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Comment by billysielu | Hacker News Reader

Developer salaries in the UK are very modest. Companies don't even know how to identify good developers, so they have no hope of competing over them.

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Not sure on that - nowhere near the US equivalents, but total comp (salary + bonus + equity) of approx £130-140K is what is apparently "competitive" for engineers who are "senior" but not management in London (according to my employer who does all of the usual "market rate adjustment" stuff).

£130K feels like quite a lot of money to me.

According to www.itjobswatch.co.uk a senior Java developer earns £70k. But can command day rate of £575. That works out at about double. Suggestion it is bimodal.

It contractors and engineering contractors in the UK have always been able to demand a decent multiplier for contract work 2-3x normaly.

Though some industries (advertising publishing marketing) that formerly did not have to consider on technical excellence and where used to relaying of cheap Oxbridge liberal arts students with a 1st seem to want to pay temp technical roles at straight time instead of the real contractor day rate.

Yeah, but given current exchange rates £70k is ~$100k. ~100k is nothing to sneeze at...

Apparently, UK IT salaries are still above those in France, even if there is an (apparent) lack of IT professionals in the current market.

Source (in French): http://bfmbusiness.bfmtv.com/emploi/metiers-du-numerique-les...

France and the UK just need a unicorn company or other powerhouse to come in to change the dynamic. Google/FB are there but really a home grown company would be better.

They filter out the people by offering less and less, for shorter and shorter contract periods. After a period of intense job search in UK couple of years ago, I'm still receiving recruitment mail (or spam?) for "initial 2 weeks contract" in Angular/React with "an option to extend" - I'd just have to relocate to London:D

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