.
If you benchmark it within country by comparing the ratio median dev salary/median salary there's not a huge difference between the US and UK (the US is a bit higher by about 10% IIRC) - although SF is higher.