Hacker News Reader

Comment by pageald | Hacker News Reader

Are there a lot of American expat software engineers in the UK? For most people, it would be a steep pay cut to move from the US to anywhere in the EU.

View on HN

There are some especially in the city finance and some engineering firms do pay six figures for non managerial engineering talent and while the pound has dropped it’s still possible to get a $130-150k base salary in the city and unlike the US you get a very good pension and benefits on top of that.

But if you compare the averages then yes you’ll be lucky breaking $70K in the EU.

I work for a US organisation in London, and not finance.

The average compensation for engineers is about £100,000 - some above and some below. This is on top of private medical and dental, generous pension contributions and a number of other benefits.

Same for us, finance has slightly above average comp packages especially the bonus but in London it’s possible to get to 100K as an engineer outside of it it begins to drop drastically some tech hubs can have high salaries but Manchester for example tops out at around 80K and that’s also pretty hard to get.

Outside of the UK you might be lucky to get €50-60K even when working for US firms on average this includes Germany.

Some Nordic countries have higher salaries but the CoL is pretty steep.

Overall if you don’t include taxes it’s possible to get competitive salaries in the UK and some parts of Europe once you take into account income tax and VAT you’ll the race isn’t nearly as close anymore.

Also startups do not pay well at all and equity is nearly unheard off even for single digit non-founder employees.

CoL?

Seriously here in Norway getting over 100K € annually is becoming normal. If you are really talented, then you can even make 150k € annually. Freelancers make over 200k € annually. There is a huge shortage for developers these days, much thanks to "digital transformation" trend.

Have you looked at the exchange rate to euros? That's 1M NOK. I think maybe you meant $, which would be 800K NOK, which sounds correct for Oslo.

According to SSB, the 75th percentile for full-time system architects in private industry (the highest paid software developer category) in Norway in 2017 was $103K/year. This is close to the 50th percentile for all software engineers in US in 2017, which was $104K according to BLS. The 50th percentile for system architects in Norway was $87K.

Norway has a higher cost of living due to the 25% VAT, and because the national (non-developer) median salary is so high. Not to mention vehicle and gasoline taxes.

The tax and cost of living in the Nordic countries is pretty steep even compared to the rest of Europe.

The thing with US salaries is that they're only higher in small circumstances, often what you'll find is someone is earning 100k USD and has an offer for 35-40k GBP will end up living a similar quality life. It sounds like it would be but that's not actually a pay cut. It comes from the fact that a lot of taxes are already given to the UK Govt, along with some strong protections for things like: private pensions, which doesn't happen in the US.

If you are very clever with applying taxes, and you don't pay into a private pension then you might be better off- but it's a good thought exercise to apply the costs of living differences and then work out what level of flexible income you have left, and then what buying power you have with that money.

The quality of life is generally comparable for jobs which technically pay 2x a UK salary in the USA.

Also depends on your health. The massive difference in health care systems between those countries will have a big impact on your CoL.

Not so much at the high end (dev/engineer), though. Those $150k US salaries are also going to include generous health plans with little cost to the employee at most employers.

Having long term health problems is highly correlated with not being able to work, though, and losing insurance coverage. This is one of the things that surprises many people who think they're well covered with insurance, and then become ill, and it's one of the most insane things about our system of bundling work and health insurance.

Nobody pays attention to that disability insurance until they’re disabled.

> earning 100k USD and has an offer for 35-40k GBP will end up living a similar quality life.

That doesn’t sound right - $100k USD for a good software engineer is about right for second tier US cities where rent, taxes, and food are lower than in England.

Taxes really don’t vary much by city in the UK but rent can be considerably lower. London has the highest house prices but is not on par with NYC or SF; both of which being _considerably_ higher.

Rent is also much lower for the people making 100k salaries sheepmullet mentioned. In NYC, SF, or Seattle, pay will be a lot higher. New grad offers alone are 150k/year these days in big tech.

>For most people, it would be a steep pay cut to move from the US to anywhere in the EU.

You get bit at both ends - you had to pay for an American college degree ($$$) and had none of the social services like unemployment benefits/worker protections someone in the EU gets... then when you finally are making a high wage, you're going to get taxed to high heaven to pay for services you had to pay for (like the expensive degree I just mentioned).

Sadly, the best move looks to be to be frugal in the USA then retire early elsewhere.

A general point: it's important to adjust one's interpretation of salary by factoring in things like cost of living. Software engineers in New York and San Francisco make more money on average than those in other parts of the world, but it's very expensive to live, especially at a respectable standard of living, in both of these cities, dramatically offsetting the jump in salary. London is, of course, also very expensive, so I imagine my comment may not be quite as relevant.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com